London Underground to make all their announcement 'gender neutral'

I seriously don't get why this bothers people so much when it doesn't affect them?

Because this all is a symptom of genderism, and genderism does affect us very much.

Your question is like asking why it bothers children, who don't care about their appearance, to have red spots all over their skin -. it bothers them because those red spots are a symptom of chicken pox, which is a disease.

Gender neutral announcements are the symptom, genderism is the disease, and what it causes is the loss of women's privacy, dignity and what little safety from male rape we used to have.

There are some really odd people on MN

I seriously don't get why this bothers people so much when it doesn't affect them?

Happy, they won't, that would be a deathly insult to the nonbinaries. You know, literal violence.

I think I will, in the future, address nonbinaries as "asshole". That's sex neutral - everyone has one - as well as a completely accurate description of their gender presentation. They may think they present as nonbinary, but in fact, all I have talked to eventually showed their true colours and behaved like assholes.

(There's this German comic called "The Little Asshole", where the protagonist is recognized as asshole at birth. Which clearly makes "asshole" a third gender, doesn't it?)

Please please please let them use drag queen Lola's line from Kinky Boots:

Ladies, gentlemen and those who are yet to make up your mind!

I'd be up for subjects if the queen made all the announcements

Maybe humans. But would that offend the dogs on board. And to be honest, some of the 'characters' you see might he hard pushed to be described as human. Perhaps I'll use the next few days at work to trial some different phrases and ask for feedback

In the UK, you couldn't use "citizen", though - it would have to be "subject". Which isn't an unattractive option, I quite like the idea of breezing into a meeting and chirping "Hello, subjects!".

Does it really matter?

I mean, it seems a bit petty but it doesn't affect me or the way I live so why should I care? If it allows a small number of people feel more welcome without detriment to myself so why should I care?

The term "everyone" includes everyone, has no negative connotations, and does't offend me (or anyone?)?

I don't get the point in arguing about this change?

You know what particularly rules me about this. It's that I've only heard about it through the press. Nothing has been officially been put out at my workplace.
But I might give citizens a whirl tomorrow and see how it goes. I like the sounds of that

God Help us

Pooch
It makes it sound like the TfL workers are from another planet.
I'd love it if they did.

How about "humans"?

"Humans, we regret to inform you of severe delays on the Circle line, this is due to an unforeseen outbreak of the patriarchy clogging up the tracks".

I do like comrade and citizen, but I can't use them with a straight face

I don't mind scrapping the connotations that go with 'ladies' that don't appear to apply to gentlemen.

Which would that be?

In Germany, if you want to describe a man as very polite and well-behaved, perhaps with an emphasis on holding doors open for women, the word for that is "gentleman" - yes, the English word.

Does it have that same connotation in English?

Of course, the connotations of "lady" are different, because sexism, but I would not consider "gentleman" a word without connotations outside of "implying someone is landed gentry out of politeness"

(I consider it to have only that connotation in "Ladies and Gentlemen"; not always if "lady" is used on its own)

In Irish the polite term to address a person/people is 'a chara/a chairde' which directly translated means 'friend/friends' - which is nice but comes across a bit threatening in English!

Oh, that's nice. Perhaps one could establish it as normal term - don't Quakers also use it that way?

Or what about "citizen", which is used in the Imperial Radch series.

I like "comrade" but then, I lean left politically. Not exactly a neutral term.

I agree entirely that it's absolutely ridiculous that as soon as 'non-binary' or whatever the fuck they're called people whine that they're a little bit put out about something everyone's falling over themselves to change everything when women are supposed to 'calm down' and shut up about issues that apply to them.

As for a gender neutral term, how about 'everybody' or 'everyone' for a group?

In Irish the polite term to address a person/people is 'a chara/a chairde' which directly translated means 'friend/friends' - which is nice but comes across a bit threatening in English!

Is there another term that would be both gender neutral and politically neutral?

I'm amazed I can't think of one.

I would love 'comrades'

"So comrades, what takes our fancy from the menu tonight"? :)

I always quite liked the French Revolution title of Citizen, but obviously French is so gendered the women were called the equivalent of Citizeness. I don't really see the point of sex specific titles, but I think I'm coming at it from a completely different angle to TFL.

My feeling is that it doesn't matter what sex you are, so why do we need it in our titles, whereas I think this announcement change is more about there aren't just men and women, so we need something to include the ones that don't fit into those categories.

I've never been that bothered about ladies and gentlemen - I do get the point about ladylike behaviour, but I've also heard people unconsciously use gentleman about some men but not others - basically use gentleman as standard, but refer to young working class men only as 'men'.

It's a bit old fashioned, but it's only really used to address a large group, formally, so I think it adds to the formality.

Maybe they should add 'my lords' back in!

geekaMaxima

Comrade. It's completely neutral in terms of gender, but not in anything else!

Although I do love the fact that socially it would be a great choice.

But he couldn't say sir and didn't want to say madam (the person was indistinguishable from a man). I can't think of a single substitute that is neutral.

Comrade?

I'm also quite neutral on the use of Ladies & Gentlemen, because it's rarely used as a loaded term the way that lady/ladies on its own is. It's referring to a mixed group of people. That article is idiotic - not once does it reference who is being made uncomfortable and how this change will help them. Usually, when you ask people to change their behaviour, or explain that you're changing a policy, you explain why you're doing it and to whose benefit it will be - but not here?

So for example: We now refer to firefighters, and not firemen because of the entry of women into the profession who need to be represented by a gender neutral term.

But just ditching ladies and gentlemen? It's not for the benefit of trans people, who presumably move from thinking of themselves as gentlemen to being ladies, and would not be made uncomfortable by this. So it's to accommodate non binary, then. So this ought to be explained. And then we can all be clear on what's happening.

Yet feminists who object to the use of the word lady are told to calm down and not be ridiculous! The double standards are making me absolutely fizz.

It's not about being made to feel uncomfortable. It's about controlling language, and through that clearing a path to control how people think. Plain as day.

Indeed biscuit. As DeleteOrDecay and Spartacus pointed out, what's most irksome about this is that as soon as "trans"/"non-binary" people have an issue with something it's changed almost instantly, with minimal consultation, just done as a matter of course. So much of language still belies sexism, there are so many adverts which objectify women and demean women thrust upon us when we travel, yet our objections are rarely heard without being dismissed, yet this has been acted upon so swiftly.

I don't have a particular issue with "ladies and gentleman" although I dislike "ladies" when specifically used - the connotations as Datun said I dislike and I feel are sexist (act like a lady, being ladylike etc). However as has been said, this action hasn't been taken for that reason.

I also have a strong dislike for "guy". I refuse to use it in any context and to describe anyone. I don't even like it to refer to boys/men let alone that it's now considered appropriate to refer to girls/women - I think this is another example of men being default and a word which originally referred to males being acceptable to use for women (similar to "mankind", "chairman" etc). This never happens the other way round and would be met with derision/ire if it was as SpaghettiAndMeatballs pointed out.

The collective term for both men and women could be folks, say. Whether you like it or not, it's neutral.

But I was more thinking specifically of a clip I've seen of a transwoman crying because they were told they couldn't use the woman's loo at a casino.

The manager was trying to calm them down (people were watching) whilst maintaining that they should use the unisex loo.

Normally you might say something like 'I understand, sir. Let's discuss this in my office' - the conversation was quite long so the need to keep addressing the person went on and on.

But he couldn't say sir and didn't want to say madam (the person was indistinguishable from a man). I can't think of a single substitute that is neutral.

I feel like if the term 'ladies and gentlemen' being used on the tube is something you feel that strongly about that you feel the need to campaign against then you're living a pretty good life and you can't have that many problems.

I don't understand this sudden need for gender neutral language that some people are pushing, ignoring the fact that men and women DO have differences (and that's okay) and trying to lump everyone in together does very little for equality. Additionally I don't think pandering to the >1% of people who say they're 'gender neutral' is helpful either.

Fantastic point Biscuit.

I'm not a 'guy' (which is usually paired with 'gal'), but neither am I a Lady. I loathe the term. When referring to groups of people in informal contexts I tend to use the term 'people' or 'peoples' (in a jokey way) because I like to be gender neutral from my second wave feminist roots.

Maybe we need new terms?