Police pronouns day tweet isn't going well ...

The compelled use of inaccurate pronouns is patriarchism as well as being a breach of Human Rights to freedom of speech, belief and thought.

The police becoming politicised is deeply worrying.

Someone's pronouns really, really shouldn't be a police matter.

Apparently none of them remember the whole 'policing by consent' bit.

That's not the effect it has on me (quite possibly due to luck). More that it's being used as some sort of lip service - literally, when the police are focussing on pronouns rather than violence and threats of violence. Stats on hate crime show there's a lot of homophobic crimes, but a casual observer would think that was all sorted and there were only issues for trans people now. Obviously there are crimes against this group, and in any category one is one too many - but the emphasis seems so skewed.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/748598/hate-crime-1718-hosb2018.pdf

Remember what Stonewall started as? It's been airbrushed from history.

yup. It makes me feel like a second class citizen.

• I’m seeing photos on twitter of rainbow epaulets and it makes me feel very uneasy. It smacks of anti woman, misogyny and intolerance.

It's sad, isn't it? For a while - before it became an easy corporate virtue signalling device - the rainbow flag was a lovely positive thing.

I’m seeing photos on twitter of rainbow epaulets and it makes me feel very uneasy. It smacks of anti woman, misogyny and intolerance.

If I saw an officer with them I’d love to say something but what (that wouldn’t get me arrested ).

What days, eh?

Compelled speech is not only about which words are acceptable

I'm beginning to think that it's not strictly about acceptable/unacceptable words, it's about different classes of people having different vocabularies and modes of speech available to them. If you're in one of the approved classes you can say broadly what you want, although you need to be careful not to do anything that might get you declared as a traitor to your class. If you're in one of the disapproved classes, then just about everything you might say can trigger a denunciation. There's not much point trying to operate by the rules because the rules are completely fluid (ironically enough), well, at least for you they are.

For members of the disapproved class it would seem that one safe course would be to say nothing. But this of course is a trap because it can trigger the denunciation "silence is violence" if you don't use your speech to benefit the approved classes.

The French are agonising at the moment over plurals, where a hundred women are elles, but a hundred women and one man are ils.

That annoyed me intensely when I learned that at school. It might possibly have been the first time I'd been explicitly aware of sexism.

@EmpressLesbianInChair

I guess that is their motivation, get people to hate LGBT people again so they can plead for more funding.
Stonewall - you are the homophobes now - how does it feel to be responsible for inciting hatred against some of the very people you are supposed to represent - homosexuals - remember us? The "genital fetishists" who are exclusively same sex attracted, the ones who are being kicked out of LGBT spaces for daring to state we are homosexuals.
You have never once called out anyone directing hate towards lesbians (or "terfs" as we are often called now"), never once have I seen you defend lesbians from the rapey bullshit that is the "translesbian". That's all you need to do, to call this out, state that female same sex attraction exists and is ok and NO ONE should be critising it. Go on, I dare you, what are you afraid of?
But no, you priorities are brainwashing the police into going along with this pronoun bullshit and bringing only negative attention to LGBT people.
The comments on the tweet cited should make you wake up, the public are not onboard and that illusion of acceptance will vanish.

When did the police EVER and I mean EVER treat a member of any other protected characteristic with this much kid gloves?

Given they can barely bring themselves to acknowledge the protected characteristic of sex [ie: women] it is somewhat extraordinary, isn't it?

From the twitter feed

Cheshire Police mission statement

"Fighting crime - One pronoun at a time"

On a more serious note, because real crime is a very serious matter, do the police officers at the top have no common sense, no powers of self reflection and most importantly, no realisation of when they have got things so spectacularly wrong?

When did the police EVER and I mean EVER treat a member of any other protected characteristic with this much kid gloves?

I just saw a retweet from t'polis going on about reporting hate crime, with a little bit about what was a hate crime. They mentioned the usual (including gender) and I took a look at the official website that says what hate crime actually is.

Well bugger me if gender isn't actually a category but sex is.

Im too chicken to point it out in case I get arrested for hate crime of pointing out an obvious typo (thats me being generous).

Glad that tweeters are still saying the things we feel increasingly the threat out there not to.

Its very true dog that the avoidance is an issue. One that I have been tussling with and horrible to come here and read that post about avoidance also being a crime!!!

Up there 1984 in that vid or things we can’t say

m.youtube.com/watch?v=iBtNDBw3AMw&feature=youtu.be

SimplyTheWorst wrote - "any such behaviour by the police will eventually lead to others avoiding any kind of conversation with anyone who appears to "identify with" the "transgender umbrella", as defined by the outrageous organisation that is Stonewall, in order to avoid the possibility of any interaction with the police on the grounds of "hate incident", "hate crime", the ridiculous notion of "transphobia", etc."

Compelled speech is not only about which words are acceptable, it can also grow into not allowing avoidance of the compulsory words.

Avoidance is becoming more difficult, as raised by programmer5278 on the StackOverflow CoC thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3717750-StackOverflow-CoC

The StackOverflow website regards avoidance of use of preferred pronouns as a violation of their code of conduct - see their rule at meta.stackexchange.com/questions/334900/official-faq-on-gender-pronouns-and-code-of-conduct-changes/334909#334909

This reminds me of the way in which some people were persecuted by the KGB and the Stasi in Eastern Europe during the communist era for being "suspiciously silent".

I completely agree nauticant

The conflating done by Stonewall has had a tragic effect on lgbt+ so much so that many trans people of both sexes feel homeless, and scared at all the aggressive action and rhetoric.

Many have great need for clarity and support and want conversation to be open and continue.

Being shouted down for discussion doesn't help anyone .. oh..hang on a minute..

If everyone became non-bothered about people's sexualties Stonewall's purpose would vanish.

I'd never thought of it quite like that before but it makes all too much sense.

If Stonewall achieved whatever it is they're after with trans rights - the gay marriage equivalent - I wonder if they'd then try to switch back and get funding for digging us out of the shit they've dumped on us?

Stonewall, you are doing nothing but push people against LGBT people
Well, we know Stonewall don't give a flying fuck about LGB people. Their sole purpose at the moment seems to be to get the rest of the world to bow to the T.

I already encounter homophobia from lgbt people for my sexuality
I've encountered homophobia direct from Stonewall for my sexuality. They've called the police on me twice for protesting in support of lesbian rights outside their conferences.

The French are agonising at the moment over plurals, where a hundred women are elles, but a hundred women and one man are ils.

Stonewall, you are doing nothing but push people against LGBT people, I know you are looking for ways to justify your funding but creating a hostile atmosphere against LGBT people is so dangerously irresponsible.

If everyone became non-bothered about people's sexualties Stonewall's purpose would vanish. Stonewall exists to find areas of conflict to lobby over. I'm off now to make a hat out of kitchen foil.

Christ what will the French some when this lunacy spreads? Their entire language is based on gendering and therefore probably misgendering things and people!

Not just French; nearly all European languages, if not all (I haven't done an exhaustive survey), as well as other non-European. It's more common to have gendered words than not, though.