The most ridiculous demand from TRAs I have heard recently

You can never win because they will always just make up new things to find fault with.

Oh, I don’t know, maybe when everyone is equally neurotic and every human interaction rancorous, it’ll be job done.

We can always be mistaken but that doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't use descriptions based on our experiences of what we are seeing.

I was standing behind someone on the tube with grey hair so I inwardly presumed it was an older person but it turned out to be a teenage girl with that grey/silver hair that was popular a few years ago. I was mistaken but it was a reasonable conclusion to draw because most people with grey hair turn out to be old.

If we have to 'they' everyone, then the current 'theys' won't like it as they will no longer be special. They'll be the mainstream.

I wonder what this will do for creative writing. I'm just looking at a book I'm currently reading (Philip Pullman's 'The Secret Commonwealth' since you ask) and mentally replacing his (whoops! I haven't asked PP how he likes to be referred to) text with New Speak, all the pronouns, possessive and otherwise, and possessive adjectives replaced by the nonsensical inventions being pressed upon us by the woke ones:

As ze stirred some milk into hir's porridge, L became aware of the person opposite. Ze was called MJ, a pretty dark-haired person ... but good-natured enough to let zieself be teased about it. Hir squirrel-daemon S was clinging to hir hair ... and on. Deadening. Obviously given names must be changed in case they reflect the unmentionable. Then, in these books, we have the problem of any individual's daemon being the opposite sex to the person themselves. I suppose PP could have got round that by each of them identifying as the other sex.

MNHQ - I hope I am allowed to almost quote a short extract without infringing copyright - please delete if it's a problem: I no longer know what is a problem and what isn't.

But I thought gender was all about stereotypes? Transgender women say they are women because they like dresses, played with dolls as a child etc.

Therefore, we presume people who look stereotypically male/female are men/women.

I do some creative writing. If this trend catches on, my writing will become clumpy and overloaded with adjectives if I cannot reference non-characters as man/woman - or else I'll need to incorporate chapters dedicated to my character requesting what these people prefer to be called.

Even if they did what the complainant wanted I'm sure it wouldn't please everyone. I have heard people complain that using gender-neutral language and "they" instead of him/her for everyone is non-binary erasure confused

That is the problem with catering to megalomaniac toddlers...nothing ever appeases, and just heightens, instead, the insecurity and subsequent quest for domination and control.

I'd just consider the source. Who is telling me what do do/say? Do I care about their opinion, or think they're worth listening to? Nope. Won't be doing that then.

That’s a shame. As a woman who loves sport I would have found that description of the ‘strong, fierce’ women exercising really inspiring. But maybe I don’t count 🤷‍♀️.

using gender-neutral language and "they" instead of him/her for everyone is non-binary erasure

Brilliant! It's all about being special, nothing to do with accuracy.

It's a really interesting exercise Errol, I hadn't noticed that the two runners weren't described by their sex until I rewrote it.

The complainant is making the huge, almost certainly unjustified assumption that the people referred to would prefer to be referred to neutrally rather than by their observed sex.

The thing that jumps out at me is that one of the observations was stated neutrally. And over there, those two runners together, they look really fit, like extremely so, like Olympians.

What was your mental image?

And now do the same with the neutrally stated dog walker and cross-trainers.

'Also this proves that the more accommodating you try to be the more pressure TRAs will put you under, since they've already learned that you're easy to bully.'

See also knitting wars where grovelling apology just led to more and more attacks. Race rather than gender was the pretext but it is a pretext for people who get a buzz out of bullying, this isn't about dealing with actual prejudice.

Basically women, just stop speaking. Thanks.

Also, 99%+ of people will "identify" as the sex they quite visibly are. So why should our entire way of speaking be redesigned around the possibility that everyone we meet might be part of the less than 1%?

OMG!! Talk about removing the rights of the author. I refuse to refer to the gender of the trans person that they’ve decided on. A trans man will always be a woman. So there 😂

They can't even keep up with their own shite half the time. Recently a non-binary commentator misgendered Sam Smith twice during a BBC discussion show. Just yesterday the ever well meaning (!) mimmymum did the same about the person with the oversupply of contraceptive pills.
If the people who belief in this cack can't manage to keep up the illusion then people who don't care have no chance.

There must be other podcasts to listen to. Unless you’re doing a sociological study of misogyny and the erasure of women. In which case, carry on.

You know, at a certain point the only rational response is "no, I am not going to do that".

This and indeed, this

This kind of idiocy needs to be rejected, not pandered to.

I'm going to go right ahead and continue to accurately describe people according to their sex, as determined and observed at birth, and give no consideration whatsoever to the vague possibility that they might be believers in disembodied gendered souls.

Also this proves that the more accommodating you try to be the more pressure TRAs will put you under, since they've already learned that you're easy to bully.

The prevailing mode of people who claim to be on the side of social justice is negativity and picking holes in other people's more concrete or imaginative work, rather than bothering to make something themselves.
It's so easy to score points by pointing fingers and telling people they are being transphobic / racist etc. The thread about the knitting wars is all about this too.
I have less and less patience with it.
You can never win because they will always just make up new things to find fault with.

Look at that cute little person walking slowly and deliberately with a tiny little dog.

Well lots of difficulties there.

1. How do we know that person identifies as little?
2. How do we know that person identifies as a person?
3. How do we know that person identify as cute?
4. How do we know that person walking slowly really is? Maybe they have a health problem and are walking as fast as they can?
5. How can we look at that dog and know it identifies as a dog? It could be a cockatoo or a zebra.

If we can't assume the biological markers of man or woman, then there's no only no point in pronouns, there's no point in other markers tall or short, old or young. We shouldn't refer to the person with light hair as blonde, nor use terms such as fat or thin.

Why are we only supposed to ignore sex markers but the rest of biology is fact?!

Look at that cute little person walking slowly and deliberately with a tiny little dog.

So much wrong with this sentence. "Little/tiny" - you might have mis-sized them. "Slowly" - you might have mis-speeded them. "Dog/person" - you might have mis-speciesed them.

Do better!

^

They're not going to be happy until everyone is referred to as 'a carbon-based life form'

But what about those who are formed out of glitter?

This kind of idiocy needs to be rejected, not pandered to.

You know, at a certain point the only rational response is "no, I am not going to do that".