I spotted a preferred pronouns badge in the wild

An "Ask me about my pronouns" badge has got me thinking....in order to feel special could I get an "Ask me about my piles" or "Ask me about my weak pelvic floor" badge?

I really care about Star Trek but nobody validates it until I go to a convention.

And if that happens, based on the demographics of our area and who tends to use preferred pronouns, it will almost certainly be a young white person on whose behalf my friend (older, female, not white, immigrant) is punished.

I don't think it's nice at all that my friend could potentially be pulled in and written up by HR because her mother tongue doesn't use pronouns the way English does and some young person she works with wants everyone to use pronouns for them that don't match their appearance and potentially didn't even exist when my friend was learning to speak English.

Frankly, I think it's extremely unpleasant and 'not nice' to try and compel people to contort a very basic part of language that most people will use without thinking. Humans as sexually dimorphic mammals are pretty good at recognising which sex is which and prounouns have historically related to sex. So people grew up learning language in this way. It's really unpleasant and inconsiderate to try and force people to change what comes naturally just for you. It's like telling people they're hateful if they don't say 'goodbye' when they greet you and 'hello' when they leave.

It's just bullying, basically. So in that sense a badge is a nice useful guide to who is a bully.

Well, why can people not say they find the idea of a preferred pronoun ridiculous? Would you prefer it if they kept it to themselves that they would probably avoid someone who insisted on their compliance in the matter, because they'd consider it an unreasonable demand? Please define the 'transphobia' in the idea of discussing the implications and consequences of these ideas?

I might have a fluid pronoun

But but but.

What if the pronoun is fluid and changes on a daily basis 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️

"It’s not helpful just to call phobic every time people want to discuss a social change that is happening v fast and is often bewildering and baffling... It’s not going be instant for society or everyone to understand, or use the correct address/pronoun the moment they come across it. Even if someone does have a badge."

Fair point, I agree. It's just that many of the comments are simply mocking people wanting to have a preferred pronoun, not discussing the change.

@pyramidbutterflyfish
What a transphobic thread
Feel free to report any and all transphobic comments that you've seen.
Taking the piss out of enforced speech is not transphobic at all.

"Being kind" got us into this peculiar mess in the first place. If I'm talking about someone as opposed to speaking directly to them, why should that person dictate my speech.

It's interesting that as part of speech development, children will usually take a while to sort out he and she. They typically go through a phase (can be a few days to several months) where they only use either he or she. Usually they use their own pronoun, so a girl may refer to everyone as 'she'. I never thought about it before, but there are basically thousands of toddlers running around the UK committing crimes.

Prince Andrew wasnt held at gunpoint to say n*gger.
So your argument fails

It’s not helpful just to call phobic every time people want to discuss a social change that is happening v fast and is often bewildering and baffling. You can start calling green yellow and yellow green but most people will not get why, and find it odd that you don’t believe in green or yellow any more. Or as in the they pronoun in any colour altogether.

I know it sounds strange to compare to colours but when you suddenly redefine what sex you are or gender. Or indeed that neither of these things exist for you. It’s not going be instant for society or everyone to understand, or use the correct address/pronoun the moment they come across it. Even if someone does have a badge.

Goodness every post on MN now has to be written rewritten and edited just in case you accidental mis name someone. Even by accident, because there is no lean way or excuse for anyone else who may get it wrong. No just sudden death.

Yes, TheProdigal, we have a few staff members at work whose first language is not English, and they are constantly accidentally 'misgendering' people. Most people are unperturbed by this, thankfully ...

Titania McGrath has a point

Enforcement of pronouns disadvantages those who don’t have English as a first language

I have a close friend for whom English is not her first language and she mixes up he/she all the time, because the language she grew up speaking doesn't really have pronouns in that sense. It's pretty woke where we are, I'm sort of bracing for some angry young person to throw a fit at her sooner or later. She's not being malicious though, it's not just not something that comes naturally to her even when using the biology based pronouns.

Can't believe I'm biting, but @Sandsnake maybe if the wearer really cares about pronouns, maybe they should see a really good therapist who will gently guide them to the realisation that they can not and should not compel the speech, thoughts and behaviour of other people.

Transphobic? Add it to the list, then.

wingsoverscotland.com/everything-is-transphobic/

A word rendered utterly meaningless. Which is unfortunate, as I expect in some instances it's accurate and useful.

Compelling speech is about more than 'trans'. Pronouns are a form of social contract; a shared reference. The referred-to person doesn't get to control the perceptions, beliefs or speech of others.

It's an entirely unrelated matter to racial slurs, that's demonstrating a very confused understanding of how language works.

@GCAcademic I can absolutely see how your poor husband made this mistake. I will stand in solidarity with him and make the same one always.

I’m hoping it all fades into nothingness eventually. When I was growing up in the 70s/80s (US) there was this big deal for loads of women as to whether they should be addressed as Ms vs Miss/Mrs. Loads of people got really upset if the wrong title was used - in either direction. Then it all seemed to fade out and no one really cared anymore.

I don’t see a problem. The pronouns ‘they, their’ are a deviation from the norm, and so if the wearer really cares about people using them a badge isn’t the worst idea.

The best (i.e. worst) ones are the ones which say "Ask Me About My Pronouns". To me, that just says "pleeease, please, please, ask me how special I am! Go on, please! I'm dying to tell you that I'm loads more interesting than you!". I'd give anyone I saw wearing one of those a very berth indeed.

Not only that but let's say I was onboard with this stuff, and interested - isn't that rude? And intrusive? Because the way normalization works is, the person will then also start asking other people who're not wearing the badge, who may not want to talk about it (which would include some trans people).

All this comes down to attempts at social engineering by people who either don't understand how society works or think they can make it work differently by shouting at everyone.

What a transphobic thread.

"Dictating how others speak about you to other people is facist nonsense."

Er, no it's not, is a fundamental part of civil society. By your reasoning Prince Andrew's n*gger in the woodpile comment is a ok.

Yes, there are valid concerns about some aspects of the extensions of trans rights, but the comments are mostly just horrible goading.

I saw one on holiday. It was great because it was just the conversation opener I needed to peak trans the person I was with.