Line Manager just "come out" as Non-binary

Thanks for your approval :D

Nice passive aggressive argument style there.

People who think they can identity out of their sex may have plenty of reasons. None of them have a foundation in fact. Many of the reasons I have heard so far are actively damaging to me and my sex class. But feel free to keep putting forward good faith arguments and when I hear an argument that doesn’t damage me and has a basis in fact, I’ll revise my view.

Yes, I read your posts upthread, Binterest. I didn't know those were the reasons people chose to change pronouns. They're not the reasons of the 2 people I know. But presumably you know more than me and have discussed their reasons, so I'll defer to your greater knowledge.

What has absence got to do with it, Charlie? Surely people should be referred to in the same terms regardless of who is present?

From the article linked above by a PP,

"So to call oneself non-binary is in fact to create a new false binary. It also often seems to involve, at least implicitly, placing oneself on the more complex and interesting side of that binary, enabling the non-binary person to claim to be both misunderstood and politically oppressed by the binary cisgender people."

aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gender-is-a-spectrum-is-a-new-gender-prison

Yes, very much yes! And an interesting article, well worth reading.

It really IS bollocks, really!

Look upthread Eckhart and see what happened to my dd today. Neither she nor I needed to ask the pronouns of the person who harassed her. Men inflict violence on women. Pronouns won’t save you from violence. All they will do is persuade a few credulous people that pronouns change your essence. And that women can magically opt out of oppression and men can magically stop posing a threat to women. Abracadabra. Just like that.

It is offensive that anyone thinks we are that stupid.

How is this being asked to use a preferred pronoun, an insult?

It's not, although it's an inappropriate request, much as asking me to acknowledge your God is the one true God is inappropriate too.
Especially in a workplace.

However, in the same way as you must accept that my politely declining to endorse your belief about the existence and primacy of your God isn't an insult, so you must accept that my politely declining to pretend you aren't the sex you obviously are, or that your belief in a psychological gender which negates or has primacy over sex isn't an insult.

People are free to believe that their biological sex doesn't exist, or that they have an invisible gender which overrides it.
However those beliefs should not be compelled of others, and certainly not in the workplace.

Language changes and acceptable things become massively unacceptable forevermore. Maybe this is happening here, maybe not. Are you missing the point because it's not clear enough or doing so because you want to?

The demand for misuse of pronouns is only part of the problem. That Spinning is being told to deny reality and with significant risk to her livelihood because her LM's ego is the size of Jupiter, and that this is just one more example of compelled speech are very good reasons why this kind of creeping rot must stop now.

How is this being asked to use a preferred pronoun, an insult? In essence it's being told everything you know is wrong, reality no longer exists, and that feelings are more important than the physical presence of the LM is secondary to whatever is going on in her head. That what YOU know means fuck all. Insulted yet?

It's best if our use of language keeps minorities oppressed, you mean?

Do you understand what oppression is and how it functions, Eckhart?

Would you be able to explain how non-binary people are oppressed by me refusing to participate in their belief about themselves in their absence?

You know what fits my needs? Female only spaces to pee, change clothes, and bathe in. I would love an explanation of why my needs matter less than those of the person posting about how very important it is that their needs be met at my expense. And also why rejection of males in women's spaces needs to be "universal" in order to matter. How many females is one male worth, needs or feelings wise? Is it 10? 50? 100? Infinity?

NotBadConsidering It's best if our use of language keeps minorities oppressed, you mean?

How is this being asked to use a preferred pronoun, an insult?

In the same way that insisting non-believers participate in the religious greetings common to some religious communities is an insult and disrespectful to the non-believer.

I do not believe in transgender ideology. Instructing me to participate in the quasi-religious practices of an adherent to transgender ideology is an imposition. It violates my rights and it shows utter disrespect to my beliefs. The person insisting that I espouse their belief - contemptuously expecting me to do so regardless of my own personal beliefs - is manoeuvring him- or herself into an unacceptable position of assumed power over me by attempting to control my speech.

Well, no. I'm not participating.

Much as I refused to "greet god" when I was 17 and an obnoxious Bavarian man insisted I show him due deference by using his religious greeting. I didn't do it then and I'm not doing it now.

If you're worried about HR, I might let them know that given there are 100 different genders (this instantly delegitimises this woman), gender ideology is not something you subscribe to.

This. I think I'd let HR know that personally you think stating one is 'non-binary' implies the existence of a gender binary, which you find offensive.
aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gender-is-a-spectrum-is-a-new-gender-prison

(Thanks to TinselAngel who linked this)

As I said on another thread, if someone said their race was 'neither black nor white' that'd seem very dismissive of other races.

It depends if this takes off, and becomes the new norm, I suppose.

Well, if everyone keeps shrugging their shoulders and saying “what does it cost you?” or take a similar attitude to you it might become the norm. Alternatively people can robustly protest at having language controlled for the benefit of a few.

It was the norm to call women by their husbands’ names and slaves by the names of their owners. Since people cannot change sex I will not be indicating with my speech that I think they can. Or that there is such a thing as non binary which - as well as being nonsense - frames women as having voluntarily identified into their own oppression.

You might be right, NotBadConsidering. It depends if this takes off, and becomes the new norm, I suppose.

How is this being asked to use a preferred pronoun, an insult?

Because if you don't believe in gender ideology it's insulting to have to pretend you do.

'We've always used language in this way' isn't a good argument. Language changes and acceptable things become massively unacceptable forevermore

But pronouns evolved naturally and are massively important because speaking or writing nouns only is incredibly confusing. I refuse to believe we are “evolving” back to a state of more difficult language. We are being pressured to a state of more difficult language for reasons that vary from narcissism to attacks on safeguarding.

And now this is the final insult

How is this being asked to use a preferred pronoun, an insult?

If you're worried about HR, I might let them know that given there are 100 different genders (this instantly delegitimises this woman), gender ideology is not something you subscribe to.

But because you acknowledging reality means you are forced into a position where people could consider you disrespectful, you intend to avoid the situation as much as possible.

And then simply not refer to the woman with any pronoun at all.

It's a fudge. But you are, given the current climate and you not wanting to lose your job, between a rock and a hard place.

'We've always used language in this way' isn't a good argument. Language changes and acceptable things become massively unacceptable forevermore. Maybe this is happening here, maybe not. But there is always a 'But we've always spoken like this!' lobby, either way.

Barracker

Thank you for saving everyone from my less articulate very angry response to
a space that fits my needs

But that just highlights the madness of it all doesn’t it, checking with superiors?

The OP has to check with her superiors to determine if she’s at risk of losing her job for using the English language the way she has done for her entire life because someone in the workplace has self-determined their specialness.

That’s the stage we are at, having to even clarify is remarkable.

You know how this will go though. She’s uttered some magic words and those words send HR into rabbit in headlights territory. The only thing they can do is beseech you not to be mean. And then maybe fire you for harassment.

We know from Maya etc how this all goes.