Can someone please help me out with pronouns

@RobinMoiraWhite

Most trans people of my acquaintance would regard someone of the OP’s persuasion with sadness for someone so hung up on prejudice that they can’t bring themselves to find a way to act respectfully towards others they disagree with

Surely that works both ways? Most women of my acquaintance would regard someone of a transgender persuasion with sadness for them being so hung up on believing in the ability to change sex, that they can't behave respectfully to those women who disagree with them.

If I had to refer to a MtF person as 'she', it's absolutely not because I believe they are female, it's because I'd be worried about upsetting their mental health further by not colluding with their dysphoria.
Now I'm retired, I don't need to be worried about losing my job because I won't go along with this untruth. Just like I won't agree with my very thin anorexic friend that she's fat.

Outright refusing to use a trans person's preferred pronouns under any circumstance, even just for politeness's sake, is actually a pretty hard-line extreme position,

Really? It's an extreme position to not want to call a man "she"? What is that other than being forced to pretend a man is a woman?

I actually find it far more concerning at school, where adults are expected to call girls "he".

In my opinion this forced speech is an incredibly dangerous development, and going along with it for "politeness" is cowardly and doing a disservice to all the future detransitioners.

Do you really think your personal beliefs about sex and gender are always more important than anyone else's right to a little bit of politeness, privacy and dignity?

Or alternatively, do you really think your personal beliefs about sex and gender are more important than mine?

Why is it that you view those of us who use pronouns according to sex as rude and unpleasant, yet you don't view those who think that pronouns should correspond to some internal essence of gender as rude and unpleasant in coercing the rest of us to go along with their bizarre belief system?

TalkingToLangCleg - I'm actually very familiar with the Forstater case and have read the judgement in close detail. I'm aware she's appealing - that does not mean the judgement is not relevant or that it doesn't stand, nor is her appeal very likely at all to be successful.

Would I be acting in a discriminatory way under the EA by referring to a person as their birth sex, when they have transitioned

Yes.

And being really arsey, too.

You are talking about someone who has transitioned.

I am a GC feminist, I am defined by my sex, but pronouns can refer to sex or gender.

Look at the French language wrt Le and La, Son / Sa that gender non human, non sexed nouns.

Surely we can withstand trans-extremist ideology and defend sex based rights without being arsey to individual Trans people?

I am a GC feminist. I have dear friends who are trans. A valued co-worker who is trans. I am not anti trans, I am not transphobic. Why would I humiliate them by insisting that I choose their pronouns?

I will argue with them if they start to assert that they can take part in women’s competitive sport but Transwomen are Trans Women and can be called she if they wish.

Testing, you're not required to "pretend" anything - again, see the Maya Forstater case. You are entitled to your beliefs, what you aren't entitled to do is deliberately create a hostile atmosphere for a co-worker. Outright refusing to use a trans person's preferred pronouns under any circumstance, even just for politeness's sake, is actually a pretty hard-line extreme position, and you'd have an extremely hard time convincing a disciplinary board that there's any good reason why you can't just show a bit of basic politeness and respect between the hours of 9-5.

Imagine if a co-worker adheres to a religion you don't believe in. Are you required to believe in their religion? No, of course not. You're perfectly entitled to believe it's a load of bull, in fact. But if you spend all day telling that person you think their religion is bull at every available opportunity, they'd have good grounds to complain about harassment - not because you don't believe their religion, but because of the way you're behaving about it. This is about behaviour, not belief, and like it or not, deliberately and persistently calling someone by pronouns you know they don't use is rude behaviour by every reasonable standard.

God forbid you ever meet a bloke called Kim

No no no @hedgewitch79. The Equality Act is far from the only piece of legislation coming into play here. Freedom of Conscience is enshrined in numerous international treaties ratified by the UK. Compelling people to say things they genuinely believe to be untrue is not "just trying to live their lives quietly" at all. It is using the full weight of our ancient patriarchal legal system to put female people back on the back foot once more. Living one's life quietly is typified by allowing those around you to hold genuine beliefs which conflict with one's own. Especially where their beliefs are rooted in basic common sense and scientific evidence.

So given all that, the real question is, is there actually a reason why you can't just use this person's preferred pronouns?

Like Magdalene, I would rather be rude than a liar.
I will not compromise my principles to accommodate authoritarian dominance displays.

I have to say that my experience suggests that not "supporting the delusion" is beneficial to the person who is having brain /body disconnect problems . Helps you sort your head out

Agreed. The fact that the initial feedback from other people to eating disordered behavior tends to be praise, right up until the point where the "this is no longer making you attractive to others" line is crossed, is part of what makes them so hard to fight.

Better yet, why not just call them by their preferred pronouns? Why is
it so difficult

I know I've been here before. Because no one can remember.
So I challenge you @En178 to only ever use my pronouns which are
I, me and mine.
Anywhere on this site that you answer about, me or to me use my pronouns please.
Can everyone else that requires the use of pronouns now list theirs and we will see how this pans out?

Define living as a saint.

What are "women's clothes" @limpbizkit? I'm a woman in jeans and t-shirt. If i gave someone male my clothes they'd be wearing "women's clothes" but how would anyone know the male person hadn't just picked them up in Top Man? (Under normal circumstances)????

Is there a particular reason you want to be rude to this person, or to make them feel uncomfortable, or to keep drawing attention to the fact they are trans?

So if you referred to a 'transwoman' like Alex Drummond as 'he', you would be 'drawing attention to the fact that they are trans'? Really?

Pic of beardy Alex for anyone unfamiliar with this person.

Strange how as an “Equality and diversity officer” you don’t seem to be at all interested in equality for the women who know their rights are being eroded by being expected to use false pronouns for their colleagues/employees/employers, HedgeWitch.

Why are you so invested in promoting this ideology that it’s necessary for women to sacrifice their own well being in the interests of making male people feel better?

You may not be aware that Maya is rightly appealing the judgement by that Employment Tribunal judge. You certainly haven’t followed the case properly if you can come out with this statement: but her beliefs did not make it okay for her to be directly rude or hostile towards trans colleagues as this is a complete misrepresentation of the case. Maya was very clear that when it came to her actual colleagues, she did use their preferred pronouns.

Someone in your position really ought to pay more attention to the facts in this case and others. Perhaps it’s all that (internalised?) misogyny getting in the way. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, pushing this misogynist agenda under the guise of “equality and diversity”. Seriously, for shame.

That's interesting HedgeWitch. I do find it concerning that in your opinion I am expected to pretend a man is a woman at work, if he says he is, otherwise I am being deliberately hostile and not allowing someone their dignity.

This is ridiculous. It's an affront to my dignity that I would be forced to lie in such a way. Crazy world we live in.

You make the assumption of gender reassignment?

Never.

Just playing Patsy Cline!

Crazy...

Are you accusing me of being a SERF

You make the assumption of gender reassignment?

Define living as a saint.

Well, being “saintly”.

Are you being saint-phobic?

I'm Equality and Diversity Officer for my employer (a large NGO) so hopefully can shed a little light here on where you'd stand.

Firstly, it's not illegal to refuse to use someone's pronouns. There is no such crime in itself. However, if your refusal to use someone's pronouns can be shown to be part of a general pattern of hostile and/or discriminatory behaviour towards this individual because of their trans status, or towards trans people in general, then that is illegal. And to be honest, a deliberate refusal to use someone's pronouns does unavoidably come across as rude, as potentially hostile, as designed to make someone feel uncomfortable, or to draw attention to the fact they are trans, and it would be very difficult for you to argue otherwise. So while it's not illegal in itself, if things did escalate to a complaint, it could certainly be used as evidence that you have a generally negative attitude towards trans people. Needless to say, that wouldn't look great for your case.

It's worth remembering that different legislation applies depending on who this person is and what your relationship with them is. If you are an employer or a service provider to this person, then the Equality Act 2010 applies, under which gender reassignment is a protected characteristic. Again, the EA doesn't specifically say anything about pronouns, but again, refusal to respect pronouns could be used as evidence against you as part of a wider case. It would be difficult to argue that you are not discriminatory towards trans people if you persistently refuse to respect their identities, for example.

I'm not sure why you referenced the EA guidance on single sex spaces - that doesn't seem relevant here, unless there is an issue of space usage at play? Remember that even if you have reasonable grounds to exclude a trans person from a single sex space, you still can't discriminate against them for being trans - and in fact your refusal to respect their identity could be taken as evidence your exclusion is based purely on discrimination and therefore not reasonable under the EA. If a service provider excludes trans people from a single sex provision, the onus is on them to prove this is reasonable should they be challenged. Again, evidence of previous prejudice against trans people just for being trans would count against you here.

If this person is someone you work with, even if your behaviour does not break criminal law, you might well find you are in breach of your employer's policies on equality and diversity and/or bullying and harassment. Your employer therefore may have grounds to take disciplinary action against you. In an extreme case, they could even fire you, and there is legal precedent for this in the Maya Forstater case where the judge upheld her employer's decision not to renew her contract because of her anti-trans views. The wording of this judgement is worth paying attention to - critically, it wasn't Forstater's beliefs that made it reasonable to fire her, but rather it was the way she expressed them. In short, the judge said she was perfectly entitled to her beliefs about sex and gender, but her beliefs did not make it okay for her to be directly rude or hostile towards trans colleagues. (And again, persistently and deliberately using pronouns you know someone dislikes does unavoidably come across as rude and hostile, and it would be very difficult to argue convincingly otherwise)

So given all that, the real question is, is there actually a reason why you can't just use this person's preferred pronouns? Is there a particular reason you want to be rude to this person, or to make them feel uncomfortable, or to keep drawing attention to the fact they are trans? Do you really think your personal beliefs about sex and gender are always more important than anyone else's right to a little bit of politeness, privacy and dignity? If this person is just trying to live their life and get on with stuff and you're going around deliberately making things uncomfortable or difficult for them, even if that's not actually a crime, it's still pretty rubbish behaviour - and, should there ever be a formal dispute between you, it's pretty clear evidence of your general bad attitude towards trans people, which is not going to do your case any favours at all.

Define living as a saint.

Explain how I , as a passport monitor, would I know that you had lived as a saint , given that a passeport officer is b6 nature suspicious

At least in English we only need to consider he/she and him/her.

In other languages there are noun, verb, adjective agreements, and lots of other grammatical etc differences according to the sex of the person concerned. How they do that with transgender I don't know. It must take a LOT of concentration not to go wrong!

But don't expect it to be ok on your passeport

Even if I’ve lived as a Saint for all my life and all my family and friends recognise me as Joan?

Please advise.

But don't expect it to be ok on your passeport