Nowhere is safe from preferred pronouns

Wow I’ve never seen that! Sir/Madam but never sirs!

I received a letter from a solicitor at work this week. It was addressed to my company (90% female) with "Dear Sirs" -the norm for all legal letters.

A century after women started moving into office work in large numbers, it is still OK to pretend we don't exist. Yet where are all the protests about misgendering us?

An LGBTQ association has just called on all "terfs" to lose their jobs where I work

I would actually out myself as a terf at that point

Bullying ratbags. How long can they keep up the storyline of the most hard fine by group in the history of the world?

An LGBTQ association has just called on all "terfs" to lose their jobs where I work.

There's a surprise. I think that since people are now paying highly for their education, universities have been bowing to the pressure of students demands and whims, they are simply businesses after all. It's one reason why uni education should be free really, so the students don't get to call the shots, otherwise the quality and content of education is destroyed. I think things are slowly starting to change though, even in university, now the spotlight has been shone on these authoritarian students.

I was asked to do this at work. My email signature had: pronouns "I" "me" for about a week before I quietly deleted them. Nobody's asked me to do it since

Well played.

As a Joan Armatrading fan I'm think Me,Myself,I would fit nicely. Although just Me,Me,Me would be a pleasing dig at the drama of it all.

I work in a large University. I see more “he/him”’s from biological males than “she/her” from biological females. I only know of one trans colleague but don’t get emails from them so not sure if they use preferred pronouns. I’m so grateful @Grooticle for your post. I think I may need to use some or all of those arguments soon (I say ‘argument’ as I know I will be judged negatively on any refusal to state preferred pronouns if stating them becomes mandatory)

I watched the Star Trek episode and found it fine that the character was they/them as in fact they are the memories of 10+ different people (male female and maybe non specific alien)

I suppose if DS9 was coming out now Dax would be a they/them in that case.

@kaliorphic Exactly! And guess what? An LGBTQ association has just called on all "terfs" to lose their jobs where I work. It is toxic. Of course, over the years I have heard a lot of misogynist language and am aware of how many female members of staff have suffered from sexism in the workplace (including myself). Zero interest in doing much about that. I actually find it very stressful on an already stressful year and have been diagnosed with anxiety- not all due to this if course but it certainly doesn't help. That's why I don't understand how anyone can say it's easy to just "be kind".

I was asked to do this at work. My email signature had: pronouns "I" "me" for about a week before I quietly deleted them. Nobody's asked me to do it since

As a Trek fan, I’ve never had a problem with diversity but Trek has handled it with much more subtlety in previous years.

Exactly. This just felt performative. Like... underlined virtue signalling. Oh well, this season is not well written anyway.

[quote UtopiaPlanitia]@Kettlingur I found the scene with Stamets and his husband discussing Adira, all the while dutifully using they/them pronouns, a) hard to follow (my brain struggled with it feeling overly wordy/complicated and the grammar being weird), and b) sanctimonious on the part of the writers to include 5 minutes of ‘performative allyship’ - it felt like we were being preached at. As a Trek fan, I’ve never had a problem with diversity but Trek has handled it with much more subtlety in previous years.[/quote]
I watched the Star Trek episode and found it fine that the character was they/them as in fact they are the memories of 10+ different people (male female and maybe non specific alien)

But the later chat discussing then felt odd just due to the grammar, I am sure the couple used they no more often than they'd say her before but it just stood out as jarring. I had to re-write this to avoid a they for the 2 chaps. It's odd sentence construction.

Tolerance works both ways.

To not want to be called the name you’ve chosen for yourself because it might be said in a masculine way is what is ridiculous.

To make complaints or raise grievances about being called mate or by their name instead of Miss is unfair.

In general they still present as male. They still sound male. People unfortunately get it wrong or they forget. They shouldn’t be accused of being transphobic or hateful because they are not.

An explanation or a quiet correction instead of an accusation/complaint would prevent the walking on eggshells.

fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/

I refuse to be complicit in small things that seemingly don’t matter because doing so has contributed to the normalisation of big things sneaking through and directly harming women and girls. Incorrect sex pronouns are just another part of the “veil” that the Dentons report wanted to create (whether it was directly mentioned or not) around secrecy, keeping things quiet and discreet.

I will not comply.

I have a work colleague with she/ her in her email signature. I have started to notice that she refers to everyone as they/ them unless they have also stated their pronouns, so "Bob will be working from home on Friday. Please ensure you call them on their mobile on that day". It's one thing to announce your own preference but totally another to decide to revert to a default for everyone else.

I’ve seen a he/him twice.
Once for someone with whose name is a shortened version of Alexander and once for a guy who is ultra woke.
Other than that... all women.

@DetectiveRandySomething But not everyone has the same work situation! I have over a hundred students. One of my students told me to refer to her as female (previously male and did not really look much different). I tried but did not always remember. Plus I am abroad and frequently "misgender" people anyway as I make mistakes in the language! Luckily said student is lovely and wasn't horrible about it but what would happen if they complained about me? What would happen if more students insisted on changing pronouns and I couldn't keep up? It's ridiculous to say it's easy to just use the correct pronouns because for a lot of people it really isn't.

It’s more than that isn’t it. The ‘what next’, the so what does this mean for single sex facilities if we put so much emphasis on a airy fairy notion such as ‘gender’?

It’s a trend, a fad, and I am suspicious about the motives.

For every person who feels that this is absolutely the right thing and it makes them (or they think it will make ‘someone’ else) feel better, there are more people who feel uneasy, even scared (if they say the wrong thing what will the consequences be?).

It costs nothing to be tolerant, it's far more effort to "walk on eggshells" because someone else has a preference.

You're right. It is more effort to walk on eggshells. Which is why I've decided not to bother. I won't be calling people something that they are clearly not. No need to walk on eggshells. Of course if they don't want to be offended by that then it's best people don't try and drag me into their deluded ideology in the first place.

I got an email from someone with their pronouns in their name trying to sell me something . I deleted it.