Nowhere is safe from preferred pronouns

Except of course it affects you. If a male colleague decides to transition, which toilet is he going to use, or if job requires changing, which changing room? Pronouns are like the little twiddly bow on top of a box of problems- they seem innocuous, but signify the start of co opting others into an ideology that to be frank very few people buy into. (This ideology also has some worrying issues which impinge on women's rights.)

Because, to be honest, it's quite far divorced from reality. It is not possible to change sex and we are a dimorphic sexual species. Of course, people are free to hold their own personal beliefs, but I am not required to, for instance, at the PBUH after every mention of 'God'. This should be unremarkable.

I'm sure Pips/Philip Bunce's colleagues used whichever stipulated pronouns were on any given day. In return, female staff got Pips in their staff toilet and the awards for best woman of the year given to someone whose workwear was something no female who wanted to be taken seriously would wear.

I specifically asked for my work email to be just an initial, wise.

So true, what is in those links, and I know that so well in my own job. Sometimes people battle with me over what are RULES (of a scheme) they are not up for negotiation but I find people try to get me to ''relax'' the rules of the scheme. They cannot be relaxed. I find it takes people longer to grasp this because I'm a woman. They honestly do go in to it thinking I'll say ''oh, leave it with me then''. And I have to tip toe round people trying to ask for what I need without being perceived to be ''rude''. Lived in fear of complaints at one point. I've heard a male colleague say to a customer ''you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong''. No complaint was made! Another male colleague was setting somebody's misunderstanding straight in such a blunt way, he said ''who told you that'' and I know if I'd handled those conversations, I would have done it more politely (because I have to in order to give people NO reasonable scope for complaints) and the conversations would have taken longer as people who don't like what they hear from a woman fight it harder. A woman might be wrong. A woman might back down. A woman might be told by her boss to make an exception for meeeeee if I complain!

So this is an excellent point and if my name weren't a part of my email address I"d like to just use my initial!

No way will I be talking about she/her

You don't have to walk on eggshells, that's ridiculous. If someone I worked with told me they would like to be he/him and they're obviously a woman I'd just call them what they asked because I'm a decent human and it genuinely doesn't affect me. They're not asking for you to call yourself something different, and you're not asking them to do it either. How does their identity compromise yours in any way? It doesn't. You're still you, they're still them. It costs nothing to be tolerant, it's far more effort to "walk on eggshells" because someone else has a preference.

@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.

Thanks for posting those links Hecates.
DD has added pronouns to her Instagram. I'm so ashamed for her. I suspect she's doing it to annoy me so haven't mentioned it but perhaps those links will disabuse her of her smug cleverness.

Star Trek Discovery just went there. The current season happens in the 3200s or something and a character just introduced themself and announced their they/them pronouns. I guess they expect this bullshit to go on for a while!

Makes you wonder why any woman would want to or should be asked to seal the deal with pronouns.

Exactly this. The bias is so entrenched. How can it possibly help women to keep drawing attention their gender?!

I received what I thought was a bit of a narky email yesterday from someone with a female name. Then I thought "...hang on, if a man had sent me this would I have thought it was narky? Or just assertive?". Even I'm guilty of it and I'm a woman who reads Germaine bloody Greer!

There was a University of Exeter study, which simply differentiated between the fake employees with the name Mark or Elizabeth and found:

^Managers who think gender bias no longer exists in the workplace are more likely to value male employees over women and give them higher wages, a study found.
Experts from Exeter University conducted an experiment where managers in a profession with a high proportion of women employees were asked to evaluate fake workers.^

www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8464107/Managers-believe-gender-bias-workplace-no-longer-exists-likely-perpetuate-it.html

Makes you wonder why any woman would want to or should be asked to seal the deal with pronouns.

Plus the accidental incident that caused headlines:

^
A man realised women are treated differently in the workplace after he accidentally signed off on emails using his female co-worker's signature^.

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/gender-inequality-man-woman-switch-names-week-martin-schneider-nicky-knacks-pay-gap-a7622201.html

I'm saving this to use to "out woke" (nice phrase whichever pp used it ) my employer if I ever get asked.

*Why pronouns plural?

If I say my pronouns are "she" doesn’t her, her and hers follow without saying?*

My pronouns are they/its/myself.

I'm not a fan of the term virtue signalling and not really allied to the types who tend to use it and yet...that's what this is. They're not helping you know how to refer to them, they're showing everyone that they believe in trans ideology and are adherents of that religion. Kind of like having your Zoom name as Wendy (Jesus is King)

Personally, I don’t think it is anything to do with their name. As biscuits said, it seems as though it is for validation.

But I won’t be doing it when they have a name.

They need to learn to say "please call me miss" then. I've never met anyone not willing to use their own name around adults.

I used to tell kids at school to call me miss, but I never took offence at the occasional sir or mum.

We have ‘be kind’ *biscuits. Hand wringingly so.

No untoward behaviour is tolerated (whatever untoward means) if you are of a different religion, orientation or identification.

Bullying is fine though if the victim is a woman.

I was in a recent meeting that was in relation to Somalia. 10 or so men from the Government, me, and a nice American lady with she/her. I did wonder if there was ever any doubt from the participants in Somalia.

I’m sorry I can’t explain it better.

They’d have been better off changing their name to Miss.

I guess testing because using "miss" is part of the validation that seems to be the be and end all for certain TW

luckily Im self employed so dont have to do any of this but I eye roll every time I work with an organisation and see the pronouns in email, especially if they're the sort of company that bangs on about bekind/include pronouns but does eff all to address other diversity issues e.g. making their building accessible

testing.

We do generally use names. Some people revert to saying things along the lines of ‘that’s grand mate’ or whatever. No malice intended. I get it. And ‘love’. Not necessarily from people within the company. No offence is taken by me or 99% of my colleagues.

The person concerned has a unisex name. They. don’t want anyone using it because they think people will use it in the masculine way....

No they wouldn’t. It would just be their name.

But they want us all to say ‘miss’.

I can’t see why you would have a name and not want to use it.

The individual concerned has chosen a unisex name and sounds like a man. They look very manly. Their only nod to anything feminine is a swipe of lipstick.

You are talking about a man wanting to be referred to as "Miss"? Why aren't names used? I introduce myself whenever I answer the phone?

I could guess the sex of most people I speak to on the phone but I don't need to know it, just a name.

This is so much of a non-issue eh? Everyone walking on eggshells because of one individual.

In other situations when people feel they have to walk on eggshells for fear of how a person may negatively react towards them if they ‘get it wrong’, we tend to call it coercive control and emotional abuse.

See, that’s so weird. I chose Ms after I reverted to my maiden name as I’m a similar age and Miss felt weird.

Someone in our organisation is calling for people to be disciplined because they are being addressed as ‘mate’ or ‘sir’ on the telephone.

The individual concerned has chosen a unisex name and sounds like a man. They look very manly. Their only nod to anything feminine is a swipe of lipstick.

They are demanding to be addressed as miss. By everyone. They are nudging 50. Miss is ambitious. I haven’t been called Miss since my 20s.

I appreciate that pronouns on a teams or zoom meeting would be advantageous in this situation. But this person is taking a delight in screaming of the injustice of not being addressed as Miss on the phone or in person and the company are listening and acting on it.

Oh and they don’t want to be called by their new name because they ‘know’ that people will be saying it in the ‘masculine way’ to poke fun.

People are now so uncomfortable that they are trying to avoid dealing with this person as they are afraid of accidentally saying something wrong.

So guess what? They are saying they are being treated differently and shunned and they feel bullied.

This is so much of a non-issue eh? Everyone walking on eggshells because of one individual.

As @Kaliorphic said

if people just quietly got on and did their own thing it would never had got to this. But gender ideology doesn't work like that. It requires unwilling participants to be forced to be a part of it

My issue with the pronouns thing is the implication that sex/gender is something we can just identify into and out of. Having to constantly state I am "she/her" suggests I identify with and accept all of the baggage that goes along with that. I don't.

Gendered pronouns are stupid and outdated but they are such an engrained part of our language now that it's not possible to just switch them off. By telling everyone I am "they/them" I don't do anything to change this system, I just make life difficult for everyone around me who, understandably, sees me as "she".