Best responses for being asked for pronouns in person

In terms of the law at least, though, is there an argument that trans women could/should be included in legislation regarding women?

Sure. Absolutely. As long as we have evidence that trans women are statistically indistinguishable from female people: that they have the same opportunities, suffer the same limitations, suffer the same level of domestic and sexual violence, are abused and trafficked the same way, commit the same crimes at the same rate, have the same pay gap, take on the same amount of unpaid domestic and caring labour, are underrepresented in seats of economic, cultural and political power to the same degree, suffer the same workplace and social micro (and macro-) aggressions...show me the evidence for that and I'll campaign alongside you. But without that evidence, based simply the ideological assertion that they share an undefinable and undetectable womaness with me that I don't even recognise in myself? No.

Great answer.

@DeeKavCoffee, try reading the 'drip drip drip' post upthread.

i dont really see the point of this debate to be honest...i mean we all have pronouns and its obvious but if someone is 'woke' enough to ask me then id just say she.

its just grammar and i think theres bigger things to be worried about than that

Yeah it's definitely a thing and becoming more so.

I was thinking about if my workplace decided to make email signatures with pronouns compulsory. I think I would refuse, on the basis that insisting is a trans-excluding policy. There may be people who are questioning their own gender identity, or who do not wish to come out at work just yet, or at all. A compulsory email footer or introduction policy is a surefire way to make those people uncomfortable. Not very woke, is it?

Is this really a thing nowadays? I couldn't imagine going up to someone and asking this question. Why isn't "Hi, what's your name?" enough?

I’d say, “a third person singular, please, but definitely NOT a plural”, and thus avoid the dreaded singular “they”

A trans man is someone with female sex but gender identity of male

Excuse my ignorance but please could someone explain. Is a trans woman a man by sex and a woman by gender or the other way around?

Perhaps the trans woman gets what she needs (wants); to be called a woman.

But under Trans Orthodoxy she doesn't just want that though, does she? She wants to be accepted as a woman. For there to be no functional distinctions made, ever, for any reason, between her and people of the female sex unless it's directly concerned with the body.

It's certainly what Trans Orthodoxy thinks she needs, but is it really? Are there other ways she could have been supported and happy if this pernicious ideology had not told her that this is the only way she can feel valid, safe and happy? And that anyone who disagrees that she must have status as a woman hates her and wants her to suffer?

And even if it is exactly what she needs, does her need outweigh the need of female people to have a meaningful classification of themselves as a physical sex upon which they can pin their rights, support and analysis and make sense of their experiences? Do you think the needs of the male person outweigh the needs of the female?

Trans Orthodoxy says Yes. I say we need to find a way that accommodates both. Simply replacing the definition of Woman as a sex with Woman as a feeling is not good enough.

Is it not meaningful for someone to be referred to as a woman if they feel they are a woman? And does that encroach on my (for example) woman-ness in the sense that I am a biological woman?

That's the point I made in my original link. Yes it does, because it accepts that the biology of a woman is irrelevant to womaness (it has to be, because trans women don't have it) and therefore, womaness is a quality of the mind. Which (1) I utterly reject as deeply sexist, limiting and damaging to women (and men, incidentally); and (2) means by that definition I'm not a woman.

You seem to be positing that we square that circle by having two entirely separate classifications of woman with nothing in common But that renders the word Woman meaningless. It describes nothing, and it cannot be tested. Anyone can be a woman. And that renders any laws and protections attached to it meaningless as well. Perhaps you think that is a worthwhile cost for female people to bear in support of male. I don't. I want to find a better way.

In terms of the law at least, though, is there an argument that trans women could/should be included in legislation regarding women?

Sure. Absolutely. As long as we have evidence that trans women are statistically indistinguishable from female people: that they have the same opportunities, suffer the same limitations, suffer the same level of domestic and sexual violence, are abused and trafficked the same way, commit the same crimes at the same rate, have the same pay gap, take on the same amount of unpaid domestic and caring labour, are underrepresented in seats of economic, cultural and political power to the same degree, suffer the same workplace and social micro (and macro-) aggressions...show me the evidence for that and I'll campaign alongside you. But without that evidence, based simply the ideological assertion that they share an undefinable and undetectable womaness with me that I don't even recognise in myself? No.

In a face-to-face situation though, someone who looks like a woman (you'll appreciate I'm being general/perhaps reductive but you know what I mean) will be seen as as a woman first and a person second, no? As will a man. Gender-neutral pronouns would make sense for things like job applications and email signoffs, certainly, in terms of showing up and perhaps lessening discrimination.

You are missing the point a bit. It's more about which differences we highlight and which we don't. For example, we don't have different pronouns for blondes and brunettes. We do for sexes (or genders if you will). That is an assumption, running all the way through the culture of languages with male and female pronouns, that sex (or gender) is so core and significant to a person that you cannot talk about a person without disclosing their sex (or gender). So moving to neutral pronouns may not change anyone's knowledge of sex face to face but deprioritisting that knowledge by taking it out of everyday language chips away at the legacy patriarchy built.

What is your stance on trans men? Some aspects of the trans debate are clearly weighted towards being a problem for women but not for men in that, e.g., women/girls are more likely to have experienced sexual violence at the hands of men and so safe spaces like changing rooms are vital. I'm interested in whether there are aspects of the debate that disadvantage but not/more than women, and how one approaches that.

That's another essay. But briefly:

I think Trans Orthodoxy is harming trans men as well by claiming there is only one way they can be happy and I worry a lot about the huge increase in trans identifying teenage girls. I think Trans Orthodoxy is preventing analysis that might reveal a different problem or group of problems for a significant number of these these girls. I don't feel I can speak to the impact of trans men on men because I am not a man, but I think the power difference and especially the implicit nature of male power and privilege vs the explicit nature of female rights and protections* means that trans men do not pose the same existential risk to men as a class that trans women do to women.

(Another essay! The former comes from social and power structures that were formed under patriarchy to fit males, the latter from defined laws and rights, which means it's easy to make the latter apply to trans women simply by saying they do, while the former cannot simply be reassigned because there is no one place they are defined. After all, if we could just take male power for females by saying we shoudl have it Feminism could have shut up shop years ago!)

"So it's not ok to reject gender which is a stereotype but it is ok to reject sex? I need a day off to figure that out"

OK. I hadn't appreciated the gender/sex distinction, to my slight shame. So it's the way the question is asked that's the real issue here, because that reveals the questioner's position?

In a way, yes. Some ways of asking are definitely better than others.

My position is however that if I answer the question, no matter how it is worded, I signal agreement with the doctrine of gender identity. That's an ideology I do not believe in, so I wouldn't want to participate in a pronoun round. In most cases I will say no thanks. But I cannot know if I can simply decline to answer, let alone voice open disagreement. Especially since the penalty for openly disagreeing with the doctrine can be severe.

And the other issue for me is that even if I believed in the doctrine, I would not feel comfortable with pronoun rounds, because they are designed to control the speech of others. With attached social penalties even for those who mis-pronoun only inadvertently.

But if you've grown up, as I have, in a country without freedom of expression (and belief), even a suggestion of a return to that way of living is a deeply uncomfortable, if not actually painful, proposition. And I might say I'm allergic to even a suggestion of controlled speech in regard to an ideology that I have concluded - after detailed inquiry and thorough consideration - is actively harmful to me.

FAOD, I would react in the same way if a meeting started with a common prayer. I have argued for years with my kids' schools about religious indoctrination and the lack of equal consideration for atheism. Freedom of expression and freedom of belief are paramount. Foundational.

And pronoun rounds are in my view a violation of both.

Blibby, I hope you don't mind me giving you links. It seemed a bit silly to just copy and paste a whole chunk of text from one part of MN to other
Not at all and thank you.

We could, but what purpose does doing that serve? If Woman doesn't capture any meaningful commonality between the two groups of people, why join them together at all? Seems to me it just means neither group gets what they really need. Perhaps the trans woman gets what she needs (wants); to be called a woman. Is it not meaningful for someone to be referred to as a woman if they feel they are a woman? And does that encroach on my (for example) woman-ness in the sense that I am a biological woman?

I take the point about 'Woman' as the name of an oppressed group under which they organise, support each other and share experiences that lead to naming and understanding their oppression/data is collected about them that proves what the group is saying/laws and conventions that were intended to protect and support them were written.
In terms of the law at least, though, is there an argument that trans women could/should be included in legislation regarding women?

How can we ever be seen as people first, women second when our whole language requires us to be categorised, or indeed erased if there's men in the group as well? In a face-to-face situation though, someone who looks like a woman (you'll appreciate I'm being general/perhaps reductive but you know what I mean) will be seen as as a woman first and a person second, no? As will a man.
Gender-neutral pronouns would make sense for things like job applications and email signoffs, certainly, in terms of showing up and perhaps lessening discrimination.

Imagine if Trans Orthodoxy had pushed for everyone using gender neutral pronouns as a great way to both support trans people and reduce subconscous gender bias! I'd have been an ethusiastic adopter. But it didn't.
Yes, sounds interesting to me too.

Another probably stupid question:
What is your stance on trans men? Some aspects of the trans debate are clearly weighted towards being a problem for women but not for men in that, e.g., women/girls are more likely to have experienced sexual violence at the hands of men and so safe spaces like changing rooms are vital.
I'm interested in whether there are aspects of the debate that disadvantage but not/more than women, and how one approaches that.

Pale green is right; the pronoun question is designed to screen the allies from the GC. It's less like "Are you now or have you ever been..." and more "Have you stopped beating your wife?"!

Hi Intermittent

Is to call them 'She' actually to misgender yourself? Or simply to properly gender them?

I don't immediately see how this is lying to yourself. If you're in a group where all are required to state how they want to be referred to, as long as you get to say 'she/her' when it's your turn, is that not the truth?

I was actually asked a very similar question on the other thread! Here's my response: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a4204312-I-had-the-most-awful-row-with-my-teenagers-yesterday?msgid=106150248#106150248

(I hope you don't mind me giving you links. It seemed a bit silly to just copy and paste a whole chunk of text from one part of MN to other)

I wonder if we can imagine and allow for a different conception of being a woman; that is to say, someone in a male body who in some way(s) feels like a woman?

We could, but what purpose does doing that serve? If Woman doesn't capture any meaningful commonality between the two groups of people, why join them together at all? Seems to me it just means neither group gets what they really need.

Now if Woman was just an identity label like goth or geek that wouldn't matter, but it isn't. It's the name of an oppressed group under which they organise, support each other and share experiences that lead to naming and understanding their oppression. It's the name under which the data is collected about them that proves what the group is saying. It's the name which the laws and conventions that were intended to protect and support them were written. So when you make Woman essentially a meaningless term in that it captures no commonality of the group, you take all that away.

Speaking personally, I would have no issue identifying as agender and leaving the classification of Woman those who want it IF there was a new clasification created to do the old job of Woman-the-sex-class, and all the rights and protections, the understanding and analysis that pertain to Woman-the-sex-class were preserved under the new name. But that's not what Trans Orthodoxy offers.

Going back to pronouns, I always hated sex-based pronouns anyway. How can we ever be seen as people first, women second when our whole language requires us to be categorised, or indeed erased if there's men in the group as well? When I first heard about gender-neutral pronouns I thought "This is great! We can all use gender-neutral pronouns and chip away at one more brick in legacy patriarchy forced on us". In a "share your pronouns" situation they are the ones I'd want to use but I won't, because they've been positioned by Trans Orthodoxy to mean I See Myself as Neither Woman nor Man instead of My Sex Is Not Important Right Now.

Imagine if Trans Orthodoxy had pushed for everyone using gender neutral pronouns as a great way to both support trans people and reduce subconscous gender bias! I'd have been an ethusiastic adopter. But it didn't.

Thanks Pale.

The actual question hidden underneath, however, is "are you a believer in the current trans orthodoxy? ". So I'm left in a quandary where there is no safe truthful answer to give.
This makes a lot of sense to me put like that.

I agree that 'Do you have preferred pronouns?' is a better question. Open-ended. Not so loaded.

On the surface by asking for pronouns the asker wants to know what my gender ID is. This is an issue if you don't have a gender ID. The closest honest answer would be to say I was non binary but I'd never want to put people in the position of having to police their language in order to talk to me (I've adhd and know how hard it is to do this) and I'd never want to support a belief system that undermines single sex spaces.

The actual question hidden underneath, however, is "are you a believer in the current trans orthodoxy? ". So I'm left in a quandary where there is no safe truthful answer to give.

Being asked to identify as "cis" (which is what a female saying "she/her" automatically does) when one views the concept of gender as the system that oppresses women and has been responsible for so much pain and suffering is pretty unpalatable.

"Do you have preferred pronouns?" might be a better question. Then I could answer "no". And people with "cis" and trans identities could answer "yes....".

He said “it’s total bullshit but I read the room and said I was a He”

The room looks very different when you’re a woman.

One of my twenty something sons has just started a job in the hospitality sector where, on the first day, they all had to share their preferred pronouns. He said “it’s total bullshit but I read the room and said I was a He”