Best responses for being asked for pronouns in person

If anyone is asked to put preferred pronouns in their work email sign-off, it seems perfectly logical for women to us he/him/his and ask for an email address that uses initials, not names, e.g. jgbloggs@... rather than jennifergloriabloggs@... purely because it will boost efficiency and production, quoting the name swap study, which is now widely known.

I'm not a fan of announced pronouns at all, as they can be detrimental to women. There is an interesting experiment that 2 people undertook with email communication where the male and female swapped email addresses.

The female experienced that she was listened to and her views were respected more, tasks were completed quicker and she felt it significantly improved the way people interacted with her.

The male experienced significant frustrations, patronising responses and doubt of his expertise.

After the experiment they moved to an anonymous generic email footer to improve working life for the female

Making everyone declare their sex and/or gender risks increased opportunities for discrimination against women. I'd prefer it wasn't a thing but am happy for those that present differently than they would prefer to be addresses to let me know so that I can tailor my language for them.

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?

If I'm asked for gender pronouns it would be a lie to give any as I do not have a gender.

To respond stating that I don't have a gender would 'out' me as gender critical with all of the potential negative consequences of being labelled a TERF etc.

Exactly.

If I'm asked for gender pronouns it would be a lie to give any as I do not have a gender.

To respond stating that I don't have a gender would 'out' me as gender critical with all of the potential negative consequences of being labelled a TERF etc.

If I was asked for the pronouns I prefer, or how I would prefer to be addressed (excluding the word gender) then I could answer without being put in that situation.

I am not anti trans and I will call everyone by the term of address that they prefer as that is polite but I wont proclaim a gender as I perceive them as old fashioned stereotypes that hamper and constrain people

It's one thing inviting people to express a preference, but requiring them to is outing.
It smacks of McCarthyism and that movement's "Are you now or have you ever been..?" hostile interrogations.
I take your point.
But maybe I just used the wrong word. 'required' is my term; the OP only says 'I suspect they will ask us for pronouns'. Which puts a bit of a different spin on it.

Eresh, apologies but I don't understand 'to lie about something they think is toxic.' Is it lying to say 'I'm a woman so please refer to me as she/her'?
I can see the argument for it being 'compelled speech', perhaps, but if you know you're a woman in a female body, is saying this a lie?

Blibbyblobby's post on Monday about Trans Orthodoxy absolutely nailed it. Thank you. It articulates perfectly what I have been trying to say in work or in fora where I am labelled a Transphobe and a Terf. Thank you

If you find yourself "in a group where all are required to state how they want to be referred to", Intermittent Parps, you're already in deep trouble.

It's one thing inviting people to express a preference, but requiring them to is outing.
It smacks of McCarthyism and that movement's "Are you now or have you ever been..?" hostile interrogations.

Thanks Blibby, for your generosity in writing more, and for pointing me to the other thread.

One immediate question on lying about ourselves and who we are: on the other thread you say 'I can call the male-bodied person "He" and misgender them, or I can call them "She" and misgender myself.'
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 completely agree when you say 'My conception of myself as a woman is (1) a female body, which just is, (2) having to deal with a whole load of society-driven shit that comes with the female body, most of which I don't want which is why I'm a feminist'. I have also always lived with the reality of a female body and, as you put it, 'the stuff society loads on top of it.'

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? (I do realise that the idea of 'feeling like a woman' could and probably should invite a fair bit of unpacking).

I also agree with your ideas on alternative ways to support trans people and on how there is more than one kind of trans identity; and on the possibility that our current approach isn’t fit for purpose.

How does it require 'those of us who are not trans to lie about ourselves and who we are'?

I wrote a post in another thread that explains my thinking. It’s posted 00:58 on the page below:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a4204312-I-had-the-most-awful-row-with-my-teenagers-yesterday?msgid=106142510#106142510

How is Trans Orthodoxy as the "only" way to accept and support trans people 'simply wrong'?

Trans Orthodoxy is “TW are women, TM are men, sex is mostly irrelevant to life outcomes other than directly medical (unless one is trans because sex is fundamental to an identity as trans), self id is authoritative, sufficient and cannot be questioned, debate is transphobic, children must be affirmed without question, medical transition is not required but unproblematic when chosen”.

An alternative way to support trans people might be “Gender is constricting, TM and TW are reacting to unhealthy gender constructs, gender should be challenged, TM and TW should be embraced for their differences not treated as a problem to fix by changing their gender”

Or “Gender exists, sex also exists, some trans identities are deep seated lifetime dysphoria and some are a reaction to unhealthy gender constructs, debate is needed to work out when we need to consider gender and when we need to consider sex, children must be supported in accepting themselves and protected from gender stereotypes, medical transition is a last resort”

Or “TWAW and TWAM and always have been, we are genuinely wrong in our understanding of man and woman, all our current single-sex stuff isn’t fit for purpose, slapping the word “gender” over “sex” but keeping everything else the same isn’t sufficient, we need to go back and redesign it all from scratch with the understanding that gender groups are mixed-sex and therefore, for example, women prisoners can rape each other.

And practical solutions other than Trans Orthodoxy could include third spaces, having equal but unrelated genders for sex, social and legal which apply in different circumstances, recognising gender non-confirming children are the norm not the exception, challenging gender stereotyping and presentation in the media rather than just moving bodies between stereotypes

…or many others.

To be clear, I am not suggesting I have the answers. These are just off the top of my head, simplified examples. Each one could be an essay in its own right and there must be loads of other good, respectful and supportive alternatives in other people’s heads as well

The point I was making is that Trans Orthodoxy doesn’t allow us to even explore these approaches, because it has set itself up as the only possible way to support trans people when it isn’t.

In my workplace, it is heavily male dominated. In a board meeting, a senior white man declaring himself a man by asserting he/him is at best neutral but really an assertion of power. Me, as one of the more junior people in the room and one of the few women, having to declare she/her is basically subordinating myself.

Unless you think misogyny does not exist, then declaring one's sex in public is NOT a neutral act.

This is an excellent point.

How does it require 'those of us who are not trans to lie about ourselves and who we are'?

Because it's an ideological belief most people don't share, and for a feminist who centres women's rights and is critical of gender as a social construct which oppresses women having to say they have a "gender" or "preferred pronouns" is compelling them to lie about something they think is toxic.

Blibby, I think your post is very clear and persuasive.
Can I ask – genuinely; I am woefully underinformed/have underthought about this issue and am trying to get my head
round it –
How is Trans Orthodoxy as the "only" way to accept and support trans people 'simply wrong'? How does it require 'those of us who are not trans to lie about ourselves and who we are'?

Again, absolutely genuine questions not a bid to start a fight. I would really welcome a discussion/some explanation on this.

Because you can fight for someone else, but you can't compromise for them.

This is very wise.

Sigh. The pronoun fans never do stick around when we get into the weeds on which populations this is bad for and why. Off being kind elsewhere I dare say. I’d love an answer sometime about why all of these excluded populations don’t count. I’ve been told that I’ve weaponised them in the past, I guess I will have to make do with that!

Agree with your post, too Johnny

In my workplace, it is heavily male dominated. In a board meeting, a senior white man declaring himself a man by asserting he/him is at best neutral but really an assertion of power. Me, as one of the more junior people in the room and one of the few women, having to declare she/her is basically subordinating myself

It’s not a neutral act for women.

@IamAporcupine thank you so much for answering my question.
I did wonder whether Spanish speaking countries would find it just too unwieldy and not bother. Obviously just wishful thinking!

the pronoun thing is big in Spanish-speaking countries. I am not sure if has reached the work-space yet though.

The important difference with Spanish (and other latin-based languages) is that nouns and adjectives are gendered, so you do have to pick the 'right' one when talking to the person directly.

Not only that, but since 'they' is also gendered (ie a female and a male they) you cannot get away from using (or not) inclusive language. So as @PaleGreenGhost put it - you are constantly stating whether you are a performative ally or a bigot.

This is also unfortunately conflated with the feminist stance of not using male nouns/pronouns when talking about both males and females.

'That question is a micro-aggression' - perfection.

I can't speak for ESL speakers, but as a 'neurodiverse' person with a communication disability, enforced pronouning presents a huge barrier to workplace inclusion and I'm grateful this has been brought up. It is not easy to have got the job in the first place, shown up and been socially acceptable all day, including the routine disruption of mandatory training and some unfamiliar person doing eye-contact lasers at your face. Now we must engage in some sort of plate-spinning, tap-dancing version of the Stroop test on top of all the other sensory input we are dealing with as best we can, and when we inevitably fail, we're being unkind at best and discriminatory at worst.

Truly appreciate those who are pushing back and citing neurodiverse inclusion as a reason - you are better allies than you know.

Really enjoying the wider language discussion
I didn't really learn English grammar at my comp school but learned more from my 3/4 foreign languages there (my Russian is shite so doesn't really count but still interests me!)
LinkedIn popped up to cheerily ask me for my pronouns today. Resisted the urge to put fuck/off or compelled/speech but might revisit later

[quote CharlieParley]An ESL speaker would already have learned he/him, she/her, they/them as a beginner to the language, there's not any requirement for them to learn new pronouns, just the same ones they already know. There's no reason at all it should be any harder for them than anyone else. It's not like trans people don't exist outside English speaking countries either, so I don't know why you'd assume the concept would be particularly hard for someone just because they're ESL.

This is an ill-informed statement, I'm afraid. I'm not only an ESL speaker myself, I also work with/encounter many ESL speakers. More than half of all languages do not have he or she pronouns. This includes the two languages with the most speakers in the world - Mandarin Chinese (which introduced he and she in written Mandarin a hundred years ago, but in spoken Mandarin both pronouns sound the same and so functionally are the same) and Hindi.

Very many other languages spoken in Asia also do not know gendered third person pronouns. As do various Indo-European, African, Oceanien and American ones.

ESL speakers from those countries frequently confuse he and she. L1 interference in such a fundamental of language is hard to overcome even for ESL speakers with considerable language skills.

My native language is gendered for animate and inanimate objects. I speak and write English at a native level and work as a writer and editor in both English and my native language. And yet, gender is such a fundamental feature of my mother tongue, I still find it strange that a table or a flower or an apple is neutral in English. And in spoken communication I still occasionally use gendered pronouns for inanimate objects in line with my mother tongue.

That's because language transfer in regard to such fundamentals requires constant and considerable and conscious effort to overcome. And sometimes we're too tired or stressed or hurried or emotional to do it.

And in my view, the requirement to mis-sex contrary to the learned rule that he refers to a person of the male sex and she to a person of the female sex makes the whole problem worse. This adds considerably to the stress of a non-native speaker.

You demand consideration for those who do wish to dictate pronouns to others, because it matters so much to them their mental health requires compliance. That's fair enough - as I tell my kids, you can ask for anything you want.

You just can't have everything.

In turn, I'll repeat what others have asked of you before - consideration for those of us who struggle with that requirement (for instance those who are ESL speakers or neuro-diverse) and experience adverse mental health effects because of it.

P.S. and FYI I have attached a map showing a distribution of languages without gender (the white dots). It's from here: wals.info/feature/44A#0/-44/130[/quote]
Really interesting and informative post, thanks.

The blatant anglophone/Western culture bias of gender ideology is ok Because Trans presumably?

"Just use my name: 'she' is the cat's mother"

or

"For women, that question is a microaggression"

LuckyWookie Pronouns should be sex based
I agree completely. But if we’re going down this route where people can choose their own pronouns, then EVERYONE must have the choice, not just a select few. Unfortunately that makes it impossible to remember what everyone has chosen because there are simply too many. I don’t find it reasonable to say that the majority must use sex based pronouns in order that the minority may choose their pronouns.

At the end of the day, for me, this is about women in the workplace.

I do think there are concerns about outing people who don't want to be outed and people with English as another language. But my primary driver is female inequality.

In my workplace, it is heavily male dominated. In a board meeting, a senior white man declaring himself a man by asserting he/him is at best neutral but really an assertion of power. Me, as one of the more junior people in the room and one of the few women, having to declare she/her is basically subordinating myself.

Unless you think misogyny does not exist, then declaring one's sex in public is NOT a neutral act.

For me, I have fought to get where I am in the face of overt sexism. I really object to being coerced into announcing that I am a woman before being allowed to speak in my professional role. It's not relevant.