"What are your pronouns?" Best response for a 14 yo?

At 14, I would have been firmly “undecided” on pronouns and said “just use my name”

Tell her to quote Huge Grant's character in Death to 2021 "Here we go. I expect you want to know my preferred pronouns? Well I don't have any. I don't have any. I do not dance the wokey-cokey."

Deleted for speaking the truth. Whilst more children fall prey to this and their parents haven't yet noticed or don't yet know the significant and irreversible harm that is coming for their children.

Astounding really how the feelings of adults trump the safeguarding of children. On a parenting site of all places.

Whilst it's reassuring to know that the legal profession are getting ready to sue, it's heart breaking that so many young people's lives will be irreversibly damaged whilst time passes. And to what purpose? It's certainly not to their benefit is it.

These people may think they have captured the online world and bent it to their will. But many adults who actually do adulting properly work out in the real physical world, in education, in healthcare, in social services, alongside these children and their parents.

Here we will share knowledge and information that reduces harm. And there's fuck all the online activists can do about it.

"HRH will do nicely!"

Some people go by pronouns which do not necessarily reflect their physical sex or obvious appearance.

Well, yes, this is exactly the point, barley.

This practice - of asking someone else’s pronouns (as well as declaring your own) - is reflective of an ideology that says some clearly male people are in fact and should be seen/treated as women.

As Ajl46 put it, I don't subscribe to the ideology which necessitates a response to that question.

If someone is clearly male then I’m not going to pretend he’s a woman or girl or call him “she”. And you know exactly what the reasoning is of those of us who refuse to go along with this. If we agree that Dave is now Danielle and call him “she”, then suddenly he’s entitled to use the women’s/girls’ changing room, access women/girls only services, take part in women’s/girls’ sport, and we are now the mean ones for “excluding” him because after all, he’s a woman/girl/she/her just like we are.

Which nicely obscures and indeed turns on its head the fact that actually Dave is the mean one for using his male privilege to impose himself on the more vulnerable, less powerful of the two sexes, to override our boundaries, to carry out an act of male oppression and call it “progress” and make it taboo for women and girls to even resist this oppression.

That’s where going along with pronouns that don’t accord with biological sex gets you. No thank you. Stop being so mean to women and girls, barley. Misogyny is not a virtue.

The last thing they need or deserve is to deal with some entitled and rude teenager who's been by groomed by their parent into turning every possible social interaction into a chance to score points in the culture war against trans people.

The last thing anyone needs or deserve is to have deal with some entitled and rude woke teenager /adult, with their camera phone and sadness at the ready, who's been by groomed by their equally woke, hard of thinking, parent / peers into turning every possible social interaction into a chance to score points in the purity spiral, against people whose pronouns are damn obvious and always have been.

My kids say no to your pronouns. And so do I.

[quote ItIsntWhatYouThinkItIs]@barleybadminton Marriage isn't a feminist issue. It isn't a patriachal issue. It is a LEGAL issue. It is about legal recognition and protection.

It's simple politeness, unless you want your kid to grow up to be the kind of obnoxious entitled brat

Wow. I think you are the one who sounds like an obnoxious entitled brat here. If someone tells you their name, you address them as their name. If someone says their name is Mary, you would address them as Mary. Nothing else is needed, is there. Pronouns are superfluous and unnecessary.[/quote]
Marriage isn't a feminist issue.

Missed this bit just wow. Perhaps not if you are economically independent and comfortably middle class but for many if not most women in the world marriage is both socially and economically coerced. And that includes the UK where the benefits system is precision designed to try and force lone parents into economic dependency to a male partner.

That's before you get to the many and varied feminist critiques of monogamy and the nuclear family.

If someone says their name is Mary, you would address them as Mary. Nothing else is needed, is there. Pronouns are superfluous and unnecessary.

I do realise the gender critical movement is skewed towards the privileged but it may suprise you to know that many service sector workers are expected to use terms like Sir or Madam and so quietly enquiring what someone's pronouns are if it doesn't appear obvious is simply them trying to do their job without causing offence. The last thing they need or deserve is to deal with some entitled and rude teenager who's been by groomed by their parent into turning every possible social interaction into a chance to score points in the culture war against trans people.

I would just laugh and not answer. Shows the ridiculousness for what it is, and means the person has to use the obvious, sex-based pronouns themselves.

Well yes. In the real world🤷

[quote Shadeelane]@DdraigGoch
They told me in the WhatsApp group[/quote]
How odd. I've never announced my pronouns, nor ever felt the need to ask someone else. I just seem to instinctively know what to call Dave and Sue, even if I haven't yet met in person. It doesn't even take long to work out what to call Sam.

She/her

@DdraigGoch
They told me in the WhatsApp group

I was trying to think about some of the responses. If I wanted to keep things level without going into details I'd say 'It's private' (because I see it as a question crossing my privacy boundary) or simply 'I don't, thank you for asking'.

@Shadeelane did you just assume Mary and Geoff's genders?

How on earth did you know that Mary wants to be called "she/her" and Geoff wants to be called "he/him" without starting the meal with some kind of around-the-table icebreaker where you all declare your pronouns, religions and star signs so that no one's in any doubt?

Or is it pretty obvious that Mary is a woman and that Geoff is a man?

I'm aware by the way that I have probably "misgendered" QB a few times in the last post. Don't worry though, 'she/her' will be the correct ones again shortly...

unless you want your kid to grow up to be the kind of obnoxious entitled brat who doesn't think they have to say please and thank you
What @barleybadminton clearly hasn't comprehended is that the 'obnoxious, entitled brat' here is the one changing her pronouns every five minutes and demanding that everyone else dances to her tune. If you've ever been bullied, you will understand that rolling over to their demands doesn't work. The OP's daughter is quite right to stand up to this bullyand refuse to play her games.

I think "whatever's easiest" is a usefully passive-aggressive response to being asked for pronouns. Followed up by some "Honestly, I don't mind!" if necessary.

It seeds the idea that possibly some of the pronoun people are just trying to make everyone else's lives difficult, but it's very hard to argue with.

Majesty

Shad - but Mary is a woman’s name! So once you’ve established that’s her name you don’t need to ask her what sex she is! And of course the fact that humans are very good at telling what sex someone is by using their eyes and ears.

Mary is only half listening. She's sat next to me but has just been collared by Geoff who's talking to her about his stamps.

Nope. Cos I'm talking to Dave not Mary.