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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Arghhhh my workplace has fallen......

88 replies

Pineapplemonkey · 17/02/2022 13:52

So as part of LBGTQI+ (did I get all the right letters in the right order?!) history month all staff have been sent this:

C is for Cisgender – describes a person whose gender identity is the same as their sex assigned at birth.

G is for Gender – gender is a social construction relating to behaviours and attributes based on labels of masculinity and femininity; gender identify is personal, internal perception of oneself and so the gender category someone identifies with may not match the sex they were assigned at birth.

G is for Gender expansive – a person with a wider, more flexible range of gender identity and/or expression than typically associated with the binary gender system. Often used as an umbrella term when referring to young people still exploring the possibilities of their gender expression and/or gender identity.

G is for Gender expression – external appearance of one’s gender identity, usually expressed through behaviour, clothing, body characteristics or voice, and which may or may not conform to socially defined behaviours and characteristics typically associated with being either masculine or feminine.

G is for Gender fluid – a person who does not identity with a single fixed gender or has a fluid or unfixed gender identity.

G is for Gender non-conforming – a broad term referring to people who do not conform to the traditional expectations of their gender, or whose gender expression does
not fit neatly into a category. While many also identify as trans, not all gender non-conforming people do.

N is for Non-binary – an adjective describing a person who does not identify exclusively within the gender binary. Non-binary people may identify as being both a man and a woman, somewhere in between, or as falling completely outside these categories. While many also identify as trans, not all non-binary people do. Non-binary can also be used as an umbrella term encompassing identities such as agender, bigender, genderqueer or gender-fluid.

O is for Outing – exposing someone’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or gender non-binary identity to others without their permission. Outing someone can have serious repercussions on employment, economic stability, personal safety or religious or family situations.

P is for Pansexual – describes someone who has the potential for emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction to people of any gender though not necessarily simultaneously, in the same way or to the same degree.

Q for Questioning – a term used to describe people who are in the process of exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity.

S is for Same-gender loving – a term some prefer to use instead of lesbian, gay or bisexual to express attraction to and love of people of the same gender.

S is for Sex – Sex refers to the biological aspects of an individual as determined by their anatomy, chromosomes, and hormones, and is assigned at birth based on a baby’s physical characteristics.

T is for Transitioning – a series of processes that some transgender people may undergo to live more fully as their true gender. This typically includes social transition, such as changing name and pronouns, medical transition, which may include hormone therapy or gender affirming surgeries, and legal transition, which may include changing legal name and sex on government identify documents. Trans people may choose to undergo some, all, or none of these processes.

T is for Trans – an umbrella term for people whose gender identity is not the same as the sex they were assigned at birth. Being trans is different from sexual orientation and a trans person can identify as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, in the same way as a cisgender person.

Now I've finished shouting my rage at my computer screen I'm debating how and to who I need to complain to.........god help us all Hmm

Now I'm off to the bookies- £50 says next weeks all staffer is about pronouns.

OP posts:
CornedBeef451 · 17/02/2022 22:29

@justaftb the whole "authentic self" thing pisses me off. I don't care about anyones authentic self, I want their professional self at work!

My authentic self wears pyjamas 23 hours a day and reads excessive amounts of gay fan fiction. I don't bring that to work!

CornedBeef451 · 17/02/2022 22:26

A man in an lgbt whatever group at my work just happily counted himself as a furry!

Whatever happened to keeping you private life out of work?

You should be able to comfortably refer to your same sex partner without fear but no one needs to know you get off wanking in a furry onesie!

Pineapplemonkey · 17/02/2022 21:48

I’m hoping that this ‘ideology’ email is the first and last, I just don’t have the patience for such ridiculousness! It feels like I’m the only person who can see the issues with all this gender stuff (in real life, not on here!), everyone just seems so passive and accepting of it, makes me so angry that people are willing to accept an ideology that is detrimental to women and goes against all we know from science

Whether I’m brave enough to put my head above the parapet is another thing though, I’m senior management but I can’t decide if that would make it easier or not

OP posts:
ThatsWhenTheCannibalismStarted · 17/02/2022 21:17

Something similar happened at my place last year. A load of tripe copied directly from lgbt wiki. Most people were too busy, you know, doing their jobs, to pay any heed (as evidenced by the subsequent hand wringing and "how can we generate more engagement?" conversations).

TheCurrywurstPrion · 17/02/2022 21:02

They missed out B is for Bollocks.

C minus. Must do better.

GeorgiaMcGraw · 17/02/2022 20:55

@CottonSock

We were asked to do pronouns this week. Does anyone have a good response?
I said I didn't want anyone to focus on my sex/gender, particularly with a 30% pay gap between men and women in our Uni. My other answer is that it is a private matter and makes some people feel pushed to "out" themselves. As you can tell, these are my polite, HR-friendly answers.
HelloCrocus · 17/02/2022 20:45

@CottonSock

We were asked to do pronouns this week. Does anyone have a good response?
"It's not a practice I follow".

Courtesy of the Sex Matters "Pronouns at Work" guide.

HelloCrocus · 17/02/2022 20:43

@DrBlackbird

it's basically non-binary but with a Native American slant that makes sense as the authors are Canadian.

And has I don’t watch drag, I didn’t realise that about referring to drag characters by the pronoun of the character, so thanks for clarifying. Still think it’s all a bit confusing.

Yeah, I think perhaps it's particularly Canadian - I know Trudeau has referred to the LBGT[insert letters and characters]2S community before. No, I don't watch drag either, not sure why it's so popular. Though I did have a good laugh at a panto dame recently.
bishophaha · 17/02/2022 20:28

And may as well just ask this again for the (broken) record:

describes a person whose gender identity is the same as their sex assigned at birth.

In what way can a sex match a gender? If my sex is female and I identify as a woman, do "woman" and "female" match? Why/why not? Is there necessarily something female about a woman, or not?

MsFogi · 17/02/2022 20:27

@refreshingseahorse

(In my dream world where I have no financial obligations) I would reply with UNSUBSCRIBE in the header.
It is going to be very interesting when us GC women reach retirement age and no longer give a fuck. I suspect we are all going to be having some fun with our woke companies and more generally in life once we no longer fear losing our jobs! I have already warned dh that I intend to cause trouble Grin
bishophaha · 17/02/2022 20:14

@HelloCrocus

I just noticed that it's written as an "ABC", but with only a few letters, most of which are G. This seems to be typical of the incoherent and senseless style of this flavour of agitprop.

(I just read an article by Kate Clanchy on sensitivity readers. She gave many examples of the feedback they had given her. By God, they are a thick lot).

Right now, it's THIS that's annoying me the most. Why have they picked this "G is for..." format?!
Abra1d1 · 17/02/2022 20:10

@NotMyGenderGoblin

"gender identify is personal, internal perception of oneself " it does raise the obvious question... "on what basis do I need to know any of my colleagues personal, internal perception of themselves?"
Yup, quote that back at them if you get any pronoun stuff coming through. It’s personal. Internal. None of their business.
DrBlackbird · 17/02/2022 20:06

it's basically non-binary but with a Native American slant that makes sense as the authors are Canadian.

And has I don’t watch drag, I didn’t realise that about referring to drag characters by the pronoun of the character, so thanks for clarifying. Still think it’s all a bit confusing.

Baruchd · 17/02/2022 19:43

I suppose it depends on your position in the organisation, but is it not possible to respond with the truth?

-- "Thank you for the LGBQUERTUIOP+/- glossary, but, in all honesty, what is any of this worth, especially given that (1) sex is never assigned at birth but always merely observed having been determined at conception; (2) there really is no such thing as gender identity"?

It has been a while, but I would have expected such a response from many of my colleagues back when I worked in a large institution with, every now and then, nonsense missives like this sent from on high.

CottonSock · 17/02/2022 19:38

We were asked to do pronouns this week. Does anyone have a good response?

DomesticatedZombie · 17/02/2022 19:23

@ElBandito

The letter G is doing some heavy lifting here.
It'd make a bit of a crap alphabet book, that's for sure.

'O,M,G,G,G,G,G,G,G,G,G,GGGGGGGGGGOAWAY'

DomesticatedZombie · 17/02/2022 19:19

@refreshingseahorse

(In my dream world where I have no financial obligations) I would reply with UNSUBSCRIBE in the header.
Grin
allmywhat · 17/02/2022 19:15

A male colleague was recently given company-wide time to tell us he is a woman AND a lesbian and how dating is so difficult for him...

Tell him thanks for the awareness raising. 😁

I bet your company is full of secret TERFs now!

BootsAndRoots · 17/02/2022 18:53

@DrBlackbird

The "she" they're referring to is the gender of the character/persona he is playing.
They refer to him by the name of the character in the article, not his real name.
No one seemed to have this problem years ago with Dame Edna, not sure why it's become so difficult today.

HelloCrocus · 17/02/2022 18:51

2S is "two spirit" or some such. Apparently it's basically non-binary but with a Native American slant. I'm sure it's very ripe for criticism, but someone else will have to as I can't even bring myself to read any more about it than the first page of Google. Talk about a faith-based position.

I think it might be conventional for drag queens to be called She, though surely only as their alter egos? Not "She, John Smith, who performs as a drag queen at weekends"? Again, I cannot even bring myself to click the link.

DrBlackbird · 17/02/2022 18:45

2SLGBTQIA+

So what does the 2S stand for?

Saw this acronym variation in an article about a man who says he’s a ‘cisgender heterosexual man’ competing in drag, but who I think is being referred to as ‘her’ in the article yet simultaneously acknowledging that ‘straight men are not a persecuted group’.

So a man says he’s a heterosexual man i.e. neither trans nor queer, but still a ‘she’… how does that work? For example, if a man says he’s a man but uses female pronouns, then declaring one’s pronouns at work or in emails becomes essentially meaningless. Completely disconnected from both sex and gender. Right?

Hard to get my head around this and actually found the whole article confusing.

BootsAndRoots · 17/02/2022 17:53

Sex is assigned at birth?

So the biological aspects (anatomy, chromosomes, hormones etc) are assigned at birth? These things did not exist in the womb?

Sex is recorded at birth.

And I hate the thing that gender is fluid and can be whatever you want to be, so you must alter your body to match your true gender, that can be whatever you want it to be.

C is for Contradiction - Describes most logic within the transgender debate.

KittenKong · 17/02/2022 17:30

I saw an example of actual inclusion today. Braille cards in Tesco. Actual real, proper inclusion.

FannyCann · 17/02/2022 16:53

I love at the end where it says this:

"We suggest consideration of the following questions: How can I be clear? How can I include the people who should be included and exclude the people who should be excluded? How can I ensure that people understand what I mean and can readily recognize themselves? How can I avoid dehumanizing language? Does it make sense to apply a gendered understanding of words or a sexed understanding? Am I engaging in cultural imperialism or improper use of privilege by requiring others to use language in a particular way?"

My bold as I shall be using that phrase and accusing people of cultural imperialism and improper use of privilege any time I am required to change my language.

FannyCann · 17/02/2022 16:50

OP I've poked my head above the parapet at work (NHS) this week and the roof hasn't fallen in. I've been thanked and invited on a working group for new policies for my department.

I just pointed out that sex was the protected characteristic not gender (as written by the hospital Comms dept) and posted this link about effective communication on the intranet page. They've corrected the post and promised to remember to use sex not gender in future.

And the working party is a full on eye roll as the Society of Radiographers appears to be well and truly captured with an extensive glossary full of assigned at birth twaddle so we are going to have to ask everyone between ages 12-55 including all men if they could be pregnant. A part of me thinks asking grown men if they could be pregnant can only serve to open the eyes of a lot of men. Anyway I sent the link to the manager in charge of the working group drawing up our new policies and she said it was really helpful. I'm damned if I'm going to see a policy full of "gender neutral" language.

So good luck with your MD.
Print off this paper and use it when you need to.

internal-journal.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.818856/full?fbclid=IwAR1GmMyg9yC58i3SargXSSpsw1NgaVoD6raB8cz40YuEgx9VxFTr5A4m4OQ