My children being asked their pronouns by youth group leader

You can choose your religion.

"their name, if they were a boy or a girl, what their pronouns were and what their favourite ice cream was."

I was just thinking this morning (after an item on the radio supporting the girl guides teaching them there are 57 varieties of gender or whatever) that children are being asked to pick a gender like they're in one of those fancy ice cream or American jelly bean parlours. And again I have to ask myself about the endgame of the people - adults - who are making it their business to go into schools and children's groups with this stuff, because seeing and hearing about the children of family and friends it certainly isn't making these children more comfortable or happy with their bodies, or their relationships with their parents, grandparents or schools.

I'd have thought one of the purposes if parents choosing to send their kids to groups that run activities etc is to get kids off the Internet and out if their own heads fir a bit. Interacting with actual humans face to face and working together as a team. Such shame they jusy become yet another place access kids to spread the gender ideology

If there are any children who are starting to question their identity but not wanting everyone to know this it puts them on the spot. It’s cruel and unkind, the very opposite of inclusive.

Me too. :)

No one told me I should expect everyone to correctly gender me. I just found it funny walking along with my brother and having people say "hello boys".

The only reason to know pronouns is to know how to speak about them when they are not there. But the youth trainer will presumably only be teaching them when they are there?

One underhand reason for doing this is to clock who looks like a boy/girl but gives pronouns that are the opposite - it is a gift to potential groomers to ID vulnerable kids.

If that isn't reason enough to complain about this, I don't know what is.

My daughter is often mistaken for a boy.

She has long curly hair and big eyelashes but she wears football strips a lot therefore she must be a 'boy'.

She just thinks people who make that assumption are stupid and corrects them.

Fortunately she is very self-confident. A less confident child might feel the experience differently.

Also my DS was constantly mistaken for a girl: long hair, ambiguous name. I used to correct people until I saw that DS really didn't care, so I stopped correcting people as I didn't want to make it into a "thing" that got DS upset.

He stopped being called a girl when he hit puberty and grew a beard. It was fine.

If that simple act didn’t have an angry mob behind it demanding it, i’d probably feel more likely to acquiesce

I was occasionally misgendered as a child due to having short hair and wearing trousers.

It never stopped me wearing trousers or having short hair and I simply concluded that the adult doing it was an idiot. Job done.

Normalising pronoun declarations actively causes harm to women and girls - look up the "stereotype threat".

Hello kids! My name is Fred! Can we go around the room and everyone say their name!

mary
jane
john
julie
Dave
etc etc etc

its pretty obvious. My sister was often mistaken for a boy. But a simple ‘what’s your name’ would correct that.

it’s just nonsense and trying to normalise in kids people announcing their pronoun of choice.

You may not care what someone else's pronouns are, but they care about their own pronouns. If adjusting your use of pronouns helps someone else feel a little more included in the world, isn't that a good thing to come from a simple act?

Its not a simple act. You are asking kids who haven't even been asked if they consent to being used as a validation prop. If they care about theor pronouns then friends and family if they want can go along with it. Not the job of a bunch of kids you just met though. Not the kids fault if that's not been made clear to them by the adults responsible for caring for the child. And they don't have to bail thise adults out by playing along.

^ @StanleyBostitch

You may not care what someone else's pronouns are, but they care about their own pronouns. If adjusting your use of pronouns helps someone else feel a little more included in the world, isn't that a good thing to come from a simple act?

Should we be asking everyone what their religion is, because a lot of people care about their own religious beliefs?
And then if one person in a group is religious, everyone can say a prayer together and they will feel more included in the world.

I would absolutely raise it, because if you don’t speak up for your children who will? This external youth group leader is working to normalise the practice of pronoun declarations for children far too young to be exposed to this nonsense. It does not serve the children, so whose agenda does it serve?

I wonder what they read into the ice cream flavours.

I would not be happy with this. I'd be talking to them about both issues: asking questions re pronouns, putting dd in the wrong group.

I wouldn't blame the leaders in your group, but I would make sure they know it's going on and tell them your kids won't be there again when this outside group visits.

If they ask why say that it assumes the kids accept an ideology you think is false and also dangerous.

You may not care what someone else's pronouns are, but they care about their own pronouns. If adjusting your use of pronouns helps someone else feel a little more included in the world, isn't that a good thing to come from a simple act?

I was misgendered as a child.

We went on a Santa train with my grandma. At the time I had short hair and my brother had long blond beautiful curly hair.

Due to our appearance, Santa gave my brother the ‘girls’ toy as a gift. A crappy pink cheap horrible plastic handbag. I was given the ‘boys’ toy, a really cool car that shot off when you pressed the back.

I was fucking delighted but our Grandma made us swop toys as we had the ‘wrong’ ones.

I got home and cried to my mum about the unfairness of the whole situation. My mum put the crappy plastic handbag in the bin, and told us we were to share the cool car.

Maybe it’s never too early to be teaching your kinds about sexual and gender stereotypes???

I was often mistaken for a boy, short hair, hand me down clothes of all sorts but often oversized because I was very small.
Sometimes I was told quite forcefully 'this is the ladies'; as if I shouldn't be in there.
I just said, "I'm a girl", no drama, no trauma, no literal violence; it was annoying sometimes but ho hum lots of things are annoying and people make assumptions and mistakes.
I was a girl with short hair.
I'm now a woman with shortish hair, wear docs and jeans most of the time but unfortunately nobody mistakes me for a man and gives me a promotion and a payrise.
It's probably the massive tits that gives it away, or the fact they I'm five foot one, who would know without asking my pronouns?
Which by the way are fuck/off

Im just totally fed up with the whole pronouns thing.

We live in such a narcissistic society that its now become the norm to advertise your pronouns wearing badges .... when to be honest I couldn't give a flying fart what someones pronouns are .

Its become ridiculous.

Sounds familiar. Is it Reform Judaism by any chance?