Can I be forced to use pronouns?

I don't think you get to decide what is having an effect on someone else's mental health.

I think some of these arguments are getting a bit convoluted. Essentially my view is this.. I don't really 'get' the transgender issue, but I don't think that matters. It's just basic good manners and kindnesses to refer to someone the way they ask me to and does not have any great impact on my life. I have far bigger concerns than how someone else identifies and so to me it makes sense to crack on with my life and let them do the same. It's a complete non issue for most people and frankly if people are making it an issue they have too much time on their hands.

replying to this

You’re wrong there. In real life, we all know who’s a man and who’s a woman. We may pretend otherwise but we really know.

I think it is important to acknowledge though that our actions have consequences and it is probably more important to try to protect the mental health of a group of people who are more at risk of severe harm than outraged mumsnetters.

Considered going down the thread of how much harm you're prepared to ignore to other groups, but I have to pack up, and can't continue. Maybe someone else can. (Is Sarah an "outraged mumsnetter"? Is this chap at "more risk of severe harm"?)

So instead, consider this:

What if I genuinely believe trans individuals' mental health is being harmed by people around them lying to their faces under coercion? I'm not sure how mentally stable I'd be if I knew that was going on around me.

I'm not trying to harm him, I'm trying to help him. I'm not doing what he wants, but I think it's what he needs. To hear and understand the reaction to what he's doing and is part of.

And I'm also doing it precisely because actions have consequences, and those consequences are wider than individuals like this.

Ok. I said 'more at risk'. Not that they were the only group of people with mental health issues. There are plenty of statistics to back up this fact.

Expand on that one, go on.

What is it about female work colleagues, with or without children, that means they cannot have mental health issues and struggles of their own, and must needs be considered less vulnerable than a male who identifies as non-binary?

If you were to correct them and show them how to pronounce it...

people would be offended, they would be made uncomfortable and you would be a troublemaker.

Completed your sentence for you. You may go to effort to get names right, but how do you know you're succeeding, hmmm? How do you know people aren't granting you some slack, just as I do with my own colleagues? .

You are being deliberately obtuse here. I did not said one thing directly and solely caused the other. I think it is important to acknowledge though that our actions have consequences and it is probably more important to try to protect the mental health of a group of people who are more at risk of severe harm than outraged mumsnetters.

Oh yes. That line of thinking in queer theory that language dictates reality. A cat only becomes a cat because we label it a cat. It could just as easily be a dog.

Well they sometimes suffer very serious mental health issues, and some commit suicide. Obviously it is a very complex issue, but people being deliberately unpleasant and unaccepting does not help.

Unlike, say, women.

It's fine to be as deliberately unpleasant and unaccepting to them as you like (such as claiming to be them and taking all their things), cos they don't have real feelings. They just simulate them.

I don’t think it does. Not everyone agrees with you. Infact Mumsnet is one of the only places where it’s okay to spout such things. But that’s okay, you carry on, safe in the small corner of Mumsnet where people agree with you to keep validating your opinions.

It is perfectly pleasant to say, "Your work colleague may die by suicide if you use the wrong name or use a grammatical term they dislike" though?

Think about the emotional burden and stress you are placing on people here.

If people are trying to pronounce your name correctly they are not being deliberately rude. If you were to correct them and show them how to pronounce it and they refused to bother to try then they would be being rude. Whether it bothers you or not is not relevant to whether the same issue would bother someone else. I work with a lot of people with names that are unfamiliar to me and I make a big effort to get them right because someone's name can be a big part of their identity. Same with their pronouns. And I recognise that how someone else wishes to be addressed is 100% not about me so I don't make it about me.

MAN made being the point.

i see all the beeeeee kiiiind bingos are out this thread

They are all man made labels.

You probably think you’re being kind and tolerant but in fact you’re perpetuating and normalising a lie that has big consequences for the safety of women and children.

Come to think of it, my payslip must mistitle me and misspells my middle name.

Every time it is addressed to Miss Pothole Islode☆ Mumsnetter.

I prefer Ms Pothole Isolde Mumsnetter or Mrs Pothole Isolde Mumsnetter, as I am not a little girl and so not 'miss'.

☆ False middle name used to protect my anonymity

Well they sometimes suffer very serious mental health issues, and some commit suicide. Obviously it is a very complex issue, but people being deliberately unpleasant and unaccepting does not help.

Very good post. Yes there have always been transsexuals and I have never ever had a problem with them but it’s this transgender nonsense I’m not on board with. Eddie Izzard is a good example. He looks like a duck, quacks like a duck but we’re supposed to pretend he’s a swan. He’s a man who likes to wear women’s clothes and channel women’s ‘vibes’ (for want of a better word) but it does not make him a woman. My dog isn’t a cat and I’m not a mermaid.

'I don't want to call you that, I am going to call you Steve' that would be considered rude and a bit odd.

And on that note - yes, indeed. It would just be considered rude and a bit odd. But that's all. Calling people made-up names is the sort of thing that would be considered an eccentricity. (Although I've never felt I had any power to dictate what people call me anyway - people often abbreviate in ways I never would myself).

And calling a real woman "he" would just be rude and a bit odd.

So what makes calling a man-who-says-he's-a-woman "he" into something much worse? Something that someone even finds themselves asking a question about losing a job, or criminal trouble? I think it's mainly because it isn't just saying something a "bit odd" - it's specifically stating the truth. We're in an environment where compliance to not call out lies is what is being tested.

@RoseslnTheHospital can you not feel the cliteral violence waged against you?

I regularly get people assuming I am married to my partner, so I get mis-titled pretty much all the time, and if people have been introduced to my partner first then I also get mis-surnamed. If they have only seen my partners surname written down then nearly always it is mispronounced. Does that cause me harm??