Using “they/them” etc is a signaller, it shows everyone present that you accept gender as a belief system. That affects how other people feel about speaking up, or makes people feel as though they are in the wrong for feeling uncomfortable with gender ideology. This then has an impact on public policy which is having such a detrimental affect on women.
Going along with the policing of others’ language may seem a small and insignificant thing but the ramifications are neither. This has meant women being raped in prison, women being assaulted in refuges, children who have been sexually abused being told that their abuser was a woman.
If you happily perpetuate gender nonsense then you are complicit in these things happening.

Crikey, what are the odds of having so many gender confused people in your children’s social circle? Surely this should tell you that’s it’s all a lot of attention seeking nonsense by kids who don’t feel special enough to just be the sex they were born into. We all know that fifty years ago this would have not have been a thing.

It’s a fashion, a trend like the thick eyebrows girls were sporting a few years back. Unfortunately it’s a very dangerous trend. I won’t be obnoxious I’ll use their name or ‘you’ or ‘they’ but not he/she.

@BellaAmorosa I was purely talking about a work situation where we are obliged to follow employment laws and contractual requirements.

I am not saying anyone has to declare their pro-nouns, but if an employee/colleague asks for the pro-nouns they/them or she/her be used then it is unlikely any employment tribunal would find that request unreasonable. Potentially the employer could be found to be discriminatory for not supporting the request.

Case law means both Gender Critical and Gender Identity are protected beliefs. Neither has precedence. So employers have to strike a balance between the two. In my view respecting someone’s pro-nouns is reasonable. This is a very grey area at the moment and I expect a lot more case law will emerge indicating what is and is not reasonable at work.

My advice to the OP was to help her stay on the “right” side of the law and her employment contract enabling her to complain about the colleagues unreasonable language.

I agree there is a power play in the situation and the colleague is pushing their luck. By respecting or at least using their name or you, the OP is putting their colleague in the wrong so retaking the power.

The reality is that we cannot turn the clock back, there have always been people with gender dysphoria ( I know that is another debate) but the numbers were very small and there was in most cases dignity and respect on both sides.

People with AGP identifying under the trans umbrella appears to have been an orchestrated strategy with slow infiltration of public institutions and the media over a long period of time. We are not going to fully reverse it and it will take a long time to restore an acceptable balance.

Small wins are important which is why I would encourage everyone to sign this petition. I can’t link directly to the petition due to MN rules but I can link to the petition topic. www.mumsnet.com/talk/petitions_noticeboard/4668426-petition-update-the-equality-act-to-make-clear-the-characteristic-sex-is-biological-sex

Its the Be kind Genderwoo Klaxon. You must have set it off somehow.

Deliberately disregarding someone’s preference is just rude.

Unless their preference is to not call men "she"?

But it’s polite to listen to someone and call them what they ask to be called. That was the point I was making. Deliberately disregarding someone’s preference is just rude.

They do not want special treatment. They want their pronouns recognised correctly.

But it is special treatment - and it's taken as tacit approval and validation of their beliefs in who or what they are. The vast, vast majority of people don't get to choose their pronouns: everyday male men and female women happily accept the correct sex-based pronouns as according to English grammar, but unless they speak out, they aren't given any choice in the matter - just like when a shop assistant addresses you as 'Sir' or 'Madam' or tells their young children to 'give the coins to the lady/man holding your sweets'.

Even with the new trend of asking everybody their pronouns (which, incidentally, a great many people find terribly insulting - especially elderly folk - but who cares about the non-special people, hey?), it isn't genuinely done in an attempt to help the 'standard' males and females but rather so that the minority can have their moment to tell everybody how special they believe they are, that they, unlike the vast majority, are far more important than centuries-old basic grammar rules.

If you've been willingly referring to a male-bodied person as 'she' for some time, how can you suddenly protest when that male-bodied person assumes the right to use the toilets or changing facilities for female-bodied people only?

"Of course you accept that Tony is female - you've been using her correct female pronouns for months. Why are you suddenly deciding to be awkward, exclusive, hateful and transphobic now? Just what is YOUR problem?"

Things that start as seemingly insignificant little 'niceties' are often a deliberate first step towards much more significant implications.

You can choose your name, so of course others should use it. You cannot choose your sex, so demanding that others use a special, counterintuitive, inaccurate, awkward and ungrammatical language for you is an imposition.

What on earth are you talking about?

Well yes, because the person who wants to be referred to as they might find offensive and be hurt by my behaviour.

Okay, so someone might be offended if the "request" is refused.

But why is that a valid "harm", but the "harm" of someone feeling offended by being asked to deny someone's sex not valid?

It really isn’t hard to make an effort, is it?

By the same logic - if someone calls you "he" because you're male, then it's not hard to make an effort to understand why they might be quite insistent on that, is it?

Given everything else going on due to the denial of people's sex. Not everything revolves around you, it's about the general principle.

People who feel they can demand others to deny their sex need to learn to be less intolerant.

I disagree.

I do understand the point but I don’t agree. I don’t feel threatened as a woman because someone chooses to use they / them. I am still and always will be “she”. Mumsnet has such a weird stance on all this stuff and it just isn’t reflected (thankfully) in real life.

Barracker's excellent article - 'Pronouns are Rohypnol' for anyone who hasn't seen it -

fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/

But it’s not about ‘tolerance’. Don’t you see that? It’s about subscribing to an alien and unreal philosophy that people can actually change sex. News flash - they can’t. It’s an arrogance to compel people to name something they are patently not. Why are we being made to do that in our workplaces? Why are we considered the aggressors when we aren’t forcing others against their will? Its being imposed unwilling against us!

Clitoral Violence

@Afterfire
Just wanted to add, they and them are normally used for a person whose sex is unknown eg a hypothetical candidate for a job, or for any one of a group of people who might be of either sex.

Calling someone gammon verges on hate speech so report it asap. It is a derogatory name for a white person, usually middle aged, who goes red in the face as they express what are usually seen as 'conservative' views.

There is a harm in going along with it though, that is the whole point ! Going along with it is shoring up the ideology of gender which is so damaging to women and girls.

Well yes, because the person who wants to be referred to as they might find offensive and be hurt by my behaviour. If I kept referring to my dh as “she” I’m sure he’d find that weird and be fed up with me! It really isn’t hard to make an effort, is it? If someone told you their name was Bob and you kept calling the Glenda they’d be pretty annoyed wouldn’t they?

NAME, not mane…..

I just don’t see the harm in going along with it.

Okay, others can deal with that. But do you any harm in not going along with it?

've told him I'm not comfortable talking to him about it and I was called a boomer, a Karen and a gammon?

You need to complain about this. He can resolve it with an apology, it doesn't need to be a huge deal, but there needs to be a formal record of him harassing you.

Please, please trust me, from experience, that if you don't do this you are risking much greater problems down the road.

On how to refer to him: presumably he isn't there when you need to say he? In which case don't worry about it. If he is, and objects, I would do it for now, at least sometimes, so as not to muddy the waters.

One way would be to always his mane rather than pronoun. Then you avoid the issue.

I would be greyrocking him and keep a list of all the personal attack he is making (gammon, Karen etc… ).
Keep your manager in the loop too.

But what will be working best is to look ‘perfect’ as in no direct attack at him whilst he is doing his best at looking a twat/attacking people.

Why do you need to use pronouns? I don’t think I’ve ever used them with colleagues, I just say their name. Just use their name, you don’t have to ‘agree’ with it. People always shorten my name and I find it really rude, as I’ve said what I want to be called. Just think of it like that, no need to use pronouns.

This.

He sounds like a twat.

How he identifies is not work-related, and he should STFU about it.

I admit it doesn’t come naturally to me to use they / them but I do so because I’m not an intolerant arsehole.