Miriam Margoyles on pronouns

Saying we are only talking about one little change does not absolve you from responsibility for where the path you have taken that first step on is leading.

I hope, wherever your line is, when we get to it you will have the integrity to stand up. Because I can tell you one thing for certain - the further society goes in accepting some men are really women, the harder it will be to draw a line that finally says "but they are not women here".

Each step down the path will seem like a reasonable small adjustment from the last. Little by little, we walk into accepting scenarios that we would never have considered reasonable if we'd been asked to take them in one go.

So if your blood pressure won't cope with standing against pronouns today, how do you think it will be different when your line finally comes? Will you hold your line, or when the time comes will you think "well, it's not such a big thing really compared to how hurtful it would be to say no" and you'll move your line a little bit further away?

I'm a "Dr" I never use that as I think it's massively pretentious, but lots of my peers do, are they wrong to use that?

It's called being polite. In company, you should always try to make the people you are with comfortable. Who cares what they like to be referred as. Just be nice and civilised

Excellent- I didn’t realise it was so easy! I haven’t got a doctorate and have no plans to get one. So it’s good to know I can just tell people I identify as a doctor and they have to call me that as it’s ‘nice and civilised’.

See - that would be ridiculous wouldn’t it…

Miriam Margoyles is an idiot. She's always jumped on whatever cause is fashionable and spouted whatever the first thought in her head is. She's quite happy to be rude to other people when it suits her.

Sometimes that might make her look direct and down to earth but if you pay attention to her output for any length of time you'll realise she's merely vapid and arrogant.

"Telling the truth" in a normal day to day situation to the extent that it unnecessarily causes upset when it doesn't need to doesn't give you integrity.

If the truth causes them to be upset, then I suggest they seek professional mental health support and leave the rest of us alone.

And how upset do you think it makes the women and girls feel, who suffer for ACTUALLY being female, when people pretend privileged men are the same as them?

My guess is that Miriam isn't that rich so she has to be more careful than she'd like or has been told to be more careful than she'd like. It seems odd though as she gives the impression that she has no fucks to give about anything. Clearly, she does. JKR is in a nearly unique position of really not having to give a fuck when idiots try to cancel her, which never works anyway, and I value what she does to make life better for those who are not in that position and have to toe the line or lose their livelihood. And therein lies the rub. People have lost their livelihoods for not wanting to lie about reality. Those who do want us to lie are in no danger of being "cancelled". That tells me a lot about where we currently are.

It's fine until you call the quite obvious male "him" by mistake and "she" gets proper uppity even when you immediately apologise.

I thought the whole humour them thing was harmless until in my tired sleepless due illess self did this it the hobby I go to relax and a got a proper mouthful.

Thing is that really just emphasises how male they are.

If elderly rich successful women can’t retain freedom of speech who can?

Quite. JKR only fulfils two of those criteria (as she’s certainly not elderly!) and she has managed to retain a spine.

There's no consideration here of the upset caused to the person to lie? And say things they don't agree with and feel are actively contributing to the harm of other women and children?

Again. Child and enabler. The enabler's job is to protect the child at their own cost. The child role has no responsibilities or social contract whatsoever.

Try going on to the relationships board and saying 'this person requires me to pretend x at all times for them to be happy, they don't care how I feel about it, and I know if I don't they'll refuse to continue the relationship'. It's not healthy or normal stuff, it's not the basis of a good relationship but of a fundamentally unhealthy one.

I don't think you are being needlessly pandering, I think you are being arrogant and naive - a dangerous combination.

Some things are worth being angry about. Some things matter enough to justify allowing a raise in ones blood pressure. I don't care if that makes me look uncool. I care about what happens to people.

For me, the moral and legal right of female people to have society recognise the reality of being female, to allow us to speak of our experiences and challenges and to establish at times female-only supports, opportunities and protections to mitigate the challenges of being female in a default-male society is important, and it all becomes impossible if we have no way to refer to ourselves that does not also include male people who are using our lives as some sort of metaphor to express their own personalities. And I think this is worth a little raised blood pressure.

@FinallyFinalGirl and we've come full circle to my first point 🤷🏼‍♀️

"Telling the truth" in a normal day to day situation to the extent that it unnecessarily causes upset when it doesn't need to doesn't give you integrity.

You do understand and that, for the vast majority of men who pretend to be women, compelling women to lie is part of their fetish? They get off on the dominance and control. You know that, right?

Telling the truth and retaining integrity is 'needlessly awkward'?🙈

That's the third spaces live and let live argument. That people should be free to live according to their inner personal reality and those who feel like enabling them are free to and those who choose not to can politely use their own language and their own sex based spaces in mutual respect and harmony.

That's the point the lobby start on the death threats.

I have regular dealings with a young T person, I'm fond of them, and I won't be stating reality to her face, as far as possible I try to avoid using language that makes me uncomfortable and to also avoid using language that she would find offensive. But there are times I have to support the illusion rather than start a fight. And we've got close a few times where the situation is going to drive me to have to say, actually, no, you're not of that sex and I won't support this because other people have equal importance and needs to you.

Is it kind to play along to a certain point before reaching the one where you're forced to say no?
Is it kind to make someone pretend to believe something that they really don't, as if you're a child with an invisible friend everyone's nicely talking to and considering?
Is it kind to put someone in the position of knowing if they are forced to point out reality that there'll be at least meltdowns and distress and arguments, and at worst police reports and work disciplinaries and friendship groups devastated?

Because this isn't kindness, it's coercive control. It isn't an equal and reciprocal relationship, it's a child and enabler in role terms. I'm very uncomfortable with taking that role with anyone, where does my consent come in?

Who is this kind to? What definition of 'kind' are we using?

Indeed. It's performative. The special ones get to display their demands and the Miriams get to display their allyship.

@FlirtsWithRhinos

The thread is about what Margolyes said, and on a day to day, meeting people and just going about our business way, she said it doesn't matter, and I agreed.

It doesn't matter where my line is, it's clearly not where yours is; I'm just being less argumentative about it.

I always find that the most self righteously be kinders have the most limited understanding of what a pronoun is or the difference between talking to someone vs talking about them. 🤷🏻‍♀️

And on the doctor example -

Your line is falsifying qualifications. I envisioned a scenario where our so-called-doctor was offering advice in a social setting. No one is checking qualifications - would you tell the person they were talking to "actually X isn't a doctor, we just call them doctor because they want people to believe they are a doctor and it makes them happy" or not?

When you’re as big as she is, other people depend in you. Imagine the conversation with her agent / publisher etc re their shrinking commissions. I bet they threw a lot of emotional blackmail at her before she capitulated.

But it is disappointing yes. If elderly rich successful women can’t retain freedom of speech who can?

Nothing. I can just think you're being needlessly awkward just as you think I'm being needlessly pandering.

The world continues to turn, and we can all have a slightly lower blood pressure.

Interesting that you picked a female wanting to be known as male as your example. As we all know, being male doesn't officially qualify you for much (unofficially of course, it qualifies you to all the privileges that the structural and unconscious biases of a system and culture shaped around male norms affords, but being implicit and in many ways not even conscious, a female person doesn't gain access to those just because she adopts (her idea of) a male identity). So you, deliberately or unconsciously, picked the most innocuous version of an assumed identity as your counter example.

Let's pick the more meaningful scenario where Paul at work wants to be called Sarah. That's fine, right? Only an inflammatory arse would engage in the spectacular waste of time of objecting. So Paul is now Sarah.

What happens when Paul wants to join the women's mentoring circle. Everyone apparently "accepts" (because they didn;t make a fuss about) Paul as a woman called Sarah now, right? So it's very hard to object to Paul joining the mentoring circle. The young women in the circle want to be kind and welcome Sarah. But they don't feel quite as comfortable talking as they did before. And Paul, even though he's trying to be "one of the girls" - well he just doesn't have the same experiences as they do and doesn't understand why they don't just promote themselves better.

And that prestigious industry conference looking for female speakers? Should we propose Paul? He has a great story, and it might look bad if we send someone else, might look like we don't really accept Paul as Sarah. So Paul gets a fantastic opportunity to build his professional profile internally and externally off the back of women's support.

Just a couple of examples to show you how accepting that a man can qualify as a woman means more than just being nice to Paul by calling him Sarah and avoiding mentioning he is a man.

But perhaps you think caring about women's opportunities is itself a spectacular waste of time.

So where is your line? Do you accept Paul as Sarah in name, but stop him participating as a woman in other ways which will hurt him just as much, maybe more, or do you go all in and open up everything aimed at women to Paul's version of womanhood even though it makes the supports that are supposedly there to support women no longer fit for purpose?

Nothing should happen.

Okay, various posters don't mind following counter-intuitive instructions about pronouns, if it makes someone else feel happy.

However, what should happen to people who DON'T abide by those instructions? Thoughts?

"If you need the validation of a couple of letters before your name to make you feel valued then go for it. I don't."

@Maddy70 and yet, and yet...you are happy to debase yourself and other women for the sake of porn addled men DESPERATE for validation.