Mandated to give my ten year old's pronouns - how to respond

My son has been repeatedly mistaken for a girl all his life just because he wears his hair a little longer than is typical for a boy, and likes the colour purple. So when people say, “she” about him to me, or says to him and his sister “What icecream would you like, girls?” he corrects the pronoun they are using. “He” is the pronoun he likes, he doesn’t like being called “she”. “He” is his pronoun. It’s not rocket science, babes.

My son too - although it's not the pronoun that he doesn't like - it's the presumption that he's female when he's male. If it's a stranger who he'll never see again, he doesn't normally bother correcting them, the most he does is direct an eyeroll at me subtly, or complain about it in the car later if there is a repeat offender.

Sorry misread your question. He doesn’t have a preferred age, but if someone guessed his age wrong, I’m sure he’d tell them his correct age.

If you are trying to make this argument about whether I “believe males can become females” etc you’re wasting your time as I actually don’t, however I do believe people have the right to choose pronouns that they
prefer, whether or not they match their sex.

Happy now?

Cheeky - but kids don’t ‘prefer’ a pronoun and shouldn’t be spending time thinking about it.

As they grow from babies to children they learn the difference between boys and girls, what they are and gradually become able to identify the sex of others with a very high degree of accuracy (and a few embarrassing mistakes along the way).

They also learn grammar, this means that they KNOW that people should call boys ‘he’, it’s not that they prefer it, it’s that the other people have made a mistake if they get it wrong.

The point I am making is that in OP's draft email she says that her daughter doesn't have a gender or pronouns.^^

Because she doesn't - at least not as the form means. I don't either.

I had gender expectations imposed on me, but they aren't mine. I have a sex, people use grammatically gendered pronouns to refer to me based on that sex - but I don't control that.

I don't have any internal sense of gender, I don't expect people to use special language for me - I would opt out of that field if it was possible.

😆

@CheekyHobson Your son is he/him/his years old? Interesting.

No, it’s not. The pronouns her daughter uses are “l/me/my”.

The pronouns others naturally use about her will be according to how they perceive her sex. These don’t belong to her, they are to aid communication about her in the clearest way possible.

We are only asked to ignore sexed pronouns (which is what we learn to use in English as we learn to speak) when someone is asking us to validate their belief that they are of the opposite sex, or no sex.

The first is none of your business and the second, when it comes to referencing sex/gender, is “he/him/his”.

If female pronouns are used to the exclusion of male pronouns, yes, it does mean the female pronouns are “hers” and the male pronouns are not. Or should I say the female pronouns are “his”?! Or the male pronouns are also “hers”? Of course not, as that would be self-contradictory.

What is your son's date of birth and what is his preferred age?

My daughter does not have preferred pronouns. There are sex based pronouns which it is obvious most people would use for her because she is female, but she has not chosen these and she has not stated how she wishes others to talk about her in the third person.

Did you ask her if she'd rather be called she, him, they, or it?

I expect she'd say 'she'.

Struggling to see how you/they don’t obviously prefer “she” over “he” or “zhe” or “they” for your female-born daughters. So yah, you do have a preferred pronoun.

My son has been repeatedly mistaken for a girl all his life just because he wears his hair a little longer than is typical for a boy, and likes the colour purple. So when people say, “she” about him to me, or says to him and his sister “What icecream would you like, girls?” he corrects the pronoun they are using. “He” is the pronoun he likes, he doesn’t like being called “she”. “He” is his pronoun. It’s not rocket science, babes.

I get the point, but I'm not sure the message will 100% land.

I do hope OP gets a response though, as I fully agree with her principles.

Great post.
Nailed absolutely all the issues.

I think it's fine. The OP's daughter doesn't have pronouns and doesn't have a gender identity - "Girl" is not a gender. Various pronouns can be used about her daughter depending on situation. Just because a few male pronouns are never used about her doesn't mean their female equivalents are somehow hers.

Using pronouns is not the same as "having" pronouns. I think your response is perfect OP.

Mairzy- what does that even mean. Are you saying that I can’t talk about Richard, the man down the road to my dh, without first popping round, knocking on Richard’s door “Hi Richard, dh and I are going to be talking about your bad parking. Should we use he/ him or she /her?’. Absolute nonsense!!

We know people’s sex and we know grammar, no one ever needed to check until a couple of years ago. It’s just embarrassing, made-up, brainwashing garbage!

The point I am making is that in OP's draft email she says that her daughter doesn't have a gender or pronouns.

If the point OP is trying to make is that she doesn't subscribe to the idea that a 10 year old can pick and choose their gender or pronouns (which I would agree with), then this isn't the best way to articulate it, since presumably OP is saying that she would use girl/she/her to describe her daughter. In its current format, the email is ambiguous enough for the reader to assume that OP doesn't subscribe to gender and pronouns on a general level (and presumably would want her daughter to be... It?). Essentially it isn't making the point that OP wants it to.

Do they ask for sex in the form?

People who choose to declare their pronouns choose them themselves. It isn't someone else's place to say what someone's preferred pronouns are on their behalf.

I don't think a lengthy reply would achieve anything. Amongst the things you can add is a preference that a child is referred to by name, and/or to ask your child her wishes would be intrusive.

No, people don’t ‘have’ pronouns.

I ‘have’ a name and a sex, in conversation I use the pronouns I and me.

Other people generally follow the rules of grammar and call me she or her (they know I’m a woman because I look like one and have a female name). But it’s up to them! I don’t care what they call me, it’s very bad manners to call someone ‘she’ rather than use their name if the person is present, (we were brought up not to do this “who’s she, the cat’s mother”) so I only rarely actually hear myself referred to as she or her - I’m not normally there when people use sex based pronouns for me, which means I don’t give a f* what they use. I don’t control grammar! They can call me him as much as they want, it doesn’t affect me and would just make them sound a bit odd.

The only time I have been referred to as ‘he’ to my knowledge was by a person with dementia, despite never having told anyone to ‘use she/her’.

OP - your email sounds great. I think these stupid questions are generally added without much thought.

But it's not accurate to say she doesn't have preferred pronouns.

If you asked her if she'd rather people call her she/ him/ it, I expect she would say 'she'.

She probably would not want to be called 'him' or 'it'.

So her preferred pronouns are she/her.

The problem is if you tick the box for she/her you are complicit in the whole pronoun nonsense that is invading every aspect of our lives. I’d just leave the section blank.
^
//

Absolutely. This question only even exists to validate biology-phobes.

The alternative action is to select the "prefer not to say" option if there is one and make their data capture useless. Have some fun with it^