Request to share pronouns

@RiotAndAlarum That sounds like massively over-performative virtue signalling and somewhat patronising. I'm sure a blind person, or anyone, really doesn't care if you are wearing a blue shirt, a green jumper or the latest trainers.

I've actually seen webinars in which people introduce what race they are, what they look like and even what they're wearing. I think it's meant to "include" the blind, but it feels overwhelming.

Are visuals always really that important that missing them "excludes"? The popularity of podcasts indicates not. I listen to The Rest is History as a podcast rather than sitting on my arse to watch it as a YouTube video.

I started posting links to that interview a week or so ago on a few threads because of the number of people who still don’t understand that this particular belief, gender identity belief, is given special treatment that no other is. And no one has been able to answer why it is singled out for this special treatment.

It is like there is a complete disconnect in regards to it.

I had forgotten about that interview.

Emile passes as 49 much more successfully than Jane passes as female.

With apposite timing, this afternoon I just got a work email from somebody with the following signature:

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Name
Job Title
Departmental Address etc

Yes, in that order, pronouns the most important thing to convey. And what's with the she/her/hers anyway? Does this person not understand how the English language works? It's already silly enough when people do she/her or he/him, but is the extra one on the end meant to convey particular devotion to BeingKind or something?

I usually go with ‘I am not sure, still undecided. Just use my name in the meantime.’ They rarely come back from that.

Oh that is priceless ... if gender is a construct so is time.

I note with interest despite it's potential to go viral, it's only been seen by 19,000 people. Funny that ....

Haha, yes! Like in the Victoria Derbyshire interview with Emile Ratelband and Jane Fae.

If anybody is unfamiliar with it (and it's well worth a watch), Emile was 69 at the time, but claimed that he still felt like and had the body of a 49yo - so he was seeking to get a new birth certificate re-issued to take his younger 'transage' status into account and legally change his age.

Jane was telling him how ridiculous he was being - which he indeed was - with absolutely no sense of irony or self-awareness whatsoever!

m.youtube.com/watch?v=JE-xLnrnXMg&pp=ygUjZW1pbGUgcmF0ZWxiYW5kIHZpY3RvcmlhIGRlcmJ5c2hpcmU%3D

The TL;DR secret is to goad "them" into making the statement:

"You're taking the piss !" (or some variant thereof)

to which your sweetly smiled answer would be:

"You started it."

Does anybody else remember the thread from quite a while back, where OP's friend always referred to a slice of (untoasted) bread as 'a toast' - and then she got irritated and most put out when OP and everybody else didn't understand what she was trying to communicate?

She would go to a cafe and ask for 'a cheese toast' - meaning a cheese sandwich - and then get annoyed when the waitress (maybe assuming that English wasn't her first language) brought her a cheese toastie.

When certain words have a long universally-understood and accepted meaning, you can't just randomly use those words to refer to something different and then expect everybody to both understand and change the standard use to humour and fit in with you.

Whether the word is a sex-based pronoun, 'woman', 'toast' or anything else, nobody owns the common language - and nobody has the right to arbitrarily change meanings of words and expect everybody else to instantly change their own common language to fall in with them - that really is the epitome of supreme arrogance.

100% about putting up extra barriers to communication. I'm a speech therapist working with people living with communication problems every day, and specific difficulties with pronouns aren't rare either. Demanding extra effort from other people to communicate with me goes against all my training, my approach to work and even my upbringing. And yet, there's my Royal College promoting this stuff without apparent concern.

Mine are Taumatawhakatangi­hangakoauauotamatea­turipukakapikimaunga­horonukupokaiwhen­uakitanatahu/Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

And if any hateful bigots disrespect ME by not using MY pronouns every time they talk about or mention ME ME ME ME, they will be cancelled.

Mine are takeaguess/surpriseme.

This all just reminds me of the silly game that Ted (of Ted & Ralph) used to play with his friends in the pub on The Fast Show.

Every time you spoke a sentence, you had to say the name of a different fruit or vegetable before each actual word e.g. "Tomato Good Carrot Evening Cauliflower Everybody".

The whole idea of the game was that there were arbitrary, non-instinctive, silly rules that you had to remember - specifically designed to trip you up - and if you did slip up (or chose not to play in the first place), the others would pull you up on it and laugh at you.

Mind, at least, in that game, the penalty for forgetting was only a little bit of good-natured mockery - nobody considered it 'literal violence' or called you a hateful bigot and tried to get you punished and cancelled.

We don’t need pronouns to be written down in order to know what they are. It’s he/him or she/ her.

I'm facetious enough that my response would be

Hi, I'm "Paulettamcgee" and my prounouns are/I identify as "appache attack hellicopter" (a favorite within my group when asked to tolerate this daft notion!!)

My experience is Koreans rather than Japanese but the principle is the same. They do not expect (let alone insist) that non-Koreans know the details or bow to the correct degree. They do expect that you show respect to the person. A normal interaction.

I have met several members of the British royal family. I neither bow nor curtsey (I did salute when in uniform back in the day) but I am not disrespectful. I apply the same discretion to use of pronouns. I may use their requested pronouns but if I "slip up" I don't give it much thought.

I may not use requested pronouns if I 5hink there's an agenda.

No it doesn't. Well, for some people it does. I'm sure Nancy Mitford was extremely socially accomplished and took it for granted everyone else (well everyone who counted) was too. But most native English speakers have been programmed since childhood to do sex-based pronouns and even if we hadn't those of us who have aphasia have enough trouble remembering a name, we aren't going to remember an individual's pronoun as well without using immediate cues like someone's visible sex or a gendered name. Aphasia worsens with age. Messing with pronouns makes communication that much harder.

Since when was a demand to use language that defied the conventions of that language as a signal of support for one group’s philisophical belief considered harmless?

It is not harmless!

Certainly not at a collective level or individual level. Anything that is expected to be done to show respect to someone while effectively removing the respect others should have to use completely legitimate and acceptable language is far from harmless.

PS is your username in tribute to the magnificent Artemisia Gentileschi?

My name is Artemisia. My pronouns are obvious to most people. But if you get it wrong I don’t mind.
I LOVE this.

“my pronouns are Queen/Goddess. I’m delighted you will all be respecting them.”

seriously though don’t do it. And try and go early in the meeting- you might find others following your lead.

Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

Artemisia can just sit and be offended if I say "her" instead of "their" - she won't combust.