Enby they/them pronouns - what's the law on this?

One of my family has severe LD & he can grasp the concept that some people are trans, so please don't give me that ridiculous, ableist excuse for lack of respect.

I can grasp that some people identify as trans. What I cannot do is lie, to the point that I lose the capacity to speak. Lying is a fundamentally disrespectful act, so I have no idea how you can have the brass neck to pretend that it's somehow respectful to do so about a person's sex.

Your ignorance about and denial of the impact of selective mutism is the only ableism on this thread.

(Incidentally, being categorised as 'not cis male' is the sole experience all women - cis, trans or nb but female presenting - have in common. It's not babies, periods or feelings - it's fear of misogynistic male violence.)

You are incorrect. Some women, who enjoy the privileges of money and a decent husband, will deny routinely fearing male violence. Those women are arguably naive, but nonetheless they exist. Trans-identifying males are statistically the safest demographic in the UK. They do not have cause to fear male violence to anything like the extent that women, or even other men, do.

The universal female experience is that we cannot make someone else pregnant, by force or their consent. We cannot weaponise someone else's fear of forced pregnancy to terrorise them. And it is possible to tell, on sight, that we lack that capability. The universal male experience is that no man ever fears pregnancy, so no man can be terrorised in this way, not even by other men.

That sexed difference between men and women, immediately visible to any onlooker, is at the heart of all misogyny.

No amount of pretending that your vulnerable, probably autistic, gender non-conforming daughter is a boy will protect her from that reality. It's cruel to encourage her to think that she can become a man.

That's so sad.

The truth is that humans cannot change sex and what you are pushing in your nasty, aggressive posts is a harmful ideology.

Sorry, I should have specified that I was referring to the concept of an 'authentic self' that relates to anyone who identifies as trans or non-binary.

Plus, every female person I know of IRL who identifies as NB has had a double mastectomy, so people who identify that way can want body modification.

ETA- this was in reply to Asking. I do accept that not everyone who identifies as NB wants to alter their body.

NB doesn't need body modification, though. It requires no action apart from the statement "I am NB", which carries with it the threat "and if you put a foot wrong about that, I can make your life a little hell for you".

An 'authentic self' that requires 1) other people to deny reality, 2) body modification, and 3) relies on and strengthens 'gender' stereotypes is, by definition, not authentic.

No, being non-binary is very different. I am nb. But I never previously had the words for it.

I still use the word 'woman' to refer to my life, as that's how other people see me.

(Incidentally, being categorised as 'not cis male' is the sole experience all women - cis, trans or nb but female presenting - have in common. It's not babies, periods or feelings - it's fear of misogynistic male violence.)

But I grew up baffled by the concept of male and female, and never felt I fitted the word 'female'. I don't use 'they/them' but am changing to 'Mx' as it just fits me better. I'm overjoyed to discover it's not just me - and support everyone who uses they/them. They're braver than me.

I agree with your first part, but I think that’s also why I don’t find the singular ’their’ as jarring as others obviously do. I use it quite routinely and maybe part of that is a throwback to older feminist arguments around ‘desexing’ language. I’ve been quite surprised tbh that hardly anyone on a feminist board seems aware of some of the (much older than trans activism) debates around the need for a singular third person pronoun that doesn’t signal the sex of the individual, and how ‘their’ might satisfy need. Discussion of this dates back to the 70s.

Everybody is ‘non binary’ . Nobody conforms completely to the stereotypes of one gender. So yes, in that sense it’s totally ‘normal’, as it’s all of us. It doesn’t warrant a plural pronoun, as everyone is also still male or female.

I'm neurodivergent, as are many trans/nb people. And I have no issue with being polite.

One of my family has severe LD & he can grasp the concept that some people are trans, so please don't give me that ridiculous, ableist excuse for lack of respect.

Perhaps you don't remember the previous fight for inclusive language, when more women entered the workplace. My God the pushback against the use of 'chair' and 'chairperson'. The way so many people pronounced "Ms" with audible scorn. Even protesting at Star Trek saying "where no one has gone before."

Language evolves, so does society. It moves to include more people who previously were excluded.

Ableism, homophobia, racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, misogyny and yes, transphobia are tackled at root by inclusive language. Respect for someone different to you costs absolutely nothing. Existence is not violence.

Uh, yes I am neurodivergent. (So are all my sons. Very common within my family.)

As are a lot of trans & nb people. Probably because they can't mask who they really are.

You don't say "hi, they/them" to someone's face, just when referring to them. I don't say "hi, he/him" to my kid either.

He's just him. Same as I know my step-gran wasn't my real gran, but called her that anyway.

The most common response when I told my friends about the boy's transition was: oh no, what if I mess that up? I reassured them he wouldn't mind accidental deadnaming etc, it's normal. But all of them met him, realised it was no big deal & just stopped worrying.

It's hard to explain, but when someone transitions (by which I mean drop the pretence of who they felt they had to be) it's a huge change. A whole new, totally authentic person is revealed to you. And you realise: this is who they always were. It feels right.

It's the opposite of pretence.

I felt humbled, because my god I wished I'd known earlier. He had been out to his friends for years before telling me. I felt like I'd only ever known a fraction of him.

It's not a case of 'lost a daughter, gained a son'. He is my child, and exactly the same person - except he now trusts me with knowing who he really is.

And being trans is the very least of that. He isn't permanently playing a character - just no longer living a lie. Even though he has had no treatment whatsoever, I see him as...himself. We talk about periods, street harassment, contraception, how to keep himself safe. I'm not buying into a pretence - just accepting reality.

Sorry, that's a lot! But there is nothing to fear from the truth, which is that trans and nb people exist.

But marriage exists. I'm married. Does your lack of belief mean that I don't exist?

I don't believe in gender identity as a useful concept. Men are men. Does my lack of belief mean that you don't exist?

Practice is for sports and musical instruments, not basic language components, unless you are learning a foreign language. As an adult, "practice" isn't something any of us should be coerced into doing for anything.

These clowns are trying to make English become like a foreign language for native speakers and are trying to coerce us into "practicing" this newspeak, something one does for one's hobbies, just to keep our jobs.

I'm not expected to refer to Jane Smith as "Mrs Smith" in emails, but as "Jane", so that's an utter red herring. Who, in current year, works somewhere that isn't using first names?

First, there's a difference between remembering the opinions of someone you live with and someone you see far less often. I can remember how my mum takes her coffee, but not how my sister does.

Second, you're probably not neurodivergent, so you probably don't have the mental block about telling lies that a lot of autistic people have.

Third, let me know how far you get with https://s3.mirror.co.uk/click-the-colour-and-not-the-word/index.html I clicked the wrong thing on the second item. That particular game demonstrates nicely how changing and conflicting requirements, comparable in mental burden to people wanting inaccurate pronouns, confuse people and slow their thinking down.

Good old Muphry

JanesLittleGirl
So, not only do we not know what the law is regarding the use of pronouns for people who identify as NB, we appear to not know what the rules of English grammar are when using the third person singular for someone who's sex is unknown.

And Muphry's Law dictates that when saying people don't know the rules of English grammar....

It all becomes easy for you. More than one person on this thread has explained the cognitive difficulties they have with over-riding their instinctive recognition of a person's sex to adjust to a different set of preferred pronouns. Just because you can't see the cost of the "politeness and respect" you're demanding, doesn't mean it isn't there. The non-binary person isn't the only one whose needs matter here, which as a good boss is what the OP is trying to navigate.

So, not only do we not know what the law is regarding the use of pronouns for people who identify as NB, we appear to not know what the rules of English grammar are when using the third person singular for someone who's sex is unknown.

I think
"Where is the doctor (singular)?"
"Not here yet."

is a great deal better, as well as being shorter and applying no matter what the doctor thinks it is.

Once more for those at the back.

I’m not particularly disputing the way in which it is most commonly used. It’s the constant insistence by some posters that it’s absolutely never used as a singular pronoun and, further, if someone did use it as a singular pronoun not one person would understand what was being said. I’ll be honest, I can’t get particularly het up about the use of gender neutral pronouns, but even if I could I wouldn’t be making up spurious arguments about them.

You seem to be getting off the point here. As you say, 'they' is commonly used for a single person when their sex is unknown. So if you are discussing Dr Jones and you don't know whether they are male or female you'll naturally use the pronoun 'they', as I just did.

It's quite different to use the pronoun 'they' for a person whose sex is known. It is natural to default to the pronoun appropriate for their sex. Using 'they' or an opposite sex pronoun for that person uses a lot more mental effort.

Ok. It just looked like you completely misunderstood the post you first responded to, but yea let’s go with ‘tail tweaking’.

No, you were. I am tweaking your tail about this tedious insistence.