pronouns on booking form

Its not that it isn't applicable it is that it is arrant nonsense and, in some organisations, could have a very real negative impact

Presumably not quizzing you about pronouns, but rather asking why it says 'Louise Collins (Louise Collins)' on your badge?!

Then again, I suppose some people do set up businesses and enterprises that are literally just their own names, so if they don't know about the intended format of the badge, they could just think it signifies that you are Louise Collins (the CEO) of Louise Collins (your company)?!

And that 'N/A' will inevitably make it on to the badge itself, as though it were 'your pronouns' - so people will either tie themselves in knots trying to use them ("I just spoke to Claire about A company and N gave me one of A's business cards and N invited me to get in touch with A"); or if they're 'non-believers', they will just sigh when they see that you have 'your' special pronouns and swerve you.

I hadn't thought that through to its logical conclusion

And now I shall not be able to do anything else 🙃

This set of misogynistic principles should not be quoted from for any reason whatsoever.

'me/my' would be delightful there.

No-one has the right to police what other people call them in their absence, when not addressing them. Pronoun preferences also violate grammar e.g. 'they' being used to refer to one identifiable person. Infuriating and a linguistic nightmare.

Well yes, referring to a simple request that is about politeness and professionalism for others as 'arrant nonsense' would have a negative impact. Any unprofessional conduct will usually backfire on the person involved - and purposefully misgendering someone is unprofessional.

There was also a thing where there was a man and a woman who were working together, maybe on a project and I think the man accidentally sent an email but from the woman's email address and he couldn't understand why the clients had started to get shirty with him.

It's neither polite not professional to ask people to disclose a protected characteristic they do not wish to disclose

Type a space

he,she,them,potato

"I just spoke to Claire about A company and N gave me one of A's business cards and N invited me to get in touch with A"

Thing is, I can see this happening because we have been told this is how to use those ‘he/she’ pronouns etc. and if you get them in the wrong order, you are disrespectful and a bigot.

Now apply that to the NHS, who happily register men as women without comment

It isn't a politeness, it is a lie and nobody need acquiesce. Professional standards work both ways... something many organisations are slowly waking up to

Why do you prioritise the feelings of the individual demanding a lie if others?

Yes - it's like that silly game that Ted from The Fast Show played with his friends at the pub - where you have to remember to insert the name of a different vegetable before every single word that you say... except, when Ralph inevitably got it wrong, it was followed with good-natured laughter and not angry entitled accusations of him being phobic and needing to be 'educated' or cancelled.

It was a terrible and outrageous decision on behalf of the government to ever agree to retrospectively falsify birth certificates based on 'gender identity'. This isn't to say that people can't live how they want to, as long as it doesn't adversely affect or restrict or compel others, but official documents should be solely about facts.

It would be as absurd as somebody whose birth certificate accurately gave their place of birth as Slough later demanding to have it changed and re-issued to officially pretend that they were actually born in Windsor, as that 'more truly reflects who they identify as now'.

By implication, if you can change it once, you can change it twice.

Well, quite. They have the frankly ludicrous promise that people have to make that they will 'live as a woman/man' for the rest of their lives (whatever that is ever supposed to mean); but if you believe that sex/gender (which apparently mean the same thing when it suits your cause, but different things when it doesn't) are not fixed and can change, surely that would make somebody telling you that you can change it once but never again only slightly less 'transphobic' than somebody who stuck by scientific reality from the beginning?!

In any case, inasmuch as 'living as' the opposite sex goes, it's clearly not enforced (or even enforceable). Freddy McConnell made that promise in order to be granted the official legal fiction that she is a 'man', yet she then went on to get pregnant and give birth twice - fighting in the courts to be officially recognised as the 'father' of the children whom she had been pregnant with and given birth to! None of this makes any sense at all.

Like sex?

It's blindingly obvious what the sex of the majority of the population of the planet is.

It's still a protected characteristic that some don't wish to disclose. So why the difference? Or is just that you've decided trans people should be forced but you shouldn't?

@alcovecupboards I regard any organisation that attempts to impose a contested ideology on its employees, suppliers or customers as unprofessional and any employee, supplier or customer who pushes back against this as acting professionally.

Yes, like sex. So why did you say it was professional and polite to ask people to declare their pronouns, when this means, for most, stating a protected characteristic. A request which is neither professional nor polite

Well yes… I mean, no one’s asking anyone to write make or female on the badges are they?…….

But they don’t have to do they? No one is making transpeople declare their sex.