to not want to sign off my emails with preferred pronouns?

[AlphaBites]

We've had an email do the rounds today at work saying in the next few weeks all staff are expected to sign off with their preferred pronouns, to save any embarrassment for any staff.

I don't want to.

Can I fight this somehow?

I've been working for 35 years, been using email for over 20 and funnily enough this has never been an issue. e.g. Email from boss:

B: What did Ali say when you spoke to her?
M: Ali is a bloke, he said blah blah etc
B: great can you get him to follow that up and let me know what happens?
M: Sure

Ali cares not a jot...

I hate to break it to you but a person who was born with a penis is not a woman.

Yes, not biologically, they're a transwoman though.

Many men would take issue with that. They would, quite rightly, object to you erasing them.

Serious question, is "solidarity" mandatory? I think it is empty virtue signalling.

What will happen if you admit to being cis? If you admit that unlike trans people,the sex and gender you were assigned at birth happens to also be the gender identification that makes you feel most comfortable and "you"? Like, what bad things would happen?

First of all sex is not assigned at birth - sex is binary and if you have a y chromosome your sex is male. Sex is observed at birth, except in intersex cases where sexual characteristics may be ambiguous. Intersex has nothing to do with trans though.

Gender is social construct around what it means to be masculine or feminine. It's the boxes society puts us into and like many people I reject being pigeonholed like that. I thus don't have a gender and can't therefore be cis. Calling me cis is putting me into gendered pigeonholes and is offensive. I don't buy into the nothing that what work women can do is determined by their biological sex.

As to whether women without breasts and ovaries are still women antecdent - don't be so fucking offensive. Being a woman is determined by the DNA encoded into every single cell.

Serious question, is "solidarity" mandatory? I think it is empty virtue signalling.

I’m in the middle of reading a book called “The Coddling of the American Mind” which is about what has gone wrong in American universities. There’s some interesting stuff in there about the dangers of uncritical solidarity, amongst them the rise of orthodoxies and groupthink.

Just wondering - if I said "I don't believe in gender", what happens?

I think a unicorn dies somewhere.

Many men would take issue with that. They would, quite rightly, object to you erasing them

So men would think they were being erased as a whole because of a few who were trans? That doesn't even begin to make sense.
Nobody's erasing anyone.

My dh isn't really bothered by the whole gender debate. He's much less terfy than me. Until someone said he was a cis man. He was really pissed off. So if you want to peak trans people go ahead, call people cis!

As a midwife, most of the trans people we see are men who are pregnant
That's not true though, is it? They're women who would like to be men but aren't - if they were men they wouldn't be pregnant.

Go through life 'presenting' as you wish; ask people to use the pronouns you prefer; take whatever hormones you want ... but don't tell me to believe that one thing is another. Black isn't white, cats aren't dogs, and men aren't women (or vice versa). And don't tell me to refer to myself as 'cis'.

What will happen if you admit to being cis? If you admit that unlike trans people,the sex and gender you were assigned at birth happens to also be the gender identification that makes you feel most comfortable and "you"? Like, what bad things would happen?

Well, admit is a strange choice of word is it not? Why would I admit to anything? I've not committed any wrongdoing...

I appreciate that "admit" is not solely used in the context of wrongdoing, but it is probably used in that context the most.

Actually, if you insist upon calling me a cis woman, you are erasing my preferred identity of 'woman', which has a solid basis in the usually understood meaning of the word, and in biology.

I will listen to people who say their preferred pronoun and everyone can listen when I say do not call me cis

As a midwife, most of the trans people we see are men who are pregnant

Isn't this the absolute definition of having your cake and eating it? Surely if you are a "man" then you shouldn't be having babies as that's what women do and you have said you are not a woman?

I think it should be purely voluntary. Of course women shouldn't have to take the prefix cis if they dont want to.

People don't even spell my name correctly despite ie being in my email address and was top 10 most common name for years and not an unusual spelling. I don't expect anyone to pay much attention to pronouns if they can't even copy a name correctly.

Absolutely agree with Throckmorton. My sex was determined at birth and is fixed. Gender 'norms' change massively over time and between societies and even then barely anyone could be said to inhabit the far ends of an accepted range at any particular time/place. We need the freedom to just be ourselves with whatever interests or character that involves....so no, I am not cis because i have no interest in being a societally imposed stereotype just because of my sex.

I don't expect anyone to pay much attention to pronouns if they can't even copy a name correctly.

Especially as it's not a pronoun you are likely to be using in the response to the email you are reading. So what do you need to do, hunt down the email you might have previously received from Candy to see if Candy is a man but wants you to use "she" when you are referring to him when emailing Bob? What if you need to refer to Candy in the email when you've never ever had an email from her or him and therefore have no idea what they want?

It is absolute tripe and bollox and a waste of pixels and storage and the energy required to archive those emails which is destroying the earth... I rest my case.

I think a unicorn dies somewhere

😂

@PickleC - Absolutely agree with Throckmorton. My sex was determined at birth and is fixed.

Your sex was determined at conception and is fixed.

My dh works for an American based company and says all of their mails now come with the little photo of themselves in a rainbow coloured box with their pronouns along the bottom. Fuck that shit.

We're supposed to have our photos on our emails. I have so far managed to avoid having my picture taken (which I fucking hate) and I hate the idea of it.

Imagine some arsey social worker seeing you in the supermarket and thinking "That's the bitch that pointed out that I wasn't taking appropriate action on a safeguarding issue", or worse, wanting to bloody talk to you about it. And if all and sundry knew what I look like, I'd be anxious that they might see me behaving badly somewhere, like having a rant in a car park or being a bit pissed and lairy in a pub, and everyone would get to hear about it.

I think it's an invasion of privacy.

Pronouns don't bother me though. There's an above average proportion of trans people in the organisation I work for and there are at least 2 people I really couldn't tell you what their birth sex and assumed sex are, so it might be helpful.

A friend of mine got a warning for referring to a trans colleague by the wrong pronoun. She was talking about something that they had done before they transitioned though, so at the time she used the correct pronoun for the event she was talking about.

It's all very confusing.

LakieLady
How is it helpful to the trans people in your organisation if you tell them what pronouns you prefer for yourself? How is that a courtesy? It makes absolutely no sense, and it is not your fault, it is the argument they use all the time, it is a courtesy, it is respectful. It has nothing to do with courtesy and respect, and everything to do with forcing people to accept gender bullshit. I have no gender. I have a sex, and that sex is female. If they know English well enough, they should know what pronoun to use when talking about a female person. When they are talking TO ME, they can use you, like any normal person on this planet.

@WonkoTheSane42 "You don’t need a degree to know what a pronoun is. You learn the parts of speech in fucking primary school."

Ooh, get you with your sole post on the thread just brimming with aggression. That tells me quite a bit about you. As does your expectation that this is covered in primary school - you're quite young, as well as rude and aggressive.

Grammar was 'unfashionable' for decades; I was never taught it, neither in primary or secondary English. Only got taught it in French.

Let this serve as a reminder that fashions pass and reality (such as 'grammar is useful') has a habit of reasserting itself. Here endeth the lesson .

A friend of mine got a warning for referring to a trans colleague by the wrong pronoun.

That is fucking insane! I'd like to see someone take that to a tribunal.

My MIL has a unisex name. Sort of like Sidney. She’s in her 80s and did it bother her a jot when she was “misgendered?” Not a bit.

I have a unisex name, although there is a slight difference in spelling between the male and female forms. I use a shortened form which is rarely used by males. The only time it's been a problem was when I was booked into the male ENT ward to have my tonsils out, and the day I started school when the teacher insisted it was spelt the male way.

I was adamant that I was't going back to school, as the teacher was plainly stupid because she didn't know about the two different spellings.

Just for shits and giggles I’d use (she/he) and let them wonder if it was typo or something not to approach