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?

A friend of mine got a warning

That is shocking and horrifying. As others have said, we are being coerced into accepting psuedo- science and/or subscribing to an ideology.

The experts at the NHS specialist centre at the Tavistock do NOT advocate affirmation.

I would object to doing this, just as I would object to being required to chant 'The earth is flat' or the tenets of any ideology (even one I agreed with) at a workplace.

And, yes, the thought of doing so is very distressing to me.

I'm not a cunt so of course I'm happy to do that. It literally means a small change in your signature.

It means a great deal more than that, and if even this salient fact needs pointing out to you then you’re likely being wilfully blind. It is a likely foundation for a full scale retrograde trajectory of the entirety of the progress feminists have made throughout the last century. But this requires examining the shades of grey, the potential implications, and the risk factors involved for all concerned. And for a person who views life in such black-and-white terms – including calling people ‘cunts’ if their views don’t concur – explaining these is probably a waste of typeface.

This would be the same kind of black-and-white thinking that shrieks ‘no debate!’ or ‘transphobe’ the minute their ideology is even slightly questioned, rather than treating this as the serious issue it is, and engaging in the debate which is always necessary when the rights and wellbeing of one group conflict with those of another.

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

You see, I have no problem with addressing anyone by their preferred name and pronoun at all. I respect everyone's right to live in peace as the gender they desire to be. What I'm not willing to do, for many valid and complex reasons, is continually draw attention to my own gender, as is increasingly requested/required in many working contexts.

Where problems arise here is that the response is immediately aggressive and subjects the person using the undesirable pronoun to employers'/legal sanctions when a simple correction would suffice. Problems also arise from an equally aggressive TRA lobby who would like to re-categorize women out of existence and to tell us how we should view ourselves. Women are rightly bridling against this interference; it puts our backs up and we are likely to respond with a firmly-stated 'piss off'.

I don't have any particular objection to referring to myself as cisgender in the context of that discussion. But to become a ciswoman as a default category - particularly in order to accommodate people who are hellbent on stampeding over my own hard-win rights - no. Just no. The idea that 'woman' is a dirty or taboo word should have all women worried, whether they happen to 'identify' as feminists or not.

Like hell will I specify my female pronouns in the context of every interaction I'm required to have in the workplace. Want the statistics as to why: check out instances of male-on-female sexual harrassment at work, the gender pay gap, and myriad other categories showing why women have traditionally been disadvantaged in the workplace.

And suggesting that people who reason this way are 'cunts' says everything about the people doing the suggesting.

What I don't understand is why lesbians who don't fancy penises are labelled transphobic but gay men who don't fancy vaginas seem to get off scot free.

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?

That would be my view. I am motoring towards 60 and can understand why the very gendered and porn-soaked world we live in now in the UK an the rest of the English-speaking part of the planet is so unattractive to many young women that they seek to identify out of it. But they remain female. Every cell in the body knows they are female.

Some of them will become pregnant some years after having a double mastectomy, so will never have the choice of whether to breastfeed their child. Others will have the lingering doubt that years of testosterone in the mother's body might affect the developing foetus.

That's what makes this unlike previous generations' preoccupations. Permanent damage done to the body in the name of something that a lot of young people grow out of with the passage of time.

I would object to doing this, just as I would object to being required to chant 'The earth is flat' or the tenets of any ideology (even one I agreed with) at a workplace

See, I don;t think saying the earth is flat is comparable at all.
I mean, the earth isn't a protected personal characteristic, is it?
Race is, being trans is, your sexuality is too. You (general you, not you personally) can't discriminate against or harass someone just for being them.
The earth isn't anything to do with it. Unless the earth magically got a voice and said they didn't identify as Earth anymore lol, maybe then it would be comparable.

Being trans isn’t a protected characteristic is it?

Race is, being trans is, your sexuality is too.

Race, sex and sexuality are. Being trans isn't.

gender identity is not a protected characteristic, but even if it were, that would not require others to sign up to the belief system underpinning it.
We don’t, in a free society, compel belief. We should not start.

The nearest equivalent would be making non Muslims say “peace be upon him” after mentioning Mohammed as devout Muslims do. But most Muslims are not egotistical enough to require their belief system to be reinforced by non- adherents.

Surely this can't be legal? Being forced to disclose information like this opens you up to potential discrimination. You wouldn't be asked to put your race/pregnancy status/sexuality so why is this ok?

If someone has a GRC then , naturally, you have a legal obligation to abide by that.
Not all trans people have a GRC . It isn't a protected characteristic.

I thought it was a protected characteristic underneath the Equality Act?
So if it is you can't discriminate against or harass someone just for being trans just like you can't against race or sexuality.

Gender reassignment is protected. Gender identity, whatever that is when it’s at home, is not.
Further, it is not discriminatory to refuse to participate in someone else’s belief system. Should catholics be allowed to compel us all to genuflect at statues of Christ? Should Jains be able to enforce vegetarianism on us all?

Refusing to state your own pronouns does not constitute harassment, just as not acquiescing to a belief in Allah does not make one Islamophobic. Neither of these are a requirement of the Equality Act.

yes, this is what I have been saying. It is a belief system. Other belief systems are available.

You're assuming that cis women generally share common characteristics other than tits and wombs. Some women (yes xx cis women) don't have tits or wombs as they were born without them. Are they excluded from your "girl's club" too?

What a bizarre post. I really don't like to think of you being a midwife with that attitude towards women's bodies.

Women differ from men in every cell of our bodies. We're different from the skeleton up. A woman who has had a hysterectomy is no less female.

A bicycle with a missing seat is still a bicycle. It will never become a tractor.

I really don't like to think of you being a midwife with that attitude towards women's bodies

don't worry, she's almost certainly not a midwife.

One can only hope.

You're assuming that cis women generally share common characteristics other than tits and wombs. Some women (yes xx cis women) don't have tits or wombs as they were born without them. Are they excluded from your "girl's club" too?

I have never met a woman who was born with tits. Does this happen? Don't breast usually develop around puberty, and babies of either sex have pretty much identical chests?
As far as I'm aware, there is also no such thing as a "cis" woman. Either one is a woman or one is not and if one is, then "cis" means nothing.

Would be tempted to say flatly that you don’t believe in gender identity and many well respected scientists (Professors Cordelia Fine and Gina Rippon for example) agree with you. Others can use whatever pronouns they wish for you.

As far as I can make out the Equality Act was not very well drafted. Gender reassignment is not tightly defined. There's a mismatch between the EA 2010 and the GRA 2004. Possibly the hangover from the Blair government's breezy reassurance to Parliament that the GRA would only ever affect about 5000 people. It has - roughly 5000 GRCs issues since 2004, 1/3 to FtM and 2/3 to MtF - but now Stonewall et al are saying there could be half a million people under the trans umbrella. Rather a different ballgame and we could have done with a better definition of terms.

Some language is commonly used by one sex and not the other, and some people lie about their sex as well as their profession. It’s difficult to stay in character when you’re enraged.

Just sayin’!

That ‘midwife’ language is aggressive against women - stop that too

As a midwife, I know that all babies are born with breast tissue. babies with typically female anatomy usually have more and this may appear swollen at birth due to the hormonal surges in the perinatal period.

As a midwife, I would be sacked and struck off for posting any of the posts you all have about trans people.

As a midwife, protecting the chosen identity of the people I provide maternity care for is paramount to my role. That might mean addressing a cis woman by her name instead of "mum". It might mean correctly referring to a pregnant trans man as "he" and ensuring that everyone who he comes into contact with does too.

As a midwife, I know that often the partner(s)(yes, not everyone is monogamous) who can breastfeed often induce lactation (and we provide what information sources we can for this) to ensure the baby gets breast milk. Same with adoptive parents. Being a midwife means informing a pregnant trans man who ahs had "top surgery" that his baby does not have to be exclusively formula fed and his baby only having breastmilk is achievable too.

I used that language because you have all reduced womanhood to having a vagina and breasts or not having a penis. For me, my anatomy is not what defines my womanhood. It may have shaped my experiences, but not in a way that can be generalised so specifically that it excludes people who do not have the same anatomy as me, regardless of their assigned sex at birth.