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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

838 replies

AlphaBites · 10/07/2019 21:46

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. Hmm

I don't want to.

Can I fight this somehow?

OP posts:
Jellylegsni · 14/07/2019 14:35

I go by they/them, so I'd appreciate people actually... using my preferred pronouns. I hate when people have an agenda to use she/her and give me dysphoria on top of what I already have.

Nobody got dysphoria from being called "he/she" instead of "they" 20 years ago.

thedancingbear · 14/07/2019 14:42

FFS. The words 'petty intolerance' spring to mind.

And I say that as someone who is gender-critical.

MarshaBradyo · 14/07/2019 14:45

Be tolerant of they

Juells · 14/07/2019 14:52

thedancingbear

FFS. The words 'petty intolerance' spring to mind.

And I say that as someone who is gender-critical.

How come the words that sprang to your mind weren't 'controlling behaviour'? This is all about "be nice".

SlocombePooter · 14/07/2019 14:53

jelly but once a few people start saying they're triggered by being mis- pronouned, the offence will become widespread by social contagion.

It's a bit like reading about a new disease, the most suggestible will suddenly feel they have the symptoms.

It seems like a spreading psychic hypochondria!

Juells · 14/07/2019 14:54

Posted too soon... 'gender neutral' toilets for the laydeez is the next step after preferred pronouns.

SlocombePooter · 14/07/2019 14:57

And of course people who were maybe bullied at school can get revenge later in life by joining a big new Stonewall gang. Not that I don't feel sorry for dysphoric people but there are limits to accommodating their demands.

CharlieParley · 15/07/2019 23:02

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.

Bollocks. Both male and female newborns may have swollen breasts within a few days after birth. In fact, this phenomenon, which is indeed caused by the maternal hormones baby was exposed to in the womb, is so common that it is present, to varying degrees, in 70%, I repeat seventy percent of all newborns. Not just female babies. And newborns of both sexes present with identical chests, swollen or not.

How can a midwife not know this?

WaxOnFeckOff · 15/07/2019 23:18

Also very common for boys beginning puberty to have swollen breast tissue. Honestly, I think it's half these hormonal changes in boys and girls that have them deciding they are "in the wrong body". I've lost count of the number of kids who were "tomboys" or "sensitive" who turned out as adults to be perfectly average individuals matching their sex. Sometimes they were gay, probably in the exact same proportion of kids who were more typical in their "gendered" behaviours.

It's like everything, there is a spectrum for sexuality and also for behaviours and how susceptible you are to societal gender stereotypes.

I think there are probably lots of people living perfectly average heterosexual lives that are not 100% heterosexual and a whole scale of masculine to feminine behaviours as well. I don't carry a handbag, rarely wear a skirt or dress, quite like diy and can't sew, does that mean I'm a man trapped in a woman's body...?

Fibbke · 16/07/2019 11:30

A midwife who thinks baby girls are born with 'tits'

Yeah right pull the other one love.

OhTheRoses · 16/07/2019 20:12

I think the hormonal at birth link is accurate. The problem is that as more and more is delegated to midwives and nurses who do not have the rigorous training of Drs or the breadth of raw intellect that leads to the 3/4 A* A'Levels that allow entry to that training, then take away the innate curiosity of the hyper bright, then one has very mediocre, vocationally qualified and trained individuals espousing all sorts of claptrap without the intellect to support further research.

Thatoneoverthere · 18/07/2019 00:18

Hahahahahahahahahahaha OhTheRoses plenty of bright people spout shit, as Dr Dina said
'If you didn’t know, people can be intelligent - even brilliant - in some ways, and as stupid as a bag of hair in others. Intelligence doesn’t = good judgement. Intelligence & business acumen doesn’t = emotional health. Keep this in mind as you assess people in influential roles'

pallisers · 18/07/2019 00:45

I think the hormonal at birth link is accurate. The problem is that as more and more is delegated to midwives and nurses who do not have the rigorous training of Drs or the breadth of raw intellect that leads to the 3/4 A A'Levels that allow entry to that training, then take away the innate curiosity of the hyper bright, then one has very mediocre, vocationally qualified and trained individuals espousing all sorts of claptrap without the intellect to support further research.*

What does this mean? It isn't nurses performing surgery on young adults who think they are in the wrong body. It isn't nurses prescribing medicine to them. It is doctors.

CalishataFolkart · 18/07/2019 01:06

Nobody got dysphoria from being called "he/she" instead of "they" 20 years ago.

Yes we did, we just didn’t tell anyone.

CharlieParley · 18/07/2019 01:26

OhtheRoses

I think the hormonal at birth link is accurate.

I take it you mean by that that it is indeed accurate that the swelling of the breast tissue of newborns is caused by exposure to a flush of maternal hormones in the womb just before birth the purpose of which is the preparation of the baby's lungs for breathing air.

That is not why I said bollocks. I said bollocks to the bizarre claim that baby girls are born with more breast tissue than boys, that this breast tissue appears swollen at birth and that it only occurs in female neonates.

Bollocks to the first claim, because no differences in breast tissue between male and female neonates are observed at birth, these develop with puberty. Until then their chests present the same.

(Although there is a suggestion in the literature - which is quite sparse - that in female neonates presenting with a higher grade of swelling and a discharge (aka witches' milk), mastitis may be more common than in male neonates).

Bollocks to the second claim that the swelling is present at birth - it can typically only be seen within the first few days of life ie after birth.

Bollocks to the third claim, that it occurs only in baby girls. Both sexes are affected by the sudden drop in hormones. And it's even more common than I thought. Depending on what research you're looking at it is prevalent in 65% to 90%(!) of newborns.

Butters83 · 24/07/2019 12:37

Can I ask why it bothers you? It doesn't effect you in any way. I see quite a few companies adopt this policy now which just means as part of an email signature it says 'She/Her' etc.
You could argue it was a little bit virtue signalling from the company but also - if it makes just one person feel more comfortable at work, why not let it slide?

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 24/07/2019 13:17

It affects me because it gives credence to the toxic gender stereotyping of the trans movement, and to the theory that being a woman is just a feeling - this means that biological men can violate the boundaries of biological women with impunity.

Someone who calls themselves 'she/her' but still has male genitalia can use the bathroom next to a biological woman or a girl. They can insist that women working from their own homes providing intimate waxing to women only must wax their 'lady cock and lady balls' or face an expensive law suit. They can hang around in the ladies' loos and changing rooms with impunity, hoping to see tampon strings hanging down, and even hoping to be approached for advice from a pre-teen girl who has her first period and wants help with a tampon - which this biologically male person wants to give - practical help.

It leads to biological men declaring themselves to be lesbians, and wanting biologically female lesbians to have sex with them - penetrative sex with their 'lady penis'. It leads to people saying that lesbians should get over their genital fetish and they can learn to cope just fine with penis - well - forgive me, but shouldn't sex be mindblowingly good, not just something you can cope with?

It leads to biologically male athletes, who are second rate in the mens' divisions identifying as women and beating all the biologically female competitors, because they have the advantages of strength, muscle mass, lung capacity, stamina, bone density etc that comes from growing up male. Women, biological women, lose out on college places in the USA because they get beaten by these trans women athletes. The trans women take the records and the prizes, and the women have no chance whatsoever against them.

It leads to biologically male prisoners being housed with vulnerable women in women's prisons, where they can sexually abuse and rape these women. It leads to violent crimes committed by biological males being reported as female crimes because the criminal 'feels female'.

It leads to children being told that playing with dolls, liking pink and disliking sports makes you female, and that if you happen to have male genitalia, you are in the wrong body and should be given puberty blockers which will have a direct negative impact on your intellectual development, which are not licensed for use in gender dysphoria, and whose longterm effects are not known. They claim to be reversible, but they may well not be. A child who goes on them might end up a permanent pre-teen - stunted physically and intellectually, just because they liked stereotypically girly things or boyish things.

If a boy does have genuine gender dysphoria, the puberty blockers will mean that their genitalia do not develop, so when they want the bottom surgery to go from male to female, their penis will be too small to be inverted to make a neo-vagina, so the surgeon will have to use other tissue - maybe bowel - to create this artificial opening. This may not heal properly, and if it does, they will need to keep it clean and use dilators every day, otherwise it will close up. But they are being told that this neo-vagina does everything a true vagina does - even though it has no ability to contract as a vagina does during orgasm, cannot self-clean or self lubricate, and will not remain patent without daily intervention.

So, in my view, this pronoun thing is the thin end of a very nasty and dangerous wedge.

Google Jonathon Yanniv/Jessica Yanniv, to find out about the Canadian beauticians they are suing, because they will not wax JY's scrotum - because they are not trained to do so, and because they work in their own homes and do not want to wax male genitalia (because doing so requires handling the male genitalia which is agains their religion and/or causes sexual arousal in the person being waxed who, according to expert witness, may well ask for 'relief' and get abusive when this is refused - something no woman working alone in her own home should be forced to accept). JY is also the person who has blogged about seeing 'naked tits and pussies' in ladies' changing rooms, and wants to know if they could help a pre-teen girl insert her first tampon.

Jazz Jennings is a trans girl who was on puberty blockers so didn't have enough penis to make a neo-vagina, so bowel was used, which broke down and caused post-op complications. Jazz will never be a real female and now can never revert to being male either, even if they are desperate to do so.

Satterthwaite · 24/07/2019 13:27

👏👏👏

Thank you SGDT

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 24/07/2019 13:35

Blush - thank you!

EmpressLesbianInChair · 24/07/2019 13:49

StarStarStar SGDT StarStarStar

SlocombePooter · 24/07/2019 13:55

Genius great post!

ethelfleda · 24/07/2019 13:57

SDTG
Yup. Think you’ve about covered it!

DexyMidnight · 24/07/2019 14:01

SDTG wow just wow.

Copied and saved to my phone to give me strength in these fucked up times

Butters83 · 24/07/2019 14:07

wow this thread is depressing.

feelingverylazytoday · 24/07/2019 14:08

Wow this thread is depressing
Don't read it then.