Friend wants to be known as 'they'

[namechangeindiana]

I know there's a lot of discussion about this going on at the moment, but I read the threads and don't understand a lot of the terminology. I haven't done a huge amount of reading about it, but I know that I feel uncomfortable with it and don't really 'get' it.

I keep forgetting and calling my friend 'she' or 'her'. This then ends in a minor heated discussion and me trying to defend the fact that it takes time for me to change the language I am used to using. I try, I really do. We have been friends for 24 years.

Has 'they/them' always been a thing? Am I completely awful for thinking it's strange and not being entirely comfortable with it?

Sorry if I sound naive or am posting something that has been done a million times. I've not thought about it much until now. Willing to learn and hear other people's views...

Preparing to be flamed...

I'm not at all a fan of compelled speech which is what the OPs "friend" is trying to do. It's understandable why this makes you feel uneasy OP.

Just speak how you wish. However your friend identifies she is still a female human. Imagine if we were compelled to use preferred pronouns for everyone? That way madness lies.

@suggestionsplease1

"It's nice, you think OP might find it useful, she very well may, I just wish those comments were aimed at OP, rather than at me, again, she is the one who requested opinions not me."

I personally suspect this thread has been constructed to elicit argumentation on this issue, rather than gain useful answers to the OP's original point.

What has resulted is unfortuately the increasing likelihood that the already vulnerable transgender population experience further marginalisation as people are advised to unfriend them.

I also note that we do not know the 'friend's' personal situation. They could be intersex and have been raised as one particular gender and come to discover that, medically/biologically, their situation is more complex than that and they would like other people to respect their newly-discovered situation.

I don't doubt the OP was (potentially?) genuine, but yes, I am not surprised that people chose to make it, yet again, a general thread about non-binary rather than sticking to the specific thread.

Thanks for pointing out that we actually no very little about the friend, that's a very valid point!

If history hadn't allocated certain behaviours/stereotypes etc to being male or female, then this wouldn't even be a thing. People would just be happy to be referred to being male or female. I know this is easy to say in hindsight, but people like to compartmentalise people. It's biological and it's how we are humans make sense of the world. To suddenly change it is difficult for people to adjust to and to get shouted at for it is obnoxious

Oh, fuck right off What a bloody nonsense.
YANBU.

They/them is what you use when you don't know someones gender so it is used often in everyday speech even if you don't have non-binary friends so just retrain yourself to think of that.

An example being if you have been refereed to Doctor Jones a new doctor at your surgery but haven't been told if they're a male or female doctor and so as not to make an assumption you just refer to them at they/them when speaking to other people. (As you can see in my sentence)

I also note that we do not know the 'friend's' personal situation. They could be intersex

That’s quite a reach.

@FamilyOfAliens

I also note that we do not know the 'friend's' personal situation. They could be intersex

That’s quite a reach.

Definitely enough to pull a muscle I’d say!

Those are stange examples. Surely of you are in the company of your friend and on phone to your mum, you would refer to your friend by their name.

So many people saying things like this.
But in conversation about someone it doesn’t work that way. The proper noun gets said once, after that we switch to the singular/possessive nominative.
“Hi Mum, can’t chat now, Debbie is here... yes I will give her your love.”
“Jane, this is Debbie. We worked together at NatWest - she was my boss actually.”

I’ve had a foster child who wanted to be ‘they’. Basically said gently (with the support of his social worker) that with another child in the house with speech and language impairment we needed to keep to the clear consistent grammatical rules of English. He grew out of the pronoun thing soon after when something else was cool at school.

I’d struggle with a friendship with someone who took offence at entirely natural slips of the tongue. Is it worth it?

OP, with the greatest respect, it’s not about you. Research the links between suicide rates and use of preferred names/pronouns. If you care about your friend then you’ll start remembering what they have asked of you.

that's a nasty and ridiculous comment.

It’s outrageous to suggest that the friend might killl themselves because OP has forgotten to use a pronoun she’s been using for decades!

It certainly is!

To those who are saying not to use 'they': how do you know this 'friend' is not intersex, has been raised as female and has recently discovered, due to medical investigations, that they have ovatestes.

This a revalation to them and their previously understood identity and they feel that female pronouns no longer accurately reflect who they are.

They are going through complex emotions, and don't want to discuss what they have learned with others just yet, but have asked those around them to use 'they' instead of female pronouns to reflect that their biology does not appear to be uniformly female any more.

Why would you not want to respect someone's request in that situation?

And the fact of the matter is - you don't know that it is not that situation. You don't have their medical report to discern what is going on for that person do you? But you are saying you are the one that gets to choose pronouns for them, not them.

And given that you never really know what is going on in such a situation as you don't generally have their medical reports in your back pocket, when someone asks you to change pronouns, isn't it nicer to just to try to respect what they are asking of you?

@NotBadConsidering

when using ''they'' is fairly common nowadays, which shows plenty of people have managed to do just that

Outside of Twitter and your circle of friends, it really isn’t.

I am not deluded into thinking OP would nor should care about my opinion, so why do you?

Why would the OP ask for opinions if they didn’t care about them? Why are you posting then?

I just wish those comments were aimed at OP, rather than at me, again, she is the one who requested opinions not me

Posts aren’t aimed at you, your posts are engaged with to discuss what you’ve written, either directly with you or indirectly to build the debate to better inform the OP, because that’s generally how AIBU works. Maybe we should draw a line under this, but if people post rubbish, then it’s within the rights of other posters to address it.

OP, I would not go to the very long difficult process of unlearning the language I have spoken for 40 years to instead partake in Newspeak just to validate a friend. If they were a good friend I would feel able to tell them straight that I was still their friend but I wasn’t going to validate them, they need to sort themselves out, and if they were a good friend back they wouldn’t expect me to comply and turn on the tears. If they didn’t want that, so be it.

And if they were a true friend I would welcome them back when they apologise for trying to force me to comply with their fad.

Where do you live? Where have you lived?

Saying it ''isn't'' because you don't see it happen in your doorstep is a little limiting, don't you think?

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, here ''they'' is absolutely common, and part of daily vocabulary (not saying absolutely everyone uses it, but I have yet to meet someone who say they struggle with it here and wouldn't use it when appropriate).

The point about my opinion is because YOU seem to have felt offended on behalf of the OP by the fact that I would find ending a friendship over someone pronoun's ''shallow'', as if OP would care, like everybody else on mumsnet OP will take the advice she wants to take and will leave the rest, I am under no illusion that she feels she need my (or anybody's) approval, I am being realistic that while she has asked for opinion, my opinion has no more value than anybody else's and can't imagine she would care what I thought of her even if I did dare use the word ''shallow'', I am stranger on the internet after all. Who cares?

As for using my post to better inform the OP (even though we agree in principle and there was no misinformation in my post nor any information in fact...), not really sure what there is to ''inform'' the OP, about the situation is pretty ''clear-cut'', her friend wants to be called ''they'' OP doesn't want to and feel uncomfortable, the correct answer: ''Don't do anything you don't want to do, if you don't feel comfortable, walk away. '' (there was no need for personal opinion about non-binary really, though I know mumsnet can't help it!)

I agree we should draw the line under this, what's rubbish to some might be valuable information to others, after all. ;)

@NotBadConsidering

Please don’t @ me. I don’t like it, and I would ask you to respect how I wish to be referred. If I was narcissistic I would make you refer to me if a more specific way, but I’m not, so I won’t.

The friend is compelling the OP by being upset with her. It’s emotional blackmail.

It’s not tone deaf to call it privilege. I read this week that 280,000 women and girls in Somalia will be subject to FGM this year alone. Not a single one of them will have the privilege of saying:

“Oh actually, I’m like, non-binary now? So my genitals are neither male OR female, so you can’t mutilate me right now. If I decide I do identify as female, I’ll let you know, but until then, please tell the other men that they should call me ‘they’ when your discussing me. Thanks.”

Imagine telling them there are women and girls in the West who get upset with their friends for saying “she”. It stinks of privilege to me.

This with enormous brass bells on.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area

Course you do. It’s always surprises woke Americans when they find out what the rest of the world thinks of this bullshit. Think they’re so progressive to disregard the realities of sex. Look at the JK Rowling pile on. All liberal American led.

The point about my opinion is because YOU seem to have felt offended on behalf of the OP by the fact that I would find ending a friendship over someone pronoun's ''shallow'

And you also called the OP a bad friend for not complying. I’m not offended at all. I just can’t stand the judgemental attitude of people who think this sort of nonsense defines the good and bad in a person. Failing to use address a person with an incorrect pronoun does not make them a bad friend, person, parent or anything. Not attempting to try does not make someone a bad friend, regardless of whether it’s easy, hard, willing or not. And it IS judgemental, don’t pretend it isn’t. Try walking around the San Francisco Bay Area for a week calling people by their correct pronouns regardless and I guarantee you’ll be abused and called a bigot. So progressive .

To those who are saying not to use 'they': how do you know this 'friend' is not intersex, has been raised as female and has recently discovered, due to medical investigations, that they have ovatestes.

Because that situation is glancingly rare, whereas woke crybullying is fully on trend right now.

And seriously, if the friend had discovered something so troubling, and had a perfectly valid reason to make this change then, they would take the time to give a tiny bit of explanation to the OP about why it was upsetting, because you don’t ask friends to make difficult and rather unreasonable changes without giving them some hint as to why. Again, this is an adult, not a teenager.

I usually just use Spivak gender-neutral pronouns for everyone How on god's earth do some people actually communicate these days?

Everyone has theior own mangled version of every day terms and uses them, regardless of any help or hindrance they may be to clear communication.

It's like the reduction of human interaction aided by mobile technology has eradicated the need for any 2-way communication. All that is needed is virtue signalling and corresponding Likes!

What next for the stunning and brave. Real life flags, a denial of tehcnology... like erm, semaphor maybe?

@MadameMersault
Imagine for example that they have been sexually assault and are so traumatised that they want to deny their gender as a result, as these things are generally things that happen to women. Would you really want to compound their trauma by not going along with their wishes?

I have been sexually assaulted and as a result have wished on numerous occasions to remove my breasts and mutilate my vagina, to appear completely gender-free. Anyone supporting that would be engaging in and reinforcing a delusion. It is not my body that caused the assaults. It is the perpetrators.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, here ''they'' is absolutely common, and part of daily vocabulary (not saying absolutely everyone uses it, but I have yet to meet someone who say they struggle with it here and wouldn't use it when appropriate).

And?

There are lots of places in the world where people do things which aren't exactly brilliant and are in denial of reality.

Should we be congratulating them for it?

Nope.

This isn't 'progressive'. It's self indulgent utter nonsense because of entrenching of gender stereotypes and this reinforces that.

Sorry but 'no thanks, I don't believe in this and do not wish to participate in your little fantasy' is a perfectly valid response to this utter nonsense.

@NotBadConsidering

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area

Course you do. It’s always surprises woke Americans when they find out what the rest of the world thinks of this bullshit. Think they’re so progressive to disregard the realities of sex. Look at the JK Rowling pile on. All liberal American led.

The point about my opinion is because YOU seem to have felt offended on behalf of the OP by the fact that I would find ending a friendship over someone pronoun's ''shallow'

And you also called the OP a bad friend for not complying. I’m not offended at all. I just can’t stand the judgemental attitude of people who think this sort of nonsense defines the good and bad in a person. Failing to use address a person with an incorrect pronoun does not make them a bad friend, person, parent or anything. Not attempting to try does not make someone a bad friend, regardless of whether it’s easy, hard, willing or not. And it IS judgemental, don’t pretend it isn’t. Try walking around the San Francisco Bay Area for a week calling people by their correct pronouns regardless and I guarantee you’ll be abused and called a bigot. So progressive .

I am NOT American, but good try, I have also lived in plenty of other places and continents. My experience isn't limited to my current living situation but it allows me to be able to say and grasp that ''it's not because something doesn't happen on my doorstep that it isn't a thing''.

You don't see much racism in SF yet it doesn't change that the US has a massive problem with racism. Me not seeing it as much where I am at doesn't mean it isn't happening on a bigger scale than what is available to me.

Yes, I said OP is a bad friend for doing something she knows hurts her friend, repeatedly and not being honest about the fact that it's more that she would rather not do it.

I never said I wasn't judgmental or couldn't be judgmental, I expressly said I would find breaking a friendship over it, shallow, surely that means I would judge her. I acknowledge that, and have acknowledged that, I also acknowledged I don't expect OP to care though it's obvious YOU do. Don't pretend you judging me and people like me, or ''woke Americans" (or whoever else you dislike) is any less judgmental though. You can decide whatever you think constitute a good or bad friend to you and I can do that for myself too.

I would expect to be told off by people for purposefully using words I have been expressly told not by them not to use to refer to them yes, I don't have a problem with it, I would fee equally pissed if someone kept calling me ''he'' when I say I am ''she''. I would have no issue from people if it was a genuine mistakes though, I have definitely used the wrong pronouns before knowing which pronouns someone used and nobody was ever rude, I was just politely told the pronouns the person prefer and corrected myself.

I wouldn't get shit in SF for using she to refer to someone I don't who appears as female at first sight, I would definitely get shit for continuing to use ''she'' after being told by the person they would rather I did not. But then that would just be me trying to be mean surely, so they would be justified?

How is insisting I continue to use a word I know someone dislikes and will get upset about in any way more progressive and less abusive than being requested to use another pronoun they feel comfortable with and being told off for purposefully being a dick?

I DO hope I get called off everytime I am trying to be smart/smug and hurt someone's feelings repeatedly just to prove a point.

The same way I would hope people stood up for me if someone was trying to do something like that about any part of me.

So I've now read all five pages, and I'm still bemused at the fury that people feel when someone asks them to use a different pronoun. The refusal to even countenance such a thing is just bizarre. You'd think people had been asked to give up some basic human right. It's a word. There's no 'lie' involved as some people seem to think. And the 'dump your friend, she's too much trouble' thing? Over one word that you won't need to use that often?

I agree that OP's friend needs to be more tolerant of slip ups, but otherwise I still fail to see many posters' problem. They seem to be massively affronted by a simple request.

Kudos to Linning for some excellent posts, and being prepared to bash her head against a brick wall.

@AnyOldPrion

To those who are saying not to use 'they': how do you know this 'friend' is not intersex, has been raised as female and has recently discovered, due to medical investigations, that they have ovatestes.

Because that situation is glancingly rare, whereas woke crybullying is fully on trend right now.

And seriously, if the friend had discovered something so troubling, and had a perfectly valid reason to make this change then, they would take the time to give a tiny bit of explanation to the OP about why it was upsetting, because you don’t ask friends to make difficult and rather unreasonable changes without giving them some hint as to why. Again, this is an adult, not a teenager.

It doesn't matter that it's rare. It only matters that it is a possibility. A possibility that apparently is acceptable to be walked over and disrespected.

A person newly discovering this situation for themselves is under no obligation to reveal this to other people - it is entirely unsurprising that they wouldn't, close friend or not.

And again, using 'they' instead of sex specific pronouns is not a difficult change for anyone of average ability to get their heads around in time.

ravensoaponarope

Again, cutting people off on the basis of the way they want to be referred as or words they use to refer to themselves is your prerogative, language is an ever evolving thing, the correct way of speaking in 1789 is different to 1950

It's not just about the language though. It's about the ideology tht goes along with this and forcing people to deny the reality of the situation. People are not disparaging about "they" simply because it's awkward grammatically, it's what it represents.

I'm seriously hoping this is just a fad that will disappear in time when enough people have debunked it publicly. That should weed out those doing it for attention. Those suffering with mental illness who continue to believe they are not the sex they were born as should be given the proper help they require, not simply given a new pronoun.

I am NOT American, but good try

I never said you were. But you’re surrounded by them and those that think it’s “normal”.

I would expect to be told off by people for purposefully using words I have been expressly told not by them not to use to refer to them yes, I don't have a problem with it, I would fee equally pissed if someone kept calling me ''he'' when I say I am ''she''

I wouldn’t expect to be told off, and if I was I wouldn’t care. If a person kept calling you “he” when you actually are a “she”, an adult human female, then that someone would be wrong. But if you’d told that someone you were a “she” but you are actually a “he”, an adult human male, then my sympathies would be with that someone who you’re trying to make lie.

I was just politely told the pronouns the person prefer and corrected myself

Bonkers. You may has have written

“I was just politely asked to lie and I went along with it”.

Good for you if it makes you happy. I won’t lie and the OP should know that there is no obligation to, despite the trend to do so in the San Francisco Bay Area.

@RedToothBrush

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, here ''they'' is absolutely common, and part of daily vocabulary (not saying absolutely everyone uses it, but I have yet to meet someone who say they struggle with it here and wouldn't use it when appropriate).

And?

There are lots of places in the world where people do things which aren't exactly brilliant and are in denial of reality.

Should we be congratulating them for it?

Nope.

This isn't 'progressive'. It's self indulgent utter nonsense because of entrenching of gender stereotypes and this reinforces that.

Sorry but 'no thanks, I don't believe in this and do not wish to participate in your little fantasy' is a perfectly valid response to this utter nonsense.

And we both agree on the last part (not the wording as likely not the best way for OP to end a friendship she might care about).

Nobody should feel forced to do anything they don't want to do. That's why I have stated it is a perfectly acceptable answer and that's the answer the OP should have given to her friend from the get go if that's how she feels instead of being dishonest about supporting them, nobody is forcing her to take part, if she can't/don't want to do it she should ABSOLUTELY be honest and step-away.

Nobody is asking you to support or not support non-binary folks, or what happens in other/specific countries. The point was that you can NOT support something yet it doesn't stop it from happening or being a thing. Nobody is invalidating your right to walk away from any friendship/situation you feel uncomfortable in, your choice is valid as is everybody else's.

Good post Colom