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...

It's a weird misunderstanding of how language works. People have control over the words they choose including pronouns. It's part of freedom of speech. You wouldn't need any pronoun except "you" when talking to your friend. When she's out of earshot, say what you like! She doesn't own you!

And if pronouns are a dealbreaker for her, she can't think much of your friendship.

@Thisismytimetoshine

Nope.

I am responding to the OP.

I might as well say that you, and many others on this thread are insistent on bringing trans issues into a thread about intersex/DSD identity, given that we have no idea of the status of the 'friend' referred to.

In which case isn't what you're doing a bit disrespectful to intersex/DSD people?

You seem to have fundamentally misunderstood, suggestion.
Where on earth did you get the notion that this was a thread about intersex people?

Why shouldn't it be a thread about intersex people? Why can't the friend be intersex/ DSD?

People seem to be erroneously assuming this is an individual who is maybe following a fad, or perhaps transgender, or in any event doesn't see themselves as binary male / female.

Why are these assumptions being made?

This debate is about deluded individuals who think it's okay to bully people into gaslighting themselves by using language that doesn't make sense.

In a nutshell.

Why shouldn't it be a thread about intersex people? Why can't the friend be intersex/ DSD?
Oh, for the love of God; NotBadConsidering has just explained it to you. Again.
Give over and bang a different drum, please, this is ridiculous. Or if you want a thread about intersex people, start one.
I won't be posting on it.

@NotBadConsidering

Can someone please address this post?

It’s been addressed multiple times suggestionsplease1: the answer is

• It’s statistically highly improbable to a factor of millions to billions
• It doesn’t matter because the OP is still not obliged to call their friend they if they are perceived as a she
• no one thinks your attempt to drag intersex into it is clever, accurate, or relevant

So give it a rest eh?

It’s statistically highly improbable to a factor of millions to billions

Factually innaccaurate.

It doesn’t matter because the OP is still not obliged to call their friend they if they are perceived as a she

Hugely disrespectful to intersex/DSS individuals

no one thinks your attempt to drag intersex into it is clever, accurate, or relevant

Can you please clarify why it is my attempt to bring intersex/DSD issues into trans issues, rather that yours and others attempts to bring trans issues into intersex/DSD issues?

@Thisismytimetoshine

How many Intersex people do you know who present as one sex whilst insisting they're actually the opposite, suggestion? Or insist that they don't have a sex at all? I wish these people could be left out of these ridiculous arguments; 99.9% of people (if not 100%) demanding to be referred to as "they" have genitalia in line with their sex, with no ambiguity whatsoever. Leave intersex people alone, they're not part of this crap.

This, indeed. I don’t think suggestions is aware of just how interphobic they are coming across, in their appropriation and complete misrepresentation of the issues of people with DSDs in order to make a point on the side of transactivism.

Really vile weaponisation of those people and their often traumatic histories by someone who is clearly not part of that community, nor remotely interested in them for their own sakes. Only as a cheap gotcha.

(Yes, I am using they singular, because I don’t know the sex of this poster.)

Kindly educate yourself and take your interphobia elsewhere, suggestions.

What is your obsession with intersex issues? You are literally the only one on the thread pressing this, it's downright weird.

suggestionsplease1
What are you on about?! Where has the OP stated the friend is intersex?!
Let's not pretend that the vast VAST majority of language police at the moment come from the intersex community. We all know that isn't the case.

Please can someone advise how the 'friend' in question in the OP can be discerned to be intersex/DSD or transgender

Most people's sex is entirely obvious. Where that person for example has given birth, they have only one possible sex. Why the silly arguments that this person might just be of ambiguous biological sex when it's clearly a straightforward case of narcissism?

I read somewhere a non-binary person saying people who refuse to use their preferred pronouns "are not putting in the effort to change how they perceive me". But that’s the problem. I can change how I perceive what you’re like as a person, but I can’t change how I perceive what you actually physically are. I can perceive that you might be having difficulties, might be having distress etc, and want to support that, and that isn’t negated by the fact I see you as female still - that cannot be undone, its perception cannot be changed because it’s an immutable fact.

No matter how much effort people put in, their perception of physical reality will not change. If someone is complying with your pronoun request, they haven’t started to see you differently, they are just giving you the false impression they have. How can that be healthy?

@TalkingtoLangClegintheDark can you please point out where I have said anything that could be considered 'interphobic'?

My general point is, when you don't know a person's situation or biological reality, don't insist on using pronouns that may misrepresent that biological reality when they have asked you not to, and bear in mind you have no right to their medical reports to allow you to try to establish their possible DSD status.

[quote suggestionsplease1]@TalkingtoLangClegintheDark can you please point out where I have said anything that could be considered 'interphobic'?

My general point is, when you don't know a person's situation or biological reality, don't insist on using pronouns that may misrepresent that biological reality when they have asked you not to, and bear in mind you have no right to their medical reports to allow you to try to establish their possible DSD status.[/quote]
What you're saying is to assume that someone is intersex, even though the chance of that is 1 in 2000? Rather than assume they're jumping on the trans bandwagon? Not likely...

What you're saying is to assume that someone is intersex, even though the chance of that is 1 in 2000? Rather than assume they're jumping on the trans bandwagon? Not likely...

Nope, I am not saying that. I am saying make no assumptions, and when in a situation of uncertainty try to act in the best way according to the understanding that you don't have the relevant knowledge.

are not putting in the effort to change how they perceive me".
See, I don't even understand the point there.
You have changed how you perceive yourself, how I perceive you hasn't changed at all. Why should it?

Perception is literally instinctive, you can't be instructed to perceive something in a certain way, even if that way was actually going to be beneficial to you. Mental Health professionals will testify to that, I dare say.
You feel what you feel. Free will, and all that.
My mind is not available for control by anybody else.

How common is intersex? twitter.com/zaelefty/status/1272637611241361410?s=21

All those saying people are dicks for not using 'preferred pronouns'..can I ask something?

I actually eventually stopped speaking to a friend of a friend over pronouns. And not because of any of this compelled speech stuff, or saying they were narcisitic, or anything like that. The reason was because he wanted to be referred to as..it. Seriously. It/that.

Would you call someone using those terms? It made me feel awkward as fuck and as such I simply avoided him. Seems a lot of others did too. Really realy felt horrific..I did attempt it a few times but..felt very very wrong and I cannot imagine many being happy describing another human as it? Plus if anyone overheard a conversation it would be assumed that people were being horrible about this person and maybe even phobic..by using the term they have been asked to use

It/that seems one of the less common ones, but I have came across a few people since who want to be described as it. And I just..can't. I don't think any of my actual close mates would ask this, but if they did, fuck knows what I would do as I just cannot bring myself to speak of another person in such a dehumanizing way, yet its apparently dehumanizing to NOT call them it!

Switching he to she and such I have done before, but again, it takes a while to get it consistently 'right' if you have known the person a while. Would be the same for they. I tend to, if I keep fucking up on pronouns, just use names instead all the time instead of she/he/they. But I have once been told off for that too as apparently using someones name instead of their chosen pronoun is refusing to see them how they want to be seen. So it does kind of seem..its hard to 'win' with a fair few people.

Also, its not uncommon for pronouns to change a lot. My cousin is transsexual and wanted she for a long time which is fair enough. Then randomly had a period of he. Then she again. The difference with her and a lot of these new 'non binary' types though was she didn't go off it when someone got it wrong..she didn't make a scene, or try and make people feel guilty about it. Still doesn't, even though shes been on she for about 3 years now, some slip up and she just laughs or ignores it. Surely thats the way to do it, rather than screamy fits and tears that some of the 'gender neutral' people today seem to use instead..

refusing to see them how they want to be seen.
Again; nobody gets to police how they're "seen" by other people. The arrogance .

All I can think of now is

“It puts the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose again”.

I agree, it's not possible to control how others perceive you, and the bigger the gap between what you claim to be and what they see you as the more inauthentic they will understand you as being. Cognitive dissonance is not a comfortable feeling.

The problem is that the person who's asking you to change your language, and then policing that change, is likely to find themselves increasingly isolated.

So why is it so difficult and 'unfair' to adapt to saying they, but for centuries British people have been capable of changing from Miss to Mrs.? Or adopting to use their friend's new surname?

Again, people keep insisting on correctly identifying someone's sex without making a single argument as to why this would be relevant to most conversations, or how they would do this without relying on gender stereotypical behaviour and looks. Women commonly have short hair and men long, women wear trouser suits, especially younger men use makeup and beauty products etc.

Most people don't require stereotypes to tell if someone is male or female

So why is it so difficult and 'unfair' to adapt to saying they, but for centuries British people have been capable of changing from Miss to Mrs.? Or adopting to use their friend's new surname?

Because pronouns are descriptors of physical realities that don’t change, whereas honorifics and surnames are descriptors of social status, which does change.

The vast majority of people don’t need stereotypes to identify a person’s sex.

Actually, slightly related.I have been told on a few occasions that I am not non-bonary/agender, I am 'clearly cis'. Such people would obviously not comply if I were so say my pronouns are now they/them..as for some reason MY gender identity is not real..though we are meant to not assume and ask people their gender. Since being piled on on another forum for saying technically I an non-bonary/agender..I have wondered this..who decides whos 'gender identity' is 'valid'? As it seems very common for activist type to say wmen are cis and thats all they will ever be, that they are very obviously cisgender..and so on. Very very common with transactivist types, and the kind of non binary people who cry over a 'wrong' pronoun every once in a while..to disregard the identity of others in order to shove them into the neat little 'cis' boxes..why? As if it turned out that most of the world was nonbinary it wouldn't be a super special thing anymore, wouldn't be a way to get attention after your friend who you have known 20 years accidentally referenced your sex? Hmm.

Luckily, people who realise its actually quite difficut to start using the opposite/a different pronoun seem to be just as common as the ones who scream and cry if you get it wrong. I find it easier to ignore the screechy ones in all honesty, and just talk to the ones who are sesible and non attention seeking.

Who decides if your gender identity is valid?

Normally a male person. If not possible than the youngest person