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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to feel overwhelmed by non-binary, cancel culture, and woke society?

683 replies

FordSiesta · 08/02/2022 20:57

I've got to the stage where I feel quite apprehensive about the future. It just feels like there will be no 'men' or 'women' or 'boys' and 'girls' and everyone will need to conform to various gender identities and have to remember all the different ways people identify so as not to accidently offend anyone. I'm supportive of transgender people and understand people changing from male to female or vice versa but now there's all this non-binary stuff it's getting confusing.

All these things going on in this 'woke society' and if you aren't seen as wanting to conform with all this new stuff then the 'cancel culture' comes at you.

I just feel like I would be happy if there wasn't so much pressure placed on people to get pronouns correct if for millions of years we've used he/him and she/her and now we need to say they/them when we were taught in school they/them was plural.

I don't have kids yet but I do wonder if I did what the world would be like for them growing up.

AIBU for wanting to just continue with two genders?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
EeeICouldRipATissue · 08/02/2022 23:45

I haven’t called anyone a dick
I never said you had Confused

Quincythequince · 08/02/2022 23:45

@Smallkeys

Quincy What do you mean of course they are that’s why there are sex changes nobody would go through that trauma if they didn’t feel they had the wrongs bits or am I missing something ?
Humans can’t change sex.
Whitefire · 08/02/2022 23:45

@Blinky21

It's not a massive ask to remember how someone identifies is it? No more than remembering anything else fundamental about them. And as for woke cancel culture, stop reading the Daily Mail
If I knew someone well enough to know fundamental information about them, then yes I would possibly also remember their preferred pronouns. However Benni in the bank probably not so much.

However I'm more likely to be biffed on the nose for wrongly saying which football team they support, then getting a pronoun wrong.

DdraigGoch · 08/02/2022 23:46

@EeeICouldRipATissue

Don’t be so disingenuous A name is a proper noun! Completely different to the use of pronouns which are based on sex class

Ok, fair enough, point taken.
What about poster upthread though who says calls everyone by neutral pronouns?!
Don't you think that's a little weird, not to mention dick like behaviour if they were to know fine well that the person they were referring to didn't want neutral pronouns?!

The whole point of neutral pronouns is that they are neutral. If someone mentions me in the third person, they will usually use the appropriate sex-based pronoun. However it wouldn't be unheard of for me to be referred to as "they", particularly if the speaker wasn't certain who I was: "has the inspector been through yet?", "not yet, they should be here soon"
Quincythequince · 08/02/2022 23:46

@EeeICouldRipATissue

I haven’t called anyone a dick I never said you had Confused
Sorry, you’re right. I misread your post.

If someone called me they/them because they don’t want to call me a she - I would find it weird, but it’s not technically inaccurate.

The players rationale for doing so is 🤔

milkyaqua · 08/02/2022 23:47

You'd think, if people were being born into the wrong body, they would be being offered past life regression therapy to investigate, rather than chopping body parts off children and bombarding them with hormones in their developing years...

earsup · 08/02/2022 23:47

It's just a fast fashion....all nonsense....will be forgotten in a year or so and something else annoying will pop up....i dont understand it and not interested !

Enough4me · 08/02/2022 23:47

@Smallkeys you can only be born in one body. No one was meant to be born in another body and swapped before being carried in by a stork. We are who we are.

Them/they are not normal pronouns for individual females and males and to use them would cause stress. You'd know you're being watched. Your eyes would 'see' he, but you'd have to ignore the Adam's apple, voice, body shape, height, hand size, feet size, potentially beard and male pattern balding to say she or they/them.

Quincythequince · 08/02/2022 23:49

@Smallkeys

Quincy What do you mean of course they are that’s why there are sex changes nobody would go through that trauma if they didn’t feel they had the wrongs bits or am I missing something ?
And yes, I think you’re missing a bit of knowledge here, although I’m not the person to give it to you and there are very good sources out there which you can find.

Even mermaids no longer say a child is born into the wrong body!

Your body is your body. It’s not wrong.

Smallkeys · 08/02/2022 23:49

milkyaqua Well born in the wrong body thing is off topic anyway I just said I originally
Thought that’s what non binary was . and I don’t agree with young kids getting things done but I do firmly believe it happens in the way you can be born without a leg it stands to reason that kind of thing happens. As an adult they can be free to investigate and chop away.

Quincythequince · 08/02/2022 23:51

Yes I am very conversant with the English language, but that’s not why they/them pronouns are used in this context.

It’s not wrong to use they/them as you say. It’s crazy for me to insist on it because I say I am not either a he or she! I am one or the other.

Smallkeys · 08/02/2022 23:53

Quincy I think you know exactly what i mean even if saying wrong body is wrong which I wasn’t aware it was. As I said it’s off topic for here and I’m sorry I brought it up. It was just my response to an earlier poster saying they weren’t clear on what non binary was.

Furries · 08/02/2022 23:53

@Smallkeys

Quincy What do you mean of course they are that’s why there are sex changes nobody would go through that trauma if they didn’t feel they had the wrongs bits or am I missing something ?
You’re missing a lot more than the majority of men who say they are women - most of them aren’t missing anything.
PatterPaws · 08/02/2022 23:54

The world is becoming too confusing.

Why are we allowing young people to think they are in the wrong body?

If someone they identified as a hamster or a fairy, would we go along with that too?

Swear · 08/02/2022 23:54

It's ok if you know one person who wants different pronouns, but what about when you know 30, and it's not even always he, she or they? The amount of brain drain that goes on this crap. And it's not about being polite - it's about being condemned as a bigot and cancelled if you don't take this stuff extremely seriously. I'd never dream of expecting people to pay me that much attention. It's narcissistic, but with a whole load of bullies backing the narcissism up and feeding it.

housemaus · 08/02/2022 23:55

I am still yet to hear a clear answer as to what non-binary actually is.

quince I think if you look at it on a personal level - you and another person, not as a concept generally - then... does it matter? If you meet someone and they happen to ask you to refer to them in a way that you don't understand, would you not try anyway so as to be polite, as they've asked you to? I would. I have a friend who has recently asked us to use a new name for her, even though I've known her as her old name for a decade and her name change has (to us) come out of the blue, even if the reasons for it feel solid to her. It feels very unintuitive, and I've messed it up a number of times. But I try, and she appreciates it. If she turned round and asked me to refer to her as 'they', I would do exactly the same - it would be easier, more intuitive, more second-nature to call her 'she', but if I was asked not to I'd make a damn good effort to try.

I know it feels different, because one is a name and one is a pronoun, but in actual conversation, with a real person, the end result is precisely the same: either you try something with the intention of honouring what someone has asked, or you don't bother cos you don't agree with/understand why they're asking. It's not about being 'kind', it's about basic etiquette in conversation.

Quincythequince · 08/02/2022 23:57

@Smallkeys

Quincy I think you know exactly what i mean even if saying wrong body is wrong which I wasn’t aware it was. As I said it’s off topic for here and I’m sorry I brought it up. It was just my response to an earlier poster saying they weren’t clear on what non binary was.
No, I don’t know what you mean. Not liking your body doesn’t mean it’s ‘wrong’. It also doesn’t mean you get to say that you are actually the opposite sex and expect everyone to go along with it. If you can be the wrong sex and identify out of it, why not for age (men saying they’re actually a baby) skin colour (Rachel Dolezal), species (the wolf lady person on TV last week).

It is a form of mental illness that needs treating.

Swear · 08/02/2022 23:58

I have a teaching job where I'm given a list of students' names, but half of them tell me in the class that they like being called by a completely different name. This is not gender related. I spend the whole class shifting my brain between the names on the list and the preferred names, and it wastes time and affects the quality of my teaching. The pronoun stuff makes that a constant scenario for everyone.

Smallkeys · 08/02/2022 23:59

Well we will have to disagree people are born all different ways because we are a bundle of cells. Anyway let’s not sidetrack the post any more as it was about pronouns and their use !

BoredZelda · 08/02/2022 23:59

I just feel like I would be happy if there wasn't so much pressure placed on people to get pronouns correct if for millions of years we've used he/him and she/her and now we need to say they/them when we were taught in school they/them was plural

Can’t say I’ve ever felt pressure.

Do you think maybe your are overstating and over thinking and should just focus on your own life?

Quincythequince · 08/02/2022 23:59

@housemaus

I am still yet to hear a clear answer as to what non-binary actually is.

quince I think if you look at it on a personal level - you and another person, not as a concept generally - then... does it matter? If you meet someone and they happen to ask you to refer to them in a way that you don't understand, would you not try anyway so as to be polite, as they've asked you to? I would. I have a friend who has recently asked us to use a new name for her, even though I've known her as her old name for a decade and her name change has (to us) come out of the blue, even if the reasons for it feel solid to her. It feels very unintuitive, and I've messed it up a number of times. But I try, and she appreciates it. If she turned round and asked me to refer to her as 'they', I would do exactly the same - it would be easier, more intuitive, more second-nature to call her 'she', but if I was asked not to I'd make a damn good effort to try.

I know it feels different, because one is a name and one is a pronoun, but in actual conversation, with a real person, the end result is precisely the same: either you try something with the intention of honouring what someone has asked, or you don't bother cos you don't agree with/understand why they're asking. It's not about being 'kind', it's about basic etiquette in conversation.

No. I will not try to, nor feel I should have to be polite to people who attempt to remove my sex class

Never.

It is not basic etiquette to go along with something that is blatantly wrong and potentially damaging, just to be polite.

Goodness me!

Thatbliddywoman · 09/02/2022 00:00

I hate it.
I think it erases women
Especially lesbians (of which I am one).
I'd not date anyone with a penis. Even if their pronouns were she/her. This makes me a cunt, apparently.

Quincythequince · 09/02/2022 00:01

@Smallkeys

Well we will have to disagree people are born all different ways because we are a bundle of cells. Anyway let’s not sidetrack the post any more as it was about pronouns and their use !
If you can be born into the wrong body, then whose body are you in?

Where is your ‘right’ body?

Chopping bits off, or putting things into your body, in this context, doesn’t mean you can change sex

oviraptor21 · 09/02/2022 00:03

@FelicityBeedle

If you can remember someone’s name, you can remember their gender. The vast majority of people still identify within a binary male/female (it’s certain other groups who think trans man and trans woman make extra identities).

As for cancel culture, if you say something people don’t like, they stop listening to you. Isn’t that how it’s been forever?

That's not true at all. I have no problem at all remembering my colleague's new name but trying to remember they/them when they are clearly a she is very difficult.
Quincythequince · 09/02/2022 00:04

@Smallkeys

Well we will have to disagree people are born all different ways because we are a bundle of cells. Anyway let’s not sidetrack the post any more as it was about pronouns and their use !
Yes and our cells can all be identified as being male or female.
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