Pronouns - Can someone remind me why we are against this in emails

[landantan]

Hi

Can someone remind me why some people (likely myself included) does not agree with stated pronouns in email signatures?

It is being requested at work from the perspective of being a small step to being an ally to LGBTQ+ community.

I just think it is a bit pointless and whilst I have nothing against this or any other community I cannot see what knowing or sharing pronouns really does apart from make you look like a bit of a tit.

Can someone offer a more articulate explanation please?

I’m against it as I believe you are a he or a she , all this non binary nonsense is just folk who crave attention

So you and I are pretty much in the same boat.

Cool.

So what was so ignorant, disrespectful, alienating of transpeople about my posts again? That necessitated all the shouty capitals?

Oh and 'cold'. Let's not forget that one.

"if only trans people use preferred pronouns in their signatures to avoid being misgendered, it singles them out as being trans"

That might work a bit in email, but they are used face to face too and in that case people are going to know anyway when their pronouns don't match their sex.

It is ridiculous for all the reasons stated above.

And it should be optional- just like Mrs/Miss/Ms is these days. I don’t sign off my emails with my marital status- why would I? But those who want to can go right ahead. I also do using off telling people my religion, disability status or anything else. Because it is irrelevant to my job.

Nothing like this should be mandated. Some people just get the greatest thrill in telling everyone else how to love their lives (hint: it’s not the feminists reacting to this bullshit it’s the people dictating it and then having a tantrum when people say no- usually by screaming about literal violence and using suicide stats as a stick to beat people with).

Also we don't ask everyone to wear a fat suit to make overweight people (like me) stand out less or make everyone typo a lot to protect dyslexic people.

when it comes to things like spaces, sports, prisons etc I'm sure we (and my trans friend) would bloody agree

Telling us you and your friend would bloody agree with us on things like spaces, sports, prisons etc is sadly not going to make any difference, because we are not the people who are trying to take them away. You need to tell them.

Are you and your friend out there on the TRA online spaces telling them?

Because until people like you, who agree with pronouns and #BeKind but not the wholesale replacement of sex by gender, actually step up to say so, TRAs are going to portray the public's support for pronouns and politely pretending sex can be changed as public support for their whole kit and kaboodle.

Sadly I agree with you - lots of people are fine with being homophobic misogynists and going along with ideology promoted by an aggressive lobby group, and signalling that by displaying pronouns.

I am almost 62.
I have enjoyed every minute of being a woman and have never felt discriminated against. I have worked for all but 7 of the last 42 years. I have worked in male dominated and female dominated organisations. Whilst I have come across the occasional sexist, misogynistic git, they have never bothered me unduly, they have felt a hard stare and have never stood in my way.

I don't give two hoots what anyone else thinks. I don't mind gender neutral bogs, providing a hospital ward were clean, the staff polite and others generally well behaved I don't care whether the patients are women or not (obviously not gynae wards) and have never felt the need to have 100% female spaces just as I don't think men should have 100% male spaces. It's sexist.

"and have never felt the need to have 100% female spaces just as I don't think men should have 100% male spaces. It's sexist."

What about prisons or DV refuges @RosesAndHellebores?

Well yes indeed @Marynotsocontrary. I'm not acquainted with either so didn't think of them. You are quite right of course.

I really don't get this... I couldn't give a toss what people call me when I'm not there, as long as I'm called by my name when being spoken to in person.

That is great for you. But do you want to take away that choice for other women.

Like the woman recently that was told that there were no female only rape crisis meetings in her area and that she had no right to complain about someone very obviously male turning up to her meetings.

Now that is sexist.

This is not about the Freemasons or the bar at the golf club. It’s about female inmates being raped in prison and becoming pregnant by transwomen (has already happened in the US). It’s about rape victims being told to get over their prejudice if they refuse a transwomen as a rape counsellor (from the lips of the head of Edinburgh rape crisis). It’s about teenage girls losing scholarships to middle aged transwomen (Laurel Hubbard, Veronica Ivy, Hannah Mouncey).

It’s about men having a huge tantrum because women have boundaries and are trying to enforce them. You only have to look at the way groups of transwomen talk about women online to see that. They don’t seem that keen to be kind to us. In fact, they seem to hate us.

I am genuinely shocked at the replies on this thread. I assumed the world to be much more tolerant and kind. I know people who live their lives as a gender they were not assigned at birth, and the impact of them doing so on me is nil. I know teenagers going through an identity crisis and it feels like a high number young people hitting puberty feel uncomfortable with the associations of the societal construct of the gender they are assigned to. That is a big issue which is really affecting the next generation and one that needs a lot of empathy and support not anger.

I feel no attachment to my pro nouns - they are words that help us navigate the
english language. This is a tricky topic - i do not want to declare my pro nouns and it’s interesting to explore why. But the anger and prejudice and intolerance is not what our society should be about.

That is a big issue which is really affecting the next generation and one that needs a lot of empathy and support not anger.

Im pretty angry this generation have been led to believe that their discomfort with their gender is anything to do with their body being 'wrong' rather than a problem with societal stereotypes about gender.

I think anger is a perfectly justified response to this situation. They deserve so much better than this.

Why should we be tolerant to a group that disdain and hate us? The pronoun on email push is just another way to try to flush out gender critical women to target and harass them.

The #bekind thing is only a veneer with trans orgs. The level of coercion and control is frightening once you start disagreeing with anything they have to say. The violence, doxxing and harassment is on the same scale as right wing hate groups. Yet people are cheering it on and telling women to shut up and be kind. It is actually unbelievable.

But is your anger helpful? Or will the consequences of it will just cause more pain. If you are angry be a constructive part of the solution. I don’t pretend to fully understand all, if any of the issues in full - but anger seems unhelpful. This society is created by every one of us as we are all responsible for how it is impacting people.

If you are angry be a constructive part of the solution

I am thanks.

I presume you on the other hand are nodding along, despite your reservations, because you're being 'kind'. In this way you're part of the problem for this generation who are seeing this normalised and no one speaking out.

Anger can be much more constructive than yapping on about everyone being nice to each other. In situations where 'niceness' is weaponised for a particular agenda.

I know people who live their lives as a gender they were not assigned at birth, and the impact of them doing so on me is nil

OK but are you saying the impact on everyone of replacing sex with gender is nil?

Are you saying the impact on women who have been bullied, abused and doxxed for sticking up for the relevance of sex in their lives experience is nil?

This isn’t about just letting people transition and live as their acquired gender, no one sensible is saying that shouldn’t happen. It’s about a much bigger issue of the interplay between sex and gender.

And @Popcorn77 I’m not the intolerant one. I don’t not care how people dress or who they fall in love with or what they do with consenting partners. That is not for me to dictate. Because everyone should be free to make those choices for themselves. That’s where I thought all this was going years ago.

But it has since become apparent that this is not enough for some people. Now it is about coerced enforcement- telling us who we are, what to call ourselves, how to behave and who we must love/have sex with/ allow in our spaces. This feels like the complete opposite of Love is Love and Be Kind. It feels like Behave or we’ll hunt you down. Not exactly designed to make women comfortable.

I would like to know why it is that it is always women who have to give up something to be kind but our feelings and wishes are never, ever taken into account. Why is it that teenage girls have to allow middles aged men into their sports teams? Why is it that rape victims have push down their trauma to allow a transwomen the affirming experience of counselling them? Why is it that elderly women have to set aside their worries and discomfort to allow transwomen to give them initiate personal care? Yet we are allowed to say nothing in return.

Remember what Paris Lees told Jess Philips: questions are fine but ALL concerns are transphobic. What a great way to shut women up and ignore our feelings.

I would hazard a guess that most of us have gone through the "pronouns, yes, fine, no problem, let's be kind" stage and come out the other side once we realised how damaging it actually is.

Let's be clear: nothing is assigned at birth.

Sex is irrevocably fixed at the moment of conception, and no pronouns, hormones or surgeries will ever change it. It is observed at or before birth and recorded on the birth certificate.

Gender is a set of regressive stereotypes which promote an incredibly old fashioned and conservative view of what it means to be a man or a woman. It is not binary - it is not even real - and no one is assigned one, at birth or at any other time.

But for some reason we are all being forced to pretend that it is real and important, and that most of us have gender identities which match our biological sex, whereas trans people have gender identities which are at odds with their biological sex, which is why they need hormones and surgeries and access to spaces and sports designated for the opposite sex.

It's harmful to women and children. It deprives us of single sex support for rape survivors and the chance to compete fairly in sport. It pushes non conforming children down a path which leads to infertility, loss of sexual function and other disabling complications. It makes it easier for sexual predators to access potential victims, because they know that if they say they identify as a woman, no one can challenge them.

It has nothing to do with being kind or tolerant, and it isn't the least bit progressive.

That's why so many of us don't even want to do the pronouns anymore.

This is so condescending.

Women’s groups (the ones not ideologically captured) have begged for the last ten years to be listened to. And have been ignored. They written to MPs and tried to hold meetings with Stonewall and Mermaids and been told to go away. Then pilloried as bigots and had their finding pulled. It has taken years for women to become this furious.

Every women who has stuck her head above the parapet to try to talk about this has been harassed and threatened. Just go along to any of the Women’s Place meetings and see the black masked figures staring outside ready to harass survivors of FGM as they try to speak about their experiences. Look at the recent threats made to JKR on Twitter- someone released her address and a set of instructions on how to make a pipe bomb with encourage for someone to bomb her house.

Then look at the trans pride parades- are there any GC protesters? No.

Because being GC is about supporting women’s right and NOT about being anti-trans. While it seems that being a transactivists is about hating and harassing any women who says no. That is the difference. I don’t see anyone asking the black clad figures who scream at women to ‘die in a grease fire’ to be kinder.

None of that is helped by refusing to call someone the pronouns they choose

we are all individuals and judging people as a group, assigning characteristics and addressing anger at a group is the foundation of these issues?

@Popcorn77 Many of us now feel that using opposite sexed pronouns for someone sends out a message that we believe in this gender stuff and that humans can change sex or that gender is more important than sex, or whatever.

Rightly or wrongly, complying with the pronoun nonsense is interpreted as a sign of support for this ideology, which is something many of us no longer feel comfortable with.

@Popcorn77 Where did I say that I refused to use someone’s pronouns? People change their names all the time for various reasons. It would be agressive and impolite not to respect that.

What I am objecting to is forcing everyone to declare their pronouns as an act of apparent solidarity. It is the most ridiculous form of armchair activism- it achieves actually nothing except to start arguments and create hostility. And it just serves to prioritise one group of people over another for no good reason.

And I really do object to the pressure to comply with random social rules created by others or be declared an outcast- which is so often to consequence. Especially when we know that women are still paid less and treated differently at work across the board. It is great that you haven’t experienced this. But it is still happening to a lot of us. It’s one of the reasons I don’t put my marital status or working hours on my email signature. Because I know people treat me differently once they know I am married, with a small child and work part time. This is why I’m definitely not adding pronouns.