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?

Isn't it transphobic to say 'genuine trans people'?

Not the first 'ally' to out themselves as a transphobe, not even the first this weekend.

If my brain was transported into a male's body in a Freaky Friday type scenario and people started calling me he because I looked like a he even though I was a "female inside" I would not care particularly. Calling a male person she seems like it would confuse people. We use language to communicate and it's better to be accurate in my opinion. Pronouns are used usually when the person being referred to isn't there anyway, in front of someone it might be "sir/lady/gentleman etc" or something and if its someone you know normally you use their name. Putting them in emails is ridiculous as when would you every use he/she when referring to someone in an email to them?

if people are who they say they are and that’s meant to be accepted without question, how do we even tell who are the “genuine trans people”?

the donut strikes again - as per, in the middle of a reasonable and respectful debate.

the reason I've had to put "genuine" is because idiots like you talk about TRA's at every given opportunity, so we have to actually separate them.

you done for the day? I do enjoy you plopping in every so often

Well, I would say everyone, but because of MN's obsession with TRA's, if I mention a trans person they say "OH BUT WHAT ABOUT LIA" or the one thats doing the rounds at the minute of the missing 'woman' who is facially a young man.

It's tedious

Right so your argument @beautyisthefaceisee is:

Women complain about the fact that men are identifying as women and are breaching our privacy, dignity and safety.

In return we get doxxed, death threats and our livelihood threatened.

So we complain about that.

And we can't expect the genuine transpeople to stand up for us because ... we've what? Not put up and shut up? Haven't couched everything we've said in 'well of course most transpeople wouldn't dream of doing that'.

That's a bullshit argument and you know it. For a start, JKR was exceedingly clear that she has no issue with transpeople, she is just protecting women's rights to our spaces. Threats and doxxing and attempts at cancellation ensued. So it doesn't matter. Unless we go along with everything, pretend there is no conflict ever, it is never enough. And it is always women who are the target. The vitriol we receive is phenomenal compared to men. Anyone tried to dox Gervais? No.

Incidentally, I feel nothing but pity for children who think that identifying as a boy is going to let them escape the horrible pressures women face.

Why on earth would they speak up on social media and in public places when they are spoken about the way that they are? I wouldn't!

You're expecting them to speak up when you publicly treat them as collateral and you yourself called them "irrelevant"

I said If the extremists are setting the agenda then we need to talk about the extremists. Nice, rational people hiding behind the sofa are sadly irrelevant until they act.

Not that moderate trans people are irrelevant themselves, but that the debate has to be about the extremists views because they are setting the political agenda. The fact that you and your friends have more moderate views is certainly relevant to not tarring everyone with the TRA brush, but as I told you last night I'm careful not to do that anyway. However it is irrelevant to the political debate because the TRA voice is the one that is influencing our politicians and institutions so that is the position that needs to be challenged. If you and your friends want to be relevant in that conversation you need to speak up.

So you want them to put their neck on the line so that they can be thrown to the wolf that is social media - will you be there to defend them when they get ripped to shreds? Course you won't.

Have they stepped up to defend the women whose views they supposedly share who have already been ripped to shreds? You rather prove my point.

Of course it's not an acceptance of the whole TRA project. How come it's acceptable to pretty much imply I'm on board with TRA - wasnt it originally that that was a strikable offence?

Again you're misunderstanding. I'm not saying pronouns mean you do accept the TRA agenda. My point is that even for people like you who do not, because this moderate view is not being given in public, your use of pronouns is going to be interpreted as full support for the TRA agenda whether you like it or not.

No, it isn't a bullshit argument.

You cannot mock, sneer, deny their identity, call it the most offensive things and that you don't believe in it and then when you find yourself in an argument with some nutters on twitter because you are so bloody stubborn, expect them to defend you!

JKR's an idiot, I'm not remotely interested in her opinion.

Well, good for you, but once again you are being patronising (I ask again why you think that trans people don't want to stand up for you, when you have ridiculous opinions like that).

But hang on.

I'm told repeatedly on here that women don't have to do anything (for example, when I suggest that rather than mocking trans and taking the piss out of it, it might be more beneficial to have a respectful conversation, I'm told no, why should women be NICE, we say no) so why do I have to do anything to be relevant to your conversation?

No, you prove my point - why would a trans person speak up in support of feminists when a feminist wouldn't stand up in support of a trans person? Why should they?

Re your final part - whether you interpret me as full support is not my problem. It's not my fault that some feminists are so narrow minded they seem to think that stereotyping me will help. I don't assume every feminist is one of the batshit ones, so why not the same respect?

@beautyisthefaceisee but we’re asking you - what does ‘genuine trans person’ mean? We’ve been told anyone who says they’re a different ‘gender’ to what they’re born with is a trans person. Regardless of whether they have transitioned at all or even if they don’t intend to. Jamie Wallace the newly declared ‘trans’ MP fully presents as a man and doesn’t have any intention thus far to change this (as far as I know).

A person who has suffered from body dysphoria from a young age isn’t even necessarily ‘trans’ in the same way that say, Jamie Wallace or Eddie Izzard are. People with body dysmorphia suffer from a recognised condition that may (or may not) be alleviated if they live as if they are the opposite sex. Many gender non-conforming children (who aren’t in this category of body dysmorphia) turn out to be gay and/ or the non-conformity desists naturally over time. They are not ‘trans’ - there is no such thing as a trans child. This is imposing adult attitudes about stereotypes and conformity onto young children.

Your ‘trans teenager’ is fully deserving of support - but social affirmation may not be the right way to go. It is part of puberty to feel uncertain of your identity and emotions and your body. It’s actually an integral part of puberty itself! Telling that teen that they should compound that uncertainty by saying that they’re ‘actually’ the opposite sex sounds pretty unhelpful to me. And worse - if they’re encouraged to cut off healthy body parts and take drugs that will damage them. It’s the feminists who are looking out for these children/ teens more than you realise.

Are you aware than many men who identify as women have fetishes? This is a fact. It’s called autogynephilia. They are aroused by the thought of being a woman or dressing as a woman. Are these men ‘genuine trans’? If not why not?

We keep asking you what is ‘genuine trans’ for a reason.

And so what if you have ‘trans’ (quotation marks as I’m still waiting for your definition) friends? I have friends who are women. So we both have friends affected by this debate. Your friends don’t trump mine.

I also have friends who are women.

They do, in this debate, because we are talking about pronouns.

If the debate was about your right to spaces, I'd back you. Because I don't believe it's a black and white issue.

Where on earth are you getting your info from? No such thing as a trans child and "turn out to be gay" both of those points are just utter bollocks.

You keep asking me what genuine trans is because you think it's a way to trip me up. You have proved my point.

We are talking about pronouns. Eddie Izzard and your fetish men and Lia whoever and all the same boring, tedious points that keep getting dragged out have hee haw to do with anything. I've seen it all before, and I'm not playing.

But it is. It's not my teenage trans pupil making the law, so why are they the ones being mocked and ridiculed on the internet?

They are not being mocked and ridiculed by me. My concern is not to ignore gender but to get it properly separated from sex instead of this current incoherent (some might say duplicitious) assertion that sex is not gender but nevertheless it's fine to just swap in gender for everything previously set up based on sex.

Re your final part - whether you interpret me as full support is not my problem. It's not my fault that some feminists are so narrow minded they seem to think that stereotyping me will help.

Sorry, you miss my point again. It's not about whether I think you support TRAs or not. You say you don't and I believe you, always have.

It's about how your public actions are interpreted publicly. As long as the only public voice for trans people is the TRA voice, your use of pronouns will be taken by the people you interact with as support for the full TRA agenda. And those who genuinely do support it will be emboldened by that. And those who don't, trans or otherwise, will become more marginalised and more afraid.

www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674707580#:~:text=Preference%20falsification%2C%20according%20to%20the,we%20actually%20find%20it%20bland.

Where on earth are you getting your info from? No such thing as a trans child and "turn out to be gay" both of those points are just utter bollocks.

Evidence shows that 80% of children who are ‘gender non-conforming’ - if carefully supported and allowed to go through puberty as our bodies are intended to - will turn out to either be gay/ lesbian (which is a healthy, normal thing obviously) or the non-conformity just desists.

As I understand it, what is termed a ‘trans child’ in the truest sense of the term, is a child who has body dysphoria. One way to alleviate this is to live as the opposite sex. It does not mean a child has a gender that doesn’t match their sex - there is no such thing as ‘born in the wrong body’! How on Earth do you describe or define a ‘trans child’?

Thanks.

But as long as feminsts continue to speak the way they do about trans (I take the respect you give me as non TRA and I give you the same respect back as a thoughtful poster, despite our views) but a look across the feminist boards gives an idea of how much they have the piss taken out of them. And until that stops, they won't, and shouldn't be expected , to speak up for woman publicly.

It's interesting that the same posters and the same forums who claimed women shouldn't be speaking up for men with the #notallmen campaign and they could fight their own battles don't think that now that they are the ones in the firing line.

TRA's are nutters, we know this. But they haven't caused the divide. Feminists have. Surely the solution is that the non TRA's and the non batshit feminists and trans people work together?

Absolute and totao bollocks. 80 percent turn out gay and lesbian? I'd like to se your stats.

a trans child is just a trans person who is a child. Surely you can manage that.

And yes, there absolutely is such a thing (for them, not us) as born in the wrong body. Your ignorance is astounding (and this is part of the reason that trans people will not speak up for you - why would they, when you continue to deny the feelings and not take them seriouslY?0

Trans and body dysphoria is not the same thing, even the NHS would disagree wiht you on that one.

Even Mermaids have dialled back from the offensive notion of ‘being born in the wrong body’. It’s completely offensive, unscientific nonsense. What - we’re all born with gendered souls inside of us and some of us get the wrong gendered soul trapped in our body? Can’t you hear how crazy that sounds?

Are disabled people ‘born in the wrong body’ too?

We are our bodies.

Society pushes stereotypes about the sexes, and people who have preferences about colours/ activities typically associated with the opposite sex are told that they ‘must really be’ that sex.

You keep asking me what genuine trans is because you think it's a way to trip me up. You have proved my point

I think it is because you mentioned it.

If you don't want people to ask you what you mean when you type words, perhaps don't type them if you don't understand what they actually mean.

You se rather taken with my user name. It is the bastardised name of a 90s indie band, where the band used to have a dancer (male, dressed as a woman) on stage and who me and my friends (female) had to escort from the backstage ladies toilets after he tried to watch women pissing through the doors. Some of us have been in this for a long, long time.

We've seen it all. Including young, ultra keen teachers thinking they know it all after one training course.

Not engaging with your below the belt disabliity question. I'm surprised Rachel Dolezal hasn't been mentioned yet, she's usually next on the MN handbook.

No. Some people are born into a body that they are unhappy in. I know someone like that, a friend. He would laugh at your "perhaps it's because of the oppression of women". He finds it utterly preposterous that other people think they know better than he does about how he feels in his own head.

Re the colours and activities - it's just not as simple as that. I would really recommend getting out and talking to trans people and not just reading nonsense on the internet.

Hahahahaha yes of course feminists started this

funny how women saying no to men is feminists starting things

Annals of the TERF wars

i see I need my bingo card now we’re onto “if you only knew sone trans people”

why do I have to do anything to be relevant to your conversation?...why would a trans person speak up in support of feminists when a feminist wouldn't stand up in support of a trans person? Why should they?

Same point as before. It's not "my" conversation. It's a public conversation, in many countries, in poltical chambers, in conferences, in traditional and social media, about how society is going to accept and support trans people. It's our conversation, all of us, about the type of society we want to live in.

You say you agree there should be limits on what access trans identity brings. You either stand up in public, maybe anonymously but in a place you can be heard, and say so, not for me, or "feminists" or even "trans people", but for yourself, because it is what you believe, or you don't.

And if you don't fair enough, it's your choice and maybe it's just not really that important to you.

But if you don't, you don't get to tell other people that the views that are actually out there driving the debate should be ignored in favour of the ones you hold but don't act on.

I think your username suits you, cause you are a bit of a doughnut.

I had to use genuine trans because everyone pipes up about Lia every three and a half seconds, TRA's, usually Rachel Dolezal makes it about page 4. I've also seen it all - the MN handbook.

I've also seen many posts about "young, keen" teachers with your patronising shite when it reality you know nothing about my age, my thought process, or indeed how much input I've had.

I have rolled my eyes through many training courses, I certainly don't think I know it all or buy into bullshit. I didn't actually give my opinion on the LGBTQI+ one. I just said that as a result of that and our award, cisgender is the word we have to use.

But of course you, the donut, know better than the people making the policies.

It's a shame really because everytime we get into a reasonable respectful thought provoking discussion on this thread, up you pop again.

The fact you think your ridiculous story about a man dressed up as a woman has anything to do with trans tells me the validity of your argument. Zero.

Not what I said though, was it.

Nobody on the feminist boards is interested in supporting and accepting trans.

They are into eradicating trans, including the ones who are no threat to them whatsoever.

I have said numerous types on threads about the spaces, but I just get shot down and usually, for the first time actually it hasn't happened, piled on and bullied off threads by the playground MN feminists who seem to think that unless you're awful and mocking about trans people, you haven othing to give.

I'm happy to take your side in the debate, but don't expect me to be rude about trans people, refuse to use pronouns or be mocking and sneering. And tbh, I would say that I represent the vast majority of real life views.