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?

You might know you don't agree with it.

But there's no way that someone who uses the phrase "chipping away at women" doesn't know why.

You have achieved what you set out to though, as I'm sure you knew you would.

Ah! I think this is how I came across the initial information about this. There was a journalist that had done an article in the newspaper.

Not wanting to declare my own pronouns doesn’t mean I won’t try to respect another person’s name or pronoun change in most situations.

We all follow social conventions to have polite exchanges in all sorts of scenarios. You change the subject when your uncle brings up politics at Christmas dinner instead of getting into an argument. You tell someone you are fine even when you are having the worst day of your life because the exchange wasn’t really an invitation for a conversation.

unless I am offering evidence or testifying in court, I am typically prepared to try to edit my language to the same degree I edit my language in other scenarios. I am well aware that the courts want to impose this on people which I find incredibly disturbing.

@Naunet...actually when I trained as a typist back in 1985 that was considered to correct form at the time and remained so for a good many years afterwards, even though women were given the right to use credit over ten years previously so I'm not sure how you link the two ?

Yes this is exactly what has happened here.

It took me a while to get my head around the whole gender / sex thing as I naively viewed them as the same. Only after reading more information did I get that gender is more the social construct. It's all a work in progress as it can be difficult to understand points unless they are clearly spelled out. Sometimes I find people talking about issues such as this / trans talk in a way like everyone is up to speed. Just talking on my own behalf, I am not.

The UK Courts want to force a witness to amend their sworn statement.

A UK judge told a woman, the victim of a violent assault that her justice was reduced as she refused to show "respect" to the male who attacked her.

No one wants to stop you, it is a free world 'chum', you can put what ever the fuck you like in YOUR email.

It is the compulsion to use it when you do not subscribe to that ideology. It is no different to requiring everyone to sign off emails with " praise be to god" and if they don't comply they are vilified. It is compelled speech to be required to use it.

OP - search Jordon Peterson and compelled speech, he explains it very well.

No, you're the one gaslighting and pretending something is rude and nasty when it isn't.

I never said I don't approve of trans people, because I neither approve or disapprove of them. Frankly I couldn't give a shit if a man wants to wear lipstick or a woman wants to grow an beard and burp. I absolutely have no truck, doesn't affect me in any way, and of that floats their boat so be it.

What I won't do though, is buy into their delusion. If a man wears a dress he's still a man. If a man perceives himself as a woman he's still a man. If a man wears makeup, takes hrt and thpeakth with an affected lisp, he's still a man.

I wouldn't just walk over to him and tell him that, because obviously he doesn't like being a man, and I have no reason to rub his face in it. Same as I wouldnt tell a fat person they're fat. That's just gratuitously being hurtful.

But pronouns aren't about that. They're about me doing mental gymnastics and buying in to the other person's delusion. A preferred pronoun expects me to modify my own speech and police my own thought processes when even thinking about someone else. And I refuse to do that.

Pronouns are a natural part of speech, as is using male pronouns for men. So when I talk about a man I refuse to be dictated to about having to use specific words when mentioning them. Even if he thinks he's a she.

Matt Walsh said it best. Can you have preferred adjectives? That when you say my name you have to preface it with handsome?

If a man sees himself ad a woman, that's his perception. And in his mind he can do whatever he wants. But if I see him as a man, I'm not going to change that just to please him.

thread

Here is the thread I was referring to earlier. A woman was at a conference and wanted to know how to politely decline to use such pronouns.

I like the varied responses. My favourite was :

" Actually I don't find declaring my pronouns necessary. Please just use my name".

I like that. This pronoun bullshit really gets my goat.

I used to put pronouns but have since educated myself more on exactly what sort of alarming ideology they now stand for. Not a chance I’d use them now.

My answer is that I don’t agree with the gender ideology framework that is producing the question ‘what are your pronouns?’. 99%+ of people have a gender identity that aligns with their sex. Most of the time it is perfectly possible to guess. If a person is frequently experiencing people guessing wrong, then they can put she/her, but what is that doing that Ms didn’t, other than pleasing people who make a massive fuss out of Ms being about marital status? If the aim is to stop the embarrassment of misgendering, isn’t she/her drawing more attention to it than a simple Mr / Ms?

It is not psychologically normal to refuse to identify with your own body and want to cut off your breasts / penis or adopt the stereotypical traits of the opposite sex rather than simply accept that you are your body. Gender dysmorphia is being treated not as a psychological disorder but as a perfectly normal thing affecting us all, so much so that even our business emails need to declare if we want to be treated as a man or woman. If people want to put she/her after their names, fine. However, corporate policy that all employees must do so is something I can’t agree with. It’s not ‘expressing solidarity’, it is normalising an increasingly odd ideological movement that believes that you can choose your sex, totally immute the old one and demand that nobody ever mentions the biological reality in case it upsets you.

The notion that pronouns refer to a person's "gender identity" instead of their biological sex is ridiculous. We can virtually always distinguish men from women. On the rare occasions that someone looks like a man when they are a woman or vice versa, their name ‘David’ or ‘Claire’ usually clears it up. We are then talking about an utterly tiny minority of people who might be frequently mistaken for the wrong sex. To avoid embarrassing them, they can easily write Ms / Mr as part of their email signature. No fuss, no nod to gender ideology, no need for the him / her / they / ze nonsense.

99%+ of people have a gender identity that aligns with their sex.

Do they?

I have no idea what this means. I don't have an identity which matches having a vagina. I'm pretty sure there's no such thing.

99+% of people certainly don’t have a “gender identity”! What does that even mean, apart from accepting a pile of sexist stereotypes? People have a sex, which was determined at conception and is immutable. A very tiny % of people wish they were the opposite sex, for a variety of reasons that include gender dysphoria, internalised homophobia, autogynephilia, etc, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the population has to participate in their beliefs.

The idea that one formula like pronoun declarations will make things easier or more comfortable for everyone is a big assumption.

I've noticed an awful lot of colleagues opting for they/them/theirs though, many of whom I know for a fact aren't gender neutral. I can't work out if they're trying to avoid gender stereotyping or if it's just a subtle way of taking the piss.

I've noticed 'pronouns: any' seems to be gaining popularity in some spaces. For some it's likely a piss take, but like with those who prefer no title, it can be viewed as neutral/don't care or don't want to pin any colours visibly to the mast for a variety of reasons.

I think of pronoun declarations like titles. For some, it's just a standard of politeness. For others, they don't care. For still others, it causes discomfort from slight annoyance to strong anxiety, before getting into how it's read or could result in different treatment. There isn't much of a reason to do it only one way other than lazy corporate thinking.

😂😂

@babyjellyfish and @Babdoc I’m talking specifically about the she / he ‘gender identity’ associated with the pronouns, as per the original post. Our understanding of whether people should refer to us as him or her.

Almost 100% of people are accurately sexed at birth and therefore are clearly identified as a he or a she. This stat is taken from evolutionary biologist Colin Wright. Almost 100% of us are then referred to, accurately, using these sex-related pronouns for our whole lives. Now, all of a sudden, this accurate sexing of babies and associated use of pronouns is meaningless. You can be a male, but say you are a female / they on your email signature and everyone else must accept that. It is not me that is conflating biological sex with gender identity: it is the ideology.

I still don’t know if I’ve made myself clearer. Part of the problem with discussing gender ideology / gender identity is that it is utterly loaded with semantics. I’m not referring to ‘gender identity’ as ‘a person who accepts outdated stereotypes about their sex.’

I agree with most of what you have posted, but not that 99% - or even a significant number - of people have a gender identity which aligns with their sex. As far as I can tell, trans people are the only ones who really seem to believe in it. Even if you ask an "ally" about their gender identity, the reality is that anyone who is referred to as "cis" - not a label I use - believes they are a man because they have a penis or a woman because they have a vagina. That's not an identity and it has nothing to do with gender. It's just awareness and acceptance of human biology.

Like most people, I use third person pronouns according to someone's sex. "He" when the person is male. "She" when the person is female. "They" when I am talking about several people, or about a person whose sex I don't know.

FlippetyFlappety, you haven’t defined what you mean by gender identity, as opposed to simply knowledge of one’s sex. You say you don’t mean stereotypes - ok, so what do you mean instead? I may add, I don’t have any gender identity, I am simply an adult human female, because that’s what my body is. It doesn’t predict anything about my behaviour, predilections, clothes, etc, etc.

No, you're going to do what you want, just to please you.

So you're the entitled one.

Dress it up anyway you like. You think people's identity is based on your opinion and what you think. And that is arrogant, through and through.

There is also the argument that you could force a trans person to out themselves before they feel ready; or to misgender themselves because they do not.

On a personal level, I just think it's virtue-signalling and I don't want to! Plus, my name is very female and my profile photo is also quite obviously of a woman. So I don't feel the pronouns really are needed!

If only trans people use preferred pronouns in their signatures to avoid being misgendered, it singles them out as being trans. If we all do it as standard it takes away the stigma. It’s a simple thing we can do to make peoples lives easier.

But don't many trans people change their name to match their chosen gender? When Bruce Jenner became Caitlyn it was obvious she wanted to use female pronouns too. Isn't the name alone enough?

Dress it up anyway you like. You think people's identity is based on your opinion and what you think. And that is arrogant, through and through.

I think it's pretty arrogant to take the only word that exists for members of the opposite sex to yourself and claim it for your "identity".

Your identity has nothing to do with them, but now you are forcing them to pretend they share it, or else relinquish the word for what they actually are.

If only trans people use preferred pronouns in their signatures to avoid being misgendered, it singles them out as being trans. If we all do it as standard it takes away the stigma. It’s a simple thing we can do to make peoples lives easier.

Really not my problem.

It would make everyone else's lives a lot easier if trans people realised that no one actually has a gender identity which matches their genitals.