Told I was 'phobic' for not using pronouns!

[NewStartIn50s]

Asked for my preferred pronouns and I said ' I don't use them', pushed on what I use to refer to myself and I said I don't use on emails or when I introduce myself or at all. Apparently, if I use them I am showing inclusivity to others and being accepting. I'm not quite a dinosaur yet but why are these things forced on us. I don't have a beard (yet) and I think you can tell what I am/but does it really matter if you can't.

So AIBU

YANBU - don't have to use pronouns if you don't want to

YABU - you should state what your preferred pronouns are

Add the pronouns.

But change your mind every day and send an all staff email each morning tellling everyone what that days pronouns are.

I’m 23 and a gender apostate.

When asked i replied "Sorry, i dont involve myself in such nonsense." I received a verbal warning from my manager and the respect of my collegues!

There's a twitter account that does that.

It's actually quite a common tactic for bigoted views to be sold to the wider public. Find that common ground that people agree to, but then use it to push their own narrative further.

You mean that people can have differing opinions based on their own perspective of a shared perception of reality?

So left wing people and right wing people can agree that it’s cold in winter, that electricity prices are higher now than this time last year, or that men aren’t women, but still have different views and analyses?

So it’s not in fact the case that people are right wing just because they understand reality?

We got an all-staff email saying inclusion of pronouns in email signatures was mandatory. Some people ignored it, and I have yet to hear of any action being taken against the refuseniks.

That happens quite a bit where I work. Management issue some diktat or other, whatever it is falls into disuse after a while, and then I find I'm the only one still doing whatever it is.

What relevance is in on an email whether I am male or female? If I sign off Jo Blobby I expect to be addressed as Jo Blobby. If I sign off Mr Blobby or Mrs Blobby then I expect to be addressed as Mr or Mrs Blobby. Why do I need to be made to feel excluded in order others can be made to feel included? If someone wants to give pronouns that's their choice and I'm happy for them. If someone doesn't want to give pronouns that's their choice and I'm happy for them. In laymans terms - load of shite.

WTF is a gender apostate?

Ok, this seriously pisses me off. I’m genderfluid. I’m all about using the pronouns that other people prefer and I think it’s amazing that we’ve got to the point where this is now accepted in society by and large.

But I move fluidly up and down the spectrum of gender all the time, sometimes more to one side, sometimes more to the other, sometimes not near either. I can’t put my pronouns down because it would change minute by minute (and I hate they/them for myself because I don’t have multiple bloody personalities).

I don’t care, therefore, which ones people use for me. I look and am biologically female so it’s usually ‘she’ but with my height and how I carry myself sometimes, occasionally ‘he’. I’m fine either way.

And yet, I too have had this thrown at me. Fucking fuck right off, I should get to be ok with not caring what someone calls me and not be made to feel like I’m letting the side down in some way by refusing to choose one.

Long rant short, OP, fuck ‘em. It’s their choice to use them and absolutely your choice not to. As long as you call them by whatever they indicate they identify as, then you’re fine.

Same

Absolutely, if you leave it at that. As already said, it's not inherently bigoted to be gender critical, why would it be? As you've said, sometimes with the way the world has moved it's important to be able to assert that in some circumstances.

If you use the pretty universally accepted fact that "men can't become women" to assert your views when called out, but what you've also been doing is denigrating and shaming trans people for existing though, that would be bigoted, no?

This does happen. It also doesn't just happen with the trans issue, like I said it's definitely a thing.

It's clearly not hyperbole and it's nasty of you to say it is. I don't give a shiny shit which pronouns people use for me. Trying to make me state a preference is aggressive and unpleasant. People are trying to make it a disciplinary issue to not go along with this which clearly is trying to make people comply.

How hard would it be just to let someone keep their pronouns to themselves?

because it's ridiculous. If someone decides to be awkward THEY can put their pronouns. Everyone is non-binary, it really is not an issue. Except I am physically a woman so a she.

OP - I've been asked twice and ignored both, they both asked again and the university one (I'm a clinical demonstrator) I said I was undecided.....and they ticked all options, so my emails are very long.

I love this, brava!

Well here's the problem with the whole movement. White centric, Western centric luxury beliefs based on capitalist consumption values (the purchase of body parts/cosmetics/clothing, none of which is essential to survival) dressed up as a matter of life and death. Using others for legitimacy - the deaths of brown and black trans women in South America (poverty stricken sex workers), the experiences of black people (particularly black women) under segregation, and the very real struggles of the LGB community who have a SEXUALITY not an IDENTITY.

Add to this the changes of terminology and pronoun demands that do nothing other than catch out everyone not white and western and aware of social justice discourse, be that poor immigrant women with English as a second language who are trying to negotiate health care under the NHS and having to deal with terms like "mentruator" or autistic children being called bigots for correctly sexing someone who has an "identity" fantasy that they are demanding everyone else participate in.

Being your "authentic" female self isn't that attractive when you are living under the Taliban.

The only place I've ever been asked to declare my pronouns is at a women's sports club which is primarily LGBQ. In that context I don't mind it because I generally like and get on with women and if one of them is struggling with being called she then I don't mind supporting that person by calling them they.

At work...absolutely fucking not.

They bloody pretend to.

I would recommend never going on Twitter. Or YouTube. The “sex is a social construct” crowd are very much present (and nuts).

FWIW, I'm left wing and gender critical. I don't think it's automatically a right wing idea. My point is I believe right wing conservative bigots use the reasonable line of "men can't become women" to lead into much more sinister messages about trans people.

I just don't get why there is such a war about it all. Why can't people accept that trans people are trans and that sex also matters. I really can't get my head around the amount of fall out this issue has caused in recent years.

GENIUS!

😃😃😃

Sitting on that hill with you!

'Refer to me as whatever you like. I don't mind whatever you choose. I do, however, mind pressure being put on others to have to have remember what they should refer to me as and being fearful of saying the wrong thing.'

And this too, brilliant response!

I just don't get why there is such a war about it all. Why can't people accept that trans people are trans and that sex also matters. I really can't get my head around the amount of fall out this issue has caused in recent years.

The TRAs created the war. Rather than fight for and campaign for services and spaces the way women did, they just told women to fuck off out of our own spaces. And misogynists dressed up as liberals allowed them to do this.

I do take note of this.

While I think that there is more depth and transness is not just a privileged concept, I think this is an important point.