Wondering how to refer to my sister's daughter now?

[LoveMyPiano]

I always referred to her as my niece - but she is going into a sort of non-gender stage..... Her name is a very neutral one now. But I still cannot stop referring to her (them??) as my niece. Relation/ships are usually gender specific, and a bit hard to avoid using I have found, but I really don't want to offend. It is the "non-gender" bit that is causing me some difficulty.
Help......

So she's not going to hear about it? Just use "niece" then. It's not like she's actually told you to use anything else.

For all those questioning niebling or nibling, a previous poster explained what it means in LITERALLY 3 words - equivalent to sibling, which is a word no-one queries.

Language is always evolving, only those stuck in their ways have an issue with that.

I didn’t bother when both my nieces went through that stage.

Both are back to being female now and my older niece has taken up my offer of getting her horrendous leg tattoos removed.

both of them have absolutely lovely girlfriends.

I Think life is very difficult for teenage kids now.

You don't have to subscribe to compelled gender speak when she is not even listening or aware, why would you?

In the name of the wee man….

it doesn’t need to be complicated

if the person has a fully functioning fanny, it’s niece
fully functioning dick, it’s nephew

Thanks for the advice, @Antst, but you seem to want to perpetuate the #bekind narrative and suggest that it's a simple case of one nice person wanting to change the rules and dictate to others how they must validate and affirm their beliefs and one or more nasty bigoted people who don't want to be forced to go along with it. They are 'special' and unique whereas the rest of us are just (as a PP brilliantly put it upthread) walking stereotypes. Every single one of us is non-binary, but we don't need to find special labels to replace the standard grammatically-correct terms used to identify us by the sex we happen to have been born.

I would never go out of my way to upset somebody, but equally, I don't wish to be told how to think and expected to deny plain reality. As we've discussed on countless MN threads, somebody wanting to start dictating to others that they must use grammatically-incorrect pronouns to refer to them when mentioning them to others is frequently the first step towards claiming that they ARE that sex. Once you play along, it's taken as confirmation that you do acknowledge them as something that they are not and then we all see where it ends up.

Granted, a female identifying as 'male' and then expecting free access to opposite-sex spaces is not as damaging/dangerous to others as the opposite way around (although it can be to the person in question); but you can't really accept one without the other.

I'm happy for anybody to believe whatever they want to believe, but I take issue with being expected to share, affirm and endorse their belief, when I most certainly do not.

Incidentally, how do you stand on people questioning their race or age and wanting to be officially recognised as one that they are biologically not?

@Livingbyariver I don't think fully functioning is a requirement

Just ask OP. It's respectful to your sisters child and if it's a phase cool, they will appreciate the support. Same if it's not a phase

"my sister's child" - it's only 2 extra syllables than saying niece and 1 more than nephew 🤷‍♀️

This gender neutral / non binary bollocks is getting utterly ridiculous now 😂😂😂. For Christ’s sake what had the world come to?

Well said @WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

This ‘old people don’t get it’ eye rolling is just so tiresome. Normal people know that people can’t change sex and some of us don’t want to be strong armed into speaking bollocks.

What’s worrying on the thread is the undertone of ‘better be safe’ and ‘don’t get into trouble’… that’s how insidious and unkind this movement is… we are all scared to death to say the wrong thing to children who’ve been given too much power and entitlement.

Please be a grown up and resist. She is your niece and always will be. Refer to her as that.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll, none of that makes sense. I just don't understand.

You're creating problems where none exist. You're using people's most personal problems (that have zero to do with you) to wage a war against society. It won't work. I'm signing off now. You have the information and you've been warned.

Antst - You seem very keen on calling people drama queens, but who is really causing the drama? Is it the women who know that they are women/female, the men who know that they are men/male or the people of either sex who believe themselves to be too special for ordinary words and pronouns to apply to them - even when they are not present?

Would you also #bekind if I identified as a cat and started pooing on your doorstep every morning? There are already people who identify as trans-species, as well as the transrace and transage lot, so it's not a ridiculous scenario that could never ever happen, as it already has.

You can be flippant, you can try to paint yourself as a victim, you can make other people's genitals and gender about you. But the world has changed and people won't accept it.

How do you feel about it when certain 'transwomen' make their genitals about other people and use them to rape and assault women - not infrequently in women-only spaces that they've identified themselves into?

You have the information and you've been warned.

Well how sinister can you be ?

Are you suggesting that this child might come to harm if we don't appease her 'gender beliefs?'

What harms might they be?

Or alternatively how might a female child be benefitted by being told that it's OK to be a girl that doesn't conform to stereotypes. It doesn't make you a non - girl. Just a girl.

This whole thing is insidious. Especially the threats you are giving to women who are saying that we should not encourage our girls to denounce womanhood.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll, yup, mad as a box of frogs. Good luck!

I don't think anyone has an issue with language evolving, but being forced to deny reality is a bit 1984. If you're born a girl, then every cell in your body will be XX - every cell will be a female cell. This is true even if you don't stick to regressive stereotypes. If I wear jeans and a t-shirt and cut my hair short, I'm still female. If I have PCOS and get more facial hair then the average woman, I'm still just as female as any other woman. I could be beautiful or ugly, far or thin, young or old and I'm still completely female. Nothing can change that. Even mutilating your body to make it appear more male won't change how female you are.

its a phase and will all be over in a few days so i wouldnt bother...!!

I'd probably say my sister's youngest/eldest. Has she or your sister actually clarified pronouns?

This ‘old people don’t get it’ eye rolling is just so tiresome. Normal people know that people can’t change sex and some of us don’t want to be strong armed into speaking bollocks.

Exactly. Those of us not wanting to deny science are patronised and faux-pitied as though we couldn't possibly understand. We do fully understand what people are trying to make us accept unquestioningly, and we reject it.

You're creating problems where none exist. You're using people's most personal problems (that have zero to do with you) to wage a war against society. It won't work. I'm signing off now. You have the information and you've been warned.

Just a few posts ago, you were telling me to be tolerant, kind and accepting of everybody's beliefs and also affirm their beliefs myself - and now you've about-turned and changed your tune towards me by using threatening language?!

Me waging war against society?! Classic DARVO there (Google it if you don't understand that either).

OP I would go with "niece", or "my sister's child" if you feel more comfortable being vague.

@Antst I don't know your father, so don't know in what ways he and I are similar. And it's not about me making other people's genitals about me (yuck, keep them to yourself please!), I haven't mentioned anything about genitalia. You write about how it costs people nothing to be kind, to use the "right" language. I'm writing about the flip side to that view which is that it does cost me my honesty. Is this what you find "drama queen"-like, positing a differing opinion?

Flippancy aside, please give your opinion as to why respect only runs in one direction? I must respect someone's gender theory, but they can trample over my science facts?

yup, mad as a box of frogs. Good luck!

@Antst Which part of what I wrote to you consider to be mad - or are you calling ME mad as a box of frogs?! Am I mad in the same way as the little boy who declared that the emperor was naked, whilst all of the other normal, rational, wise, science-accepting people were complimenting him on his lovely new suit?

@FaceLikeCattle, that's not true and I say that as a scientist. You're equating biology and identity.

Have you asked yourself why you care about what someone else wants to identify as? Why fight that battle? The majority of people adhere to traditional habits.

I think you are overcomplicating it. How would you differentiate if you had two nephews? "My sister's eldest" "my sister's youngest" . If you are referencing your sister's children in an anecdote to somebody that doesn't even know thier name's, then it's probably not that important that their gender is known either.

If you are referencing them to somebody who does know thier name's, just use names.

She is your niece. If you talk about her you say 'My niece....'

Doesn't DN cover it?

Gosh how 1950s of you, are you Christian?