Colleague has complained about me using wrong pronouns

[CandyCane103]

Name changed but have been on mn for a fair while now.

I work in a role which requires me to do casework supporting vulnerable people. I am supporting a member of staff with some cases that fall under my specialism. We've always got along well and I've really enjoyed working with her. I've been here a number of years, she is 6 months in. One of her cases is a non binary person, and she emails me occasionally for advice as it is a long and complex case (has been ongoing for months now since before she joined the team). I usually get it right but have occasionally written 'she' by accident. They have a female name and I am not intentionally using 'she', it just naturally happens. Instead of speaking to me about it, she has made a complaint to my line manager, who has had a word. Line manager was fine about it and it wasn't a telling off. More of a passing on a message.

Now feels very awkward and think my line managers advice to her was that she should speak to me in the first instance. I really want to raise with my colleague that she should have spoken to me instead of running straight to my line manager. Not sure how to handle this as I've never had a complaint from a member of staff and it has ruffled my feathers.

Would you just leave it be?

It’s not kindness to teach them they have control over other people. You can’t also control how people think, so even if they say they right things they still think you are the sex you are. Not teaching reality is harmful.

Me too.

What has been done to young autistic and gay and other vulnerable young people in the name of 'be kind' is a disgrace.

When all of this tumbles, which it will in time, I hope there will be a reckoning for the adults who've encouraged these acts of self harm for these vulnerable young people.

Well said @RedToothBrush

Your response says it all.

It's utterly appalling.

You don't care about mental health issues at all.

If you really do think I have a mental health issue and 'need help', then all you are doing is actively proving my point that forced pronouns cause harm.

And actually I'm fine.

It took me a long time to get over the gaslighting though. And realise that this harms everyone it touches.

It prevents those who proclaim themselves not to be the sex they are, to address their actual issues. It prolongs pre existing issues and then creates new ones through the abuse it takes to uphold the lie.

This is my point.

If you don't want to see It, then fine, but I won't allow the conversation to pass without directly challenging this narrative that it's harmless.

Christ we have a flaming medical review of health services for children which says the use of pronouns is not a neutral act and should be done with extreme caution because it can cause harm.

There's a chuffing book that's won all sorts of awards called invisible women which explains why gender neutral actually means default man and therefore doesn't drive equality and instead has the opposite effect. It's based on scientific research. Not woo woo feelings.

As it is, I don't have a mental health issue. I'm just fucking angry at this point in my life.

I've had enough of the lies and the emotional manipulation over this.

Maybe we don't want our kids dead from life altering doses of hormones or dead from suicide because their other very real issues are left to go unchecked because "they must be in the wrong body."

The whole hysteria over psych issues being " because they are born in the wrong body, of course it must be that!" reminds me of how in the 1980s and early1990s, women with mental distress were told their issues were due to incest or Satanic Ritual Abuse. It is all so reductionist.

A fascist power play!?? I’m genuinely confused at how you’ve arrived here!?

Those who insist on forcing their pronouns have us over a barrel and you know it.

If I had said as a child or teen that I was non binary likely I would have been told "that's nice dear" and end of topic. I'm pretty sure some of the kids back in the 80s were NB too and probably got this response. But we didn't have the ridiculousness we have now of kids now claiming identify as animals. The majority of 80s kids grew up healthy and happy. Those of them that were NB got on with their lives and bothered nobody. Most people probably had no idea they were NB, except maybe others who were. Caitlyn Jenner went on to live a hugely successful and fulfilling life.

So tell me, which generation was better off? 80s parenting tended a bit too much toward the tough love side and a lot of abuse occurred and was enabled, that's true . But is today an improvement ?

What about teaching our kids not to care what others think of them and to build high self worth. What about teaching them that they fine as they are, they can be or do anything, play with any toy, pursue any hobby, regardless of their sex?

What about saying to our kids "give over! " Its normal for teenagers to take themselves too seriously, it's a stage they go through, you love them through it, but you don't have to do as they say. Whatever happened to "when you're 18 you moved out you can do what you like, but until then our house our rules?!!"

That's because you don't engage your brain and listen.

Care to explain why you are so dismissive of a health care review which actively states that pronouns changing can be indicative of all sorts of other issues and isn't a neutral act?

Can to explain what evidence you have to show it 'costs nothing'?

And why you are trying to shame others here and are throwing around slurs about mental health whilst literally saying that we should all stop harming non binaries because of their precious mental health?

It's gross. And manipulative.

What do you THINK a power play looks like?

Cos I think we have a nice little demonstration of in action right here.

Ultimately some one claiming they are non binary, needing a gynecological treatment isn't going to be referred to a non binary department now are they?

Females strangely enough have the same issues relating to reproduction regardless of whether they think they are sexless and non binary or are in touch with actual reality.

So bleating on at everyone about pronouns is going to come to a shuddering halt when faced with the reality of your own body.

I don't care for someone else's inability to deal with their own body being politicised and forced onto everyone else at their expense when the second they take off their own clothes or have sex, they are going to have to deal with the reality of their own sex anyway.

And that's what it is, forced politicisation that harms females. And then uses mental health as a weapon against women in various forms.

That's a power play.

Women have had power removed from them by it. Objecting to this leads to more abuse, threats and slurs.

I think you have misunderstood me greatly in all the heat/passion of your own views…
im not dismissive of evidence at all, I’m actually unaware of the healthcare report you’re referring to, but I’d be keen to read it if you can reference it for me?
im very receptive to understanding more, but I find sharing views is much more productive with less aggression

Both are dangerous. Someone amputating healthy body parts for a mental illness is no less dangerous than an anorexic wanting you to identify them a fat and give them a gastric band or liposuction.

Where is your kindness and tolerance to WOMEN AND GIRLS? Why is it always only us women that need to 'BeKind'? When gaslighting a woman or girl to deny their eyes and their lived experience as girls and women to cosplay in a man's fetish, that is harmful. It is not 'kind' or 'tolerant' to the woman or girl that is being gaslight and harmed.

You're being very rude to someone who has actual lived experience of this issue. Do you?

It costs us a lot to refer to male people as "she".

If you pretend that a man/boy is a woman/girl just to be polite and considerate of his feelings, you then find yourself very much on the back foot when that man wants to use the women's changing rooms at work, or when that boy wants to join your daughter's sports team. How do you say, "She shouldn't be there, she's a man/boy!"

You can't.

As for non binary pronouns, they're a little more complicated.

If a man wants to identify as non binary, all the same concerns apply. Because in my experience he is almost as likely to want to access women's spaces based on some spurious, unprovable claim that they are more aligned with his gender identity.

If a woman wants to identify as non binary, there is no problem with her using women's spaces or competing in women's sports, but that doesn't mean using they/them pronouns for her isn't harmful to the rest of us. At best, it demands that we modify our speech for fear of the consequences if we get it "wrong", which inhibits our ability to communicate naturally. It also legitimises the idea that these women are somehow different to the rest of us; that a woman is not a female person but a person of either sex who conforms to stereotypical femininity, and that by using she/her pronouns for ourselves rather than they/them like these special non binary women, we are accepting those stereotypes and consenting to being defined in that way.

Controlling how other people are allowed to express themselves, what words they're allowed to use and what ideas they are allowed to express is pretty much on page one of the "how to build a fascist regime" instruction manual.

Have you seen Johanna Olson-Kennedy a famous youth gender doctor in the U.S. is being sued by a former patient who argues she didn't get enough gatekeeping? She got puberty blockers at 12, testosterone at 13, and a double mastectomy at 14. She regrets it all and has realised her sexual abuse as a child is what made her not want be a woman. When she got therapy for the trauma she realised the huge irreversible mistake. She can't have children and is now finding it harder to get fake breast put back in than it was having them cut out at 14. It is complete insanity. Children can not make these decisions.

You're not aware of the Cass report?

Coming into threads like this and trying to scold women who are incredibly well informed about this subject is a bit like criticising someone's understanding of Victorian literature and then saying, "Charles Dickens? Never heard of him."

Have you? You say others need to be kind but you seem to lack empathy for people who have actually lived the trauma. And please don't pretend this post is in any way empathetic. You are telling her to deal with her mental well being so she can suck it up and pretend biological sex isn't real for the "well being" of others, clearly hers doesn't matter to you at all. This 'be kind' attitude is so one sided it makes me sick.

I'd leave it but would also suggest she finds someone else to help her (as long as that doesn't co promise the client) because I am buggered if I'd be working with someone who runs straight to the boss instead of having a professional conversation with me directly first

If people chose to call me he/him, I wouldn't care, so your assumption it would have an effect on my wellbeing is wrong.

You claiming I am aggressive is wrong. My communication is direct. Why would I apply empathy and tolerance for something that's a fantasy (and quite often a fetish)? It's equivalent to having empathy for a unicorn.

Re: your comment - there are other permutations of “sex”

FYI - all humans are either male or female even if they have anomalies of chromosomes.

It's strange that you put sex in inverted commas where none are needed. There are no other permutations of sex.

Of course it is perfectly normal. The OP has lived for many, many years using the terms "she" and "her" for people with female names. She will have used those pronouns for people with female names many thousands of times and therefore does it automatically. It is entirely natural to slip up occasionally and do the same thing she has done thousands of times before, when referring to a female-named person who this time (for some silly attention-seeking reason, in my opinion) prefers different pronouns be used.