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?

Well I'm very thankful that everyone in my team knows how to behave like a grown up.

No it doesn’t. It’s openness.

I don’t have people running to me with complaints all the time anyway.

The point I’m making is that colleagues can do that if they feel it’s appropriate.

You really have no one at work who really buys into the gender ideology? Wow, your workplace must be very unusual.

Like over-reacting about someone forgetting pronouns?

Exactly this.

If one of my team came to me with a non problem like this and they were out of their probation period, I'd be thinking, "Fuck, this person is going to be a thorn in everyone's side for as long as they work here."

I think if I were the manager in that situation I would have to explain to them that this sort of response to a trivial matter is not going to endear them to anyone and will most likely harm their career if they keep doing it.

She could always go and work for an organisation which aims to promote, I don't know, non binary visibility or something like that, and would be guaranteed to take misgendering as seriously as she does. But then there's every chance that she gets reported to a manager for accidentally calling a very feminine presenting gender fluid female person called Chloe "she" on a Thursday when everyone knows Chloe uses "they" on Thursdays and "him" on Fridays (because this stuff is so counterintuitive that even the most hardline enforcers make "mistakes" from time to time). Or alternatively she'll go running to a manager for another very trivial matter (referring to someone as "black" rather than "Black" perhaps) and her new colleague will then think she's a petty tattletale as well.

It really is human nature to dislike people who behave like this, and the sooner this young person realises that and stops doing it, the easier her life will be.

We don't tend to talk about gender at work because we're usually doing actual work, and when we're not, there are much more interesting things to talk about.

Furthermore, we work in a non English speaking environment and fucking around with pronouns doesn't work so well in the language we speak at the office.

Yes but if everyone else feels it's inappropriate then they will have made themselves unpopular, won't they?

This is 💯 what I was talking about, one poster has dared to disagree with the gender critical mob, not even a green just say she can see their point, and you've all jumped on her demanding an explosion for her views, telling her she's a terrible manager, slating her work place and more ranting about how insane non binary people are.

Well done ladies! You claim to champion free speech but I don't see much of it being allowed here.

No one has said she's a terrible manager.

Making things up is really not a good look.

There are positives to managers having 'open door' policies. The problem is with policies being abused for trivial things. This makes for bad blood between colleagues. Clearly in the case of the situation in this thread the manager didn't want to deal with it, otherwise the advice of the manager wouldn't have been that she should have raised it with the colleague first.

Many employers would be tearing their hair out over such non issues taking up management time, unless they are gender activists.

Free speech on a discussion board means everyone gets to express their opinion.

It doesn't mean that you can't disagree with someone's opinion. It it did, only the person expressing their opinion would have the right to free speech, and nobody else would have the right of free speech to say they disagree.

All you are seeing here is someone expressing an opinion that a majority of people disagree with.

I haven't seen anyone saying she's a terrible manager or slating her workplace (more saying that this sort of thing would go down like a cup of cold sick in our own workplaces) or saying that people who identify as non binary are "insane". If I've missed those posts, feel free to highlight them.

If, as a manager, she's happy to spend her time refereeing cases of "misgendering" (in communications which were not even destined for the misgendered non binary person and of which the victim is blissfully unaware) then that's entirely up to her.

Many of us feel that such a management style would not be conducive to a properly functioning workplace environment, however.

The majority of people are not making the effort to understand, the majority of the people here are purposefully using the wrong pronouns to either elicit a response, to demean another person & to show dominance they ‘they’ can’t be forced to use ‘they’. That Is not tolerance, that is in fact a one way street. So are you saying that everyone should use tolerance to OP AND the other person(s)?

How wonderful you think we should be tolerant to others inc those that use different pronouns to what you may expect. Back of the net indeed, so glad to see some positivity on here for a change 🌈

Are you reading the same thread as everyone else?

Lovely to see more people agreeing that we need more tolerance to all 🌈

You know that the person who prefers to be referred to as a they/them is not here, right?

There are far more than just XX & XY, if we tested all non binery people it may that they fall into the other categories without knowing. We just don’t have the funds or the interest in testing people

I have asked, time and time again, what the rationale would be for me shifting away from sex based pronouns?

Given that's what we've done all our lives and has been the linguistic convention for centuries?

But no rationale has been given.

There's only male or female. A body set up to make small or large gametes.

There is no third sex or third gamete to be produced. No bodies making both.

Well, no, because it's not relevant. And because most people who know they have a DSD look either female or male and just want to live as normal a life as possible, without making their private medical conditions known to the world so that we can invent a weird new box to put them in.

If we did test the genetic karyotype of everyone in the world, people who identify as non binary would be no more likely to have a DSD than anyone else.

I think the rationale is quite obvious, isn't it?

Don't help her again. She's basically pissed all over you to a manager to score petty virtue signalling points. Tell her to get lost next time she calls or emails.

I’m sorry, are we only tolerant when the other person is here to see/read? I think we may have different feelings on that

Why is it 'intolerant' to correctly sex a person?

Yet there are more than XX & XY as stated in my comment. That’s a scientific fact that has been proven & in the future I believe with testing we’ll find that those that feel they fall outside of XX & XY will fall into one of the other x & y combinations

There is zero evidence for this however.

And why is it if any relevance what people's chromosomal makeup is? When our language and society has always organised itself around d sex.