Just been told to remove my pronouns from my Teams profile

[Horrace]

I'm weak 🤣
My manager just phoned me to say there has been some serious complaints made about me that he must urgently address.
I panicked.
In the Pronouns section of my Teams profile, I have

'Take a Wild Guess'

Its been there for a few years. Its finally been noticed and I've been told to take it down because it's made someone or more than one possibly, FEARFUL of me.

Same goes for "outing" yourself if you use the right sex, or unisex, facilities. It only outs you if you didn't pass in the first place. If I enter a unisex facility, people think I'm a woman in the unisex space. If I accidentally enter the men's, which has happened on occasion, people think I'm in the wrong place and let me know.

Time to introduce the Pronoun Song....

Fine if people make a mistake so be it.

I prefer it to gender ideology which imposes a framework which isn’t good for women, or dc.

I am reminded of Ricky Gervais’s various commentaries on the fact that there is no right NOT to be offended. That offence is never given, only taken.

We have our core working hours on our email signatures, which was championed by our parents working group. While it's mostly parents who aren't doing regular 9-5s it benefits everyone and I don't think anyone think it feels like they're having an agenda forced down their throats by a bunch of pronatalists? You can find working hours on people's outlook calendars but that's no use if you're contacting someone outside of your workplace and is generally more convenient as an at-a-glance reminder. Pronouns seems much the same to me.

I really miss the time before all this “bring your whole self to work “ nonsense, when we went to work did our jobs then went home, safely unaware of what our colleagues got up to in their spare time! 🤷‍♀️

My trans daughter often wears trousers - mostly, actually. She doesn't wear makeup ever. She does have long hair. Never wears heels. This is exactly true to herself as this is the kind of style she would have worn had she been born female. I myself very rarely bother with makeup and never heels, for example.

Of course she can't win because some people say she "isn't even making an effort". You will be pleased to hear that she understands that she is likely to be read and addressed as male by strangers when in this type of outfit.

Sorry? What?

How is it in any way the same thing? Including core working hours helps the recipient know when the sender could potentially deal with the email. It is useful from a work perspective. Knowing someone has a gender identity and what it is makes no difference to how or when they do their work. So long as I know their name and am capable of using second person pronouns (I.e. You, your etc) I can engage with them.

There are also downsides to sharing pronouns all over the place. The area I work in still has a fair amount of prejudice against women. Some women deliberately use initials. You don't really want to repeatedly highlight what sex people are.

So whose agenda do you prioritise?

The thing with stating pronouns is that you're giving someone an instruction as to how they should refer to you when you're not there, which I don't think any of us have the right to do.
We can tell them what name to call us to our face, and expect they will do so, or call us 'you'. But we really shouldn't be dictating how they speak with reference to us.
As soon as you tell someone to talk about you as he/she/they, you are controlling them, because they know that if they don't do as you tell them, they could be in trouble for 'failing to respect you'.
The OP could indeed have simply refused to state her pronouns. However that's only half the issue, the other half being forced to speak about others in the way they dictate you should.
Seems the OP clearly wanted to go further than simply opting out, and protest the principle, which on reflection I think is fair enough.

I am beginning to wonder if some of us work for the same org.
Or are they all the same now

Well now your child knows a tiny bit of what it's actually like to be a woman... Not that your child is one of course.

Well, aren't you just a peach?

You will be pleased to hear that she understands that she is likely to be read and addressed as male by strangers when in this type of outfit.

Look, you have a child who presents as feminine and that works for them. So far, so good. I hope your child feels happier in themself and has found a way to feel at ease. How others address them isn't going to make anyone here 'happy' or 'unhappy'.

Those of us who don't believe in the existence of a gender identity are, on the whole, perfectly fine with masculine women and feminine men. Many of us are gender non-conforming ourselves. It's the substitution of 'gender identity' for 'sex' in law and in policies that we get aerated about. And also heavy-handed institutional pressure to conform to that belief system by announcing our pronouns.

By choosing to deviate for social norms in presentation, your child will have a rougher time than those who stick to what is conventional. So do I, for different choices, and I take that on the chin. I hope your child is in a state of mind to do so as well.

No one wants young people to be made unhappy. We just want women and girls to have their sex based rights respected, and for young people in distress to be protected from harmful and irreversible damage to their bodies and fertility by poorly evidenced medical treatments.

Sorry for telling the truth.... ?

OK, so your trans daughter is male (I had to read it twice!) But how can you know what your child would wear if they'd been born the other sex? They'd be a different shape. Possibly six inches shorter so they might want to wear heels.

Is you child ever read as female? When your child is wearing a dress people might be unsure (I've sometimes wondered "unusually masculine female or transwoman?") or even if people are sure your child is male they probably assume that your child wants to be seen as female (or at least not as definitely male) in a dress and if they are polite they will respond that way. But I have met a few transwomen IRL and I can't think of any who I just "read" as clearly female.

I think dressing in a feminine way is more effort whatever sex you are. You either think it's worth it, or you don't.

I never noticed this with teams? Is it something you've gone out of your way to do and isnt an automatic thing that you have to fill in when you sign up?

If you've gone out of your way to do this, its just shit banter. Its not wildly offensive - just unnecessarily political for the workplace.

I guess what I mean is that she has a style that reflects her character. It's a bit hippy, a bit grungey, and was always thus, pre and post "coming out" as trans.

If she had come out as trans and started dressing like a porn star in fishnets and killer heels (as alleged in a deleted post earlier in the thread) it would have been clear that she was aping a sexualized form of femininity that is nothing like her personality. She doesn't, and neither do all bar one of the other trans people I know.

My child is not taking hormones (yet) and is never automatically read as female. Most people do as you say and assume when she wears a skirt that she is trans.

I'm considering putting in a complaint to say im fearful of those colleagues stating they are more than one person/sex.
The they/themselves and the he/him/they/thems

I went out of my way.
It went unnoticed for years

That all makes sense @Diverze

I wouldn't expect that your DC will be read as female even after taking hormones, not unless your DC already has an unusually feminine appearence, bone structure and musculature. A more androgynous man, yes. It's one of the reasons they used to insist that men who wanted to transition had to "live as the other sex" first - so the doctors could see if the patient would tolerate the limitations of medical transition.

Thirty-five years ago I was horrified at how little physical change the transwomen I knew got from transition yet they didn't seem to mind. At the time physical transition was more of a rarity and no-one really knew about regretters etc. Nowadays it seems to me there is more of a politically motivated effort not to know and not to tell people. (sorry - bit of a derail there!)

How would it have been seen? If it went unnoticed for years, that suggests it's somewhere you have to look for it?

This is funny to me because my teenage male son (who was born a male and has no desire to present as anything differently) is constantly called a girl and assumed to be female. He is very tall and slim - and wears only adult men’s clothing. The only thing remotely feminine is his long hair and even that is tied back in a low ponytail at all times. Still, everywhere we go people remark about my daughter. Even when it’s an appointment for him and he is the only child with me, they ask where he is and are shocked when I say “this is him!”

It’s just strange to me when MN continually say how people could never identify someone born male as female. People are too wise for that. Meanwhile I have a big strapping lad rolling his eyes at being called Miss and my daughter once again.

Yes, there are a few exceptions. But they're not related to being trans or taking cross-sex hormones etc.

I don't think people should be forced to share their pronouns / reveal their sex especially if they think it's prejudicial (this is partly why we do 'blind recruitment' in our organisation, without names, ages attached to applications).

But more widely I think it's a good thing to encourage an environment where women are recognised for their contribution, not having to hide behind initials in an androcentric workplace.

Realistically for most people, most of the time people will make the right assumption whether a name is male or female. If things are so bad that people need to hide behind initials I think pronouns are the least of people's worries - either its a situation (like recruitment) which needs total anonymisation or it points to a significant workplace culture issue that needs tackling, as there aren't many situations where you can rely long-term on using your initials to avoid misogyny.