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.

It all seems quite relaxed in terms of style and not using women’s facilities. You use she where others might use he? And is the latter ok?

I tend to think, let's get there first, before we dismantle the strategies that women rely on even if they're not 100% effective. When we don't have an andocentric workplace then we can start plastering pronouns around.

So far the combination of androcentric and pro-gender-identity has been more toxic to women than either alone.

It's like the plane-with-bulletholes survivorship bias meme.

"trans people don't pass as all the trans people who I recognised as trans didn't pass".

In day-to-day life people don't pay that much attention and will often make assumptions based on cues like long hair etc, precisely as your experience demonstrates.

No, people can certainly make mistakes. It's very unlikely in a full in person up close interaction long term, but it can happen. Some people don't care enough to think much about it, some just aren't very good at it. Women tend to be better at it than men.

I have certain doubts about people who claim they have long term close up interacted with several people in the same place and never once would have guessed their correct sex. Statistically it's highly unlikely.

It doesn't matter, though. Even if a person passes as the opposite sex to everyone they meet, they still aren't that sex. It may mean they can manage to get away with breaking the law but it doesn't mean the law shouldn't exist. People get away with all sorts of things; we don't respond by removing all protections and safeguards. If anything, we tighten them.

Obviously she prefers "she", but accepts "he" from a casual person such as...I dunno, a waiter. Doesn't 'correct' them if they aren't going to have an ongoing relationship.

It's not to do with being validated. It's about internal sense of alignment. I don't get it but then I'm not trans, am I? It's a lot more complex and subtle than some people here might believe. The only people whose acceptance matters to her are those she cares about.

Which doesn't mean she is happy to be called a "dirty bastard" in the street for simply walking along with her brother whilst wearing a skirt

This absolutely baffles me because I have seen Thai Lady Boys, up close. And exquisite though they undoubtedly are you can still tell they're not women. Often the pronounced Adam's Apple gives it away, but it's mainly how they move. Men and women's pelvises are structurally different and influences posture and movement.

I'm late to the thread but I was just about to share this article myself.
Well worth sharing again anyway for those who haven't read it.

It's not 'just pronouns'

It's not to do with being validated. It's about internal sense of alignment.

What's the difference?

I don't get it but then I'm not trans, am I?

I "get" a lot of things that I don't share. Lesbianism, for example. I am suspicious of qualities that can only be understood by people who have that quality and cannot be explained to anyone who doesn't.

It's a lot more complex and subtle than some people here might believe. The only people whose acceptance matters to her are those she cares about.

Well that is a bit circular isn't it? As soon as your DC "cares about" anyone they're going to have to "accept" DC as "she" - or what?

Of couse no-one wants to be insulted or called names.

Love it 😂

I can't do that because I'm Dr Julian Lastname. So I put my pronouns in.

I had a boss like you, also in his 50s. He loved to make it clear that he was against modern day wokeness in the workplace. You could tell he thought by making such statements that he was oh so brave, enlightened, or even different from the rest. But the rest of us just felt he was showing his age and attention seeking. We use to roll our eyes and feel second hand embarrassment on his behalf. None of us respected him.

I think this pronoun propaganda is nonsense, but I know how to separate my personal beliefs from my work life. You sound petty. There are ways to make your point, this isn’t one of them.

She was not born a woman. She lives like a woman and wants to be called a woman and I respect that. Why would I not? I get all the “men in female spaces and competing as female in sports” argument too. I just don’t think it’s black and white always.

Ok but if they care about someone who doesn’t want to use she can they accommodate them? Or is it all one way

What does it mean to live like a woman? Or are we just going to go round the houses again? If I don't do any of the actions you give as "living like a woman", am I not a woman?

(The funny thing is, living like a woman usually means doing the food shop, organising Christmas, pulling World Book Day costumes out of thin air the night before, taking the dog to the vet and being appropriated and reduced to this kind of nonsense, and men who "live as women" rarely do any of that.)

And "wants to be called a woman", that's pretty meaningless. Still, you can do it if you like, it's up to you. But again... "this person wants to be called a woman and I'm happy to oblige" is not at all the same thing as him actually being a woman, or "presenting as a woman" (whatever that means) or you actually being truly fooled into wrongly thinking he is one.

No we are not going round the houses. You know exactly what I mean.

Because he isn't a woman and the concept of 'living like a woman' is nonsensical. How do women live that's distinct to men?

We can be supportive of however people want to present themselves without pretending men can be women. Thats not respectful to actual women's experience, to biological reality or to clear and accurate use of language.

In agreeing to call men womem, you make it harder to keep women's spaces single sex. How do you justify calling a man a woman and then telling this 'woman' they can't access woman's spaces?

Sounds like you're just as bad as him to me with your casual ageism. Or perhaps I'm showing my age thinking that those old school school isms still matter.

Well just reading that has put me in fear. I'm going to hide the thread now as I'm so upset 🤣. Honestly though, people have waaay too much time on their hands.

Yes but the difference between a Thai lady boy and someone you glance at once is that with the lady boy you are looking very closely specifically to try and see the obvious or subtle signs of manhood.

Your average person doesn’t usually stay long enough to ponder on a persons sex, particularly not a child or teen with longhair. They glance. Determine female. Persist forward in their belief to a point of bemusement when corrected.

That's exactly what you said last time, and claimed it answered the question. "You know what I mean", and yet for some reason you never say what you mean.

Of course, we do know what you mean, and we also know that's why you can't say it. There's no answer that isn't absurd, reductive, sexist and instantly disprovable.

My colleague would not be able to use male toilets as she would be seen as a woman entering men’s space, whilst if she entered a female toilet, no one would bat an eye lid. I understand in your world, men can never present as a woman (by present as a woman I mean assumed/perceived to be a woman by most people), but in the real world this can happen which is why it’s not always black and white.

They picking up on multiple indicators, many of which are processed at a semi conscious level.

Gait, stride, shoulder to hip ratio, face construction (brow/jawline) voice, even things like pheromones. Humans, particularly women tend to be excellent at discerning sex, even when not paying much attention. Babies and animals can reliably distinguish between men and womem fgs.

They know what sex they are though. I'm not sure extended attempts to mislead others is any kind of great win here. I'm all for the TRA lobby to campaign for their own third spaces though, if that's what they think they need.

You just throw abuse at anyone not thinking exactly the same way as you. Any answer not to your liking is absurd, reductive, sexist and instantly disprovable.

And if I were YOUR manager I’d call you in to discuss your ‘inappropriately’ underdeveloped sense of humour.

And I’m not transphobic.