AIBU to find pronoun introductions patronising?

[superlint]

I was in a meeting this morning and a woman introduced herself saying ‘Hi, my name is Maureen and my pronouns are she/her'

I genuinely haven’t heard anyone say this for years. As she was clearly a biological female and had a female name it sounded both patronising and virtue signalling. We all knew she was a woman within a second of seeing her.

I have never not immediately been able to tell someone’s sex and quite frankly in a meeting you use people's names not pronouns so it’s totally unnecessary.

AIBU to think pronoun announcements sound ridiculous.

Try it the next time you are out and about. See how long it takes you to recognise people’s sex. Mostly it will be within a second even if you can’t see their face or they’re wearing baggy clothing.

I'd be mortified if I felt I had to call someone an obviously wrong gender before being bothered about 'misgendering' them

She would've been as well saying my name is maureen and i'm an insufferable fud.

That's the other problem with this stuff- the power it gives to the kind of person who thinks being an "Ally" turns snitching and witch hunting into a virtue.

I would immediately assume a lot of things—none of them positive—about someone who introduced themselves in person with their pronouns. I suppose they're winning virtue points within a limited community of likeminded virtue-signalers, but they're doing themselves no favours with anyone else.

My understanding of "she/they" is not that the subject pronoun is "she" and the object pronoun is "they" because you wouldn't say "I saw they yesterday". It's a way of indicating use, or don't use, correct sex pronouns for me, I don't mind (I've only ever seen obvious women do this).

So it's either "I'm a very slightly special woman who only adheres to some sex based stereotypes" or "I haven't quite caught on to this so I'm trying to appear very flexible".

Ot is also nonsense in the sense that the person saying "I'm Gayle, my pronouns are she/ her" might be a bloke. So in doing it you are either stating the bloody obvious or you're telling a lie and expecting us to participate in it, which is unreasonable.

Exactly. Stating pronouns never actually clarifies what anyone’s sex is anyway.

Not for this person. It's she and they (not her).

I lived through the 80's and most of the guys i snogged were straight but wore more make up and lipstick than me and no one said oh before i snog you can i know your pronoun!!

And ive spent 18 years in education and can assure you that "they" is plural and means more than one person ie they were at the play park, you cant re write history and the english language and decide that they means singular, its not happening

This is just another example where ‘inclusion’ excludes people. Inclusion of all the whiny highly strung ze / zher people and exclusion of all if the rest of us that can see this for what it is, self indulgent, attention seeking bullshit. It has to stop. Tell me your name and I’ll call you by that name thanks.

but trans people ARE liars....

This thread is so depressing.

There will be hundreds of parents on MN with adult children who have struggled with their gender identity or been misgendered/dead named. And others who struggle themselves. I'm pretty sure those people will have differing views to the OP when it comes to gender identity and inclusion in the workplace.

Now I'm not saying it's right or wrong for Maureen to announce her pronouns in a meeting. She may well be being performative or virtue signalling. I don't know Maureen personally and that's not the point of my post.

My point is that anybody with a different view is too scared to voice it on here because the hardliners are crushing in their criticism. Dissenters get called delusional, lunatic, navel-gazing and worse.

It's not really a discussion forum is it, when people who are too scared to disagree stay silent (and who can blame them?). When it comes to gender issues, AIBU has become an echo chamber. A club, if you like, for those with the 'correct' views.

Just remember, when you're echoing each others sentiments, that there are many many people with other views but you've collectively suppressed their voices. And, historically, suppression has never resulted in good outcomes.

If you have a colleague with a non-English or gender neutral name being talked about on an email chain and you've never met them, it is perfectly grammatical to use "they".

"Have you met Xi in the Beijing office? No, me neither, but I got an email from them yesterday requesting a Teams meeting with both of us. How does Tuesday at 9 suit? They said they prefer am our time because they are ahead of us and otherwise it's bedtime in their time zone".

Then you meet Xi on Teams and find out she's female and next time you refer to her as "she".

Those poor, oppressed voices, controlled the narrative in this area for the last ten years. Anyone who dared raise biological sex was cancelled, reviled, hailed as a bigot.

Facts aren’t bigoted.

see this post is a perfect example of why I wish mumsnet had a block function.

You can use “they” for singular though. We tend to use it when discussing a person but we don’t know their gender.

“Oh I hear apparently we’ve managed to recruit somebody for the role. Have you met them yet? What are they like?”

Oh for the love of God. If people have such a huge issue being referred to as the sex they are, they need to see a therapist.

Why would anyone be ‘too scared’ to voice a view on an anonymous internet site? There is literally NOTHING bad that could happen!

Also can we stop assuming anybody who mentions their pronouns is simply trying to signify how virtuous they are? Some people genuinely just see it as a nice thing to do so trans / non-binary people don’t feel like the odd one out on having to state that how they represent maybe at odds with their inner understanding of their gender. Not everybody who believes something different to you is merely trying to virtue signal. Sometimes those are their sincerely held beliefs.

’They’ is generally only used in the singular if you don’t know the sex of the person. Which is fine of course. It’s just feels a bit silly/forced if you do know the person's sex.

IIRC, the original reason we were all supposed to do this was so that any transgender people in the group wouldn't feel singled out. Not only did we have to pretend that we couldn't possibly guess the gender of six foot two Jeanette with the adam's apple, the deep voice, the five o'clock shadow and the six twelve shoes, but that everybody's gender was equally impossible to detect just from looking.

Man am I glad that is over.
edited for typos

Yup. Everyone flags them as someone to avoid like the plague because they’re the sort to castigate you for not calling them - a self evident biological man - her.