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.

If they were so innocuous, why the demand that we all had to use them?

"Touch base", are you American?

I know what it's supposed to be for.
I haven't decided on my pronouns yet, so it feels a very uncomfortable thing to do. Maybe others feel the same.

I mean you literally do.

You're either she/her, he/him or they/them. That's just how the English language works. Pretending everyone in your life always calls you by your name and never e.g. she/her is bizarre.

You don't have to. As long as the rest of us are inclusive you'll be the one on the outside being intolerant and judgemental.

Pronoun announcements do sound ridiculous but she may just be young and a bit naive?

I think a lot of 20 somethings grew up with this and didn't understand for a few years how it negatively influenced most people they met except their own peer group (and even then...). A lot have realised and readjusted, but there are always going to be some stragglers who just don't pick up on things so quickly.

It's not. Hope that helps.

I worked in an environment where announcing pronouns would have been yet another reminder I was the only woman. No thanks, they all knew anyway but constant reminders would just have made my sense (and their sense) of me not belonging even worse.

The edicts to announce pronouns don’t seem to consider who it harms..

It's not being intolerant to object to someone trying to control your speech.

It's intollerant to call someone fat when they're obesity isn't impacting you directly.

It's not intollerant to refuse to say you find a fat guy slim and sexy.

Did it ever occur to you that normalising pronoun announcements for everyone regardless of gender identity makes trans and non binary people feel included?

I thought you weren't supposed to 'out' trans people?

I made no comment at all about you not being allowed to engage with the thread.

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.

Well, your assumption about parents is quite wrong, because pretending that everyone needs to announce our pronouns is not at all beneficial to trans people. It's the opposite.

Imagine the anxiety it would cause if we all decided that the nicest way to make people with sight problems feel comfortable in society is to pretend everyone can see equally well and for everyone to wear glasses at work, with employers handing out plain lenses to employees whose sight doesn't need correction. But it really wouldn't make astigmatics like me feel any better about needing to wear glasses. Instead we would feel increasingly anxious about our sight and paranoid about the motives of those people who refuse to wear glasses. "But wearing these glasses at work is such a little politeness, everyone should do it, so why isn't he? Is he phobic about short-sighted people?"

Having everyone announce their pronouns turns the minor embarrassment of a trans individual saying when necessary "I'm Jane, actually I'm trans" or sticking in an email sig "Jane, pronouns she/her" into a much bigger and even more embarrassing public production. All that general annoucements achieve is to make trans people far more anxious about the motives of people who don't make the effort to do general announcements and to remember and use the right pronouns forever after. It's one of the reasons why social transition makes so many trans people feel more dysphoric and more anxious about needing to pass and more unhappy, not less.

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.

Why should anyone who wants to disagree be scared fgs and stay silent on an anonymous discussion forum? Scared of what? Robust disagreement?

Compare this to a British university where people really are too scared to disagree with the genderists and remain very silent (and who can blame them) or risk abuse, harassment, and job losses. All of which has happened.

When it comes to gender issues on campus, universities are echo chambers repeating TWAW. An entire campus, if you like, for those with the ‘correct’ gender views. One clinical researcher I know was hounded for her research on sex differences to medication because it highlighted sex, not gender.

Now that is something to be scared about when adhering to gender ideology requires limiting free speech and research.

No I am from the country of Tolerance. You might have heard of it, it is a wonderful place where people of myriad backgrounds and identities come together and get along to respect one another's pronouns. You should buy yourself a ticket and come experience it for yourself.

I dont identify as any gender, and I choose not to have my own pronouns, so I literally don't.

People can use whatever pronouns they want for me though. Im fine with that.

Oh god, Canada, even worse

A reasonable adjustment would be for people not to expect everyone to pander to their gender ideology beliefs.

"Is it worth the hurt and pain caused by even an accidental misgendering?"

I have been being called "sir" and assumed to be male on the telephone ever since I was old enough, at about age ten, to answer the family phone. And you know what? It has never caused me the slightest hurt or pain, because I am not a self-absorbed twit who thinks the entire world gives a damn which sex I am when they want to speak to someone else anyway. Hurt and pain. Good grief. What on earth does such a person do if someone drops a book on his or her foot? Retire to bed for a month?

If being referred to in his absence as he instead of xho is the worst thing that happens in someone's life, he is getting a very smooth ride indeed.

(If nothing else, half the invented pronouns are impossible to pronounce, so "misgendering" seems to be likely to happen in self-defence. That or descriptive phrases: "You know, the one wearing the hideous purple shoes.")

"Is it worth the hurt and pain caused by even an accidental misgendering?"

How on earth has anyone got themselves into such a psychological mess that an "accidental misgendering" causes them hurt and pain?

My guess is, the less often it happens the more terrifying it becomes. Because that's how anxiety disorders grow.

Why would it out trans people? It would clearly do the opposite.

If someone in a frock and a long wig, but clearly male, said his pronouns were she/her, it'd out him as trans rather than just a man in a frock and long wig.

"I can see that this person is male, but he says he want to be referred to as she/her."

Trans. Outed. Whereas if he had kept his big yap shut about his sexuality, nobody would have known or cared. Most people don't give a stuff what you want to bonk, as long as you don't bring the llama to the office with you.

Wow, so she's so special that you're not only expected to use the wrong pronouns for her sex, but she actually wants you to remember to use wrong, non-existent grammar for your (presumably common) language?

Absolutely nobody is correctly called 'they' in that case: "Can you give they a form", "I saw they yesterday" and such. It isn't just using the language wrongly; it's inventing your own new language.

It makes as much sense as you inventing your own numbers, and expecting people to use them whenever talking to you. Everybody else uses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; but you use 19, 4, 146, 54, 33 to refer to those same numbers.

So you ask somebody to give you 146 of something, and they hand you a massive pile of them; but you only actually needed what everybody else calls 3 of them... but they should have known that, when you asked for 146, you meant 3; so you're angry at them and it's somehow their fault for being bigoted and non-inclusive?!

How can anybody seriously carry on like life is one continual absurd Monty Python-style sketch?!

Ah Canada. Where women are being incarcerated with men and that’s supposed to represent progress and enlightenment. 🙄

Unfortunately all it really leads to is people distancing themselves from her, even though she seems like she's quite nice. The worry of getting it wrong and one of the "allies" jumping down your throat just makes for a bit of an unpleasant vibe.