Gender critical people- do you use preferred pronouns?

[Lemonjello]

I find this a really hard one, being very gender critical but also not wanting to offend. I'd be interested in other people's views and also, if you refuse to use them, is it a cross you would die on, so to speak? I.e. would you be be willing to lose your job for example. Can you in fact be fired for this?

And i do take the point re performing feminity/masculinity not making you the opposite sex

But it does wind me up when the child always looks like the child always looked!!!

I would, because it's about respect and not being rude. Infact, I get quite cringy when people don't (on here and other places) and I am a very gender-critical femininist.

I do with the transwomen I know. I refuse to call a stupid pretentious twat I know 'they' because they've decided they're gender neutral because that's idiotic and I will not pander to the idiocy.

The TW I know have all had surgery (ie none of them retain their penises). Not sure if that makes a difference but I do think they genuinely have dysphoria

Yes of course it is only polite to use preferred pronouns.
For me it is sport, medicine and changing rooms where biological sex is important.

I'm never doing that xe/ze/whatever crap though

I am happy to call people whatever they ask me to call them, it really doesn't effect my life so I really don't care. But what is gender critical? Never heard the term before.

If it was made a proper crime, (the way I think it may be in Canada?) would you support/stick up for someone who refused to use them?

Absolutely. Probably even if they were just a being jerk. Freedom of speech and all that. That said, I am a coward, so may not be as brave about it as I'd like to be.

I only use preferred pronouns for people who I know to not be misogynist assholes. I.e. trans people on the internet who side with real feminists.

But that isn't an issue so much in real life. In real life, I stay far, far away from trans people, for my own safety. On the rare occasion that I encounter one, I just don't talk about them to anyone, so no need to use pronouns.

(Obviously, if they actually look and behave like the sex they would like to be, I'll be using the pronouns adequate for that sex. I'd not switch pronouns after learning that they are trans, unless I learnt that by them behaving inappropriately. )

As regards names, I will (try) to call someone by what they tell me their name is. But as regards pronouns? Well, apart from being polite with people you know, or not outing a transwoman that passes fairly well in a work situation -- I really object to there being a supposed right to someone else using the 'correct' pronoun about you. Because by calling someone 'she', you are placing them in the category of females for you. So, for instance, a rapist, I'm not calling a transwoman rapist she. They haven't earnt the right to my politeness! I think the issue is also that being called he isn't an insult by and of itself, although obviously it can be intended as an insult (compare to the gay male usage of 'oh, look at 'er!, which is intended to not be totally polite.). I think it is the intention of being insulting that would be the problem in a work situation, and should not be instead 'not using the pronouns that the personage concerned wants you to use, whatever they may be, and hence requiring you to inquire as to the exact pronunciation of zhe required today'...........

I guess that's it for me, your name is your name and you have an individual right to that name, but a pronoun, that is membership of a larger group, and that depends on my opinion and usage, not your personal wishes.

Plus, at the end of the day, I object to what is actually just impoliteness being legislated against (as opposed to an intended insult), and I also feel quite strongly that being called 'she' is an honour that transwomen have to earn from me.

I do with the transwomen I know. I refuse to call a stupid pretentious twat I know 'they' because they've decided they're gender neutral because that's idiotic and I will not pander to the idiocy.The TW I know have all had surgery (ie none of them retain their penises). Not sure if that makes a difference but I do think they genuinely have dysphoria

I think the difference is those who have surgery and hormones tend to somewhat look like the sex they want to be, at least if you take your glasses off and don't look too closely, so it doesn't make you feel so horribly brainwashed and gaslighted to use their preferred pronouns.

I'd use neutral pronouns if asked very nicely, but since all the nonbinaries I've ever met were misogynist assholes who were incredibly obsessed with gender, I suspect it is not going to happen.
(I'd be fine with everyone using neutral pronouns for everyone else, so if some feminist suggested using neutral pronouns as social experiment, I'd do that. What I won't do is use neutral pronouns for someone who calls me "cis")

Let's face it, I have enough trouble remembering names, if I had to remember everyones 'correct' choice of pronoun as well, I'd be totally buggered and never talk to or about anyone ever again...............

I guess that's it for me, your name is your name and you have an individual right to that name, but a pronoun, that is membership of a larger group, and that depends on my opinion and usage, not your personal wishes.

Yeah. Names, if you introduce yourself as a name, I will try to remember and call you that. With the internet, it becomes increasingly common to not know what people are officially called, anyway.

But pronouns are a means of communication for the people who use them. The person they are used for will in most cases not even hear them.
And, as you say, they denote group membership.

Let's face it, I have enough trouble remembering names, if I had to remember everyones 'correct' choice of pronoun as well, I'd be totally buggered and never talk to or about anyone ever again...

Yeah. I think genderfluid people must be natural loners who just found a good way to get rid of other people. Because I surely wouldn't want to be friends with someone whose preferred pronouns not only contradict their physical body, but also change all the fucking time.

I don't if I'm talking privately e.g. mentioning a TIM I know to my DH. I also deadname.
If it was a scenario where I might offend or get into trouble I would be okay with using the new name I would try and talk round the pronouns.
I don't like being forced to say untrue things.

In my language we don't have gendered pronouns, so I often get them wrong anyway (in English). It never used to be a problem, some friends would sometimes make fun of me but in a nice way.
Then one of the guys in our group decided he wanted to be known as 'she' or 'xi' or something (but apart from sometimes wearing dresses he didn't transition).
I do try to get it 'right' but it's an extra effort. And yes, there is always a warrior who takes offence if I call him 'he'. But luckily usually there's someone else who will remind them that 'come on, you know Jyn has been muddling pronouns since the beginning of the world'.
I hate that it became an issue, I hate that I now need to police my language when before it was just a laugh. It made me slightly resent this person and will sometimes not invite him, because I just want a fun evening without constantly having to remember calling him 'she'

I do see that it's a problem - you just can't present as the other sex while having your original pronouns used. The last thing I would want to do would be to hurt someone and I'm happy to bend language not to hurt them. There's no doubt that my thoughts come across in my language though unless I think very carefully. The easiest way to avoid difficulty has been not to talk about the trans people I know unless they are in front of me. Letters/written communication are trickier. I know I'm supposed to ask about pronouns but I dread being asked to use xe etc as I don't know how they work and wouldn't necessarily recognise if pronounced, so at the moment I just use the pronouns of the presenting sex or they as required. Perhaps it brings a little bit of the sheer difficulty of transition home to me, and that's probably a good thing.

I have never had any issue with using preferred pronouns, if introduced with those pronouns/name, but it's damn hard to change once you've fixed on a particular name. When rather a lot younger, I hung out with a queer crowd that included quite a few people with different pronouns. I don't find zie/zir weird, I find it rather elegant.

It's probably relevant to point out that I did go through a period of mentally "disassociating" myself with femaleness/womanhood - nowadays I'd probably be labelling it "non-binary". For me this was probably due to wanting to explore presenting as neutral/male just to experience life with a tiny bit less fucking shit every day. I was both happy enough with my body and deeply unhappy with how people responded to it.

I am now entirely comfortable with my female body. I suspect this is possibly due to getting older and less attractive to creeps.

I suspect that if my first introduction to trans issues was being threatened with rape by misogynist transactivists online, I'd feel differently about using preferred pronouns. But having the introduction in the non-threatening situation of meeting people face to face, with also the context of a lot of people deliberately being playful about gender as a performative "aren't rigid gender rules a big pile of shite?" thing - I mostly feel sad. I would not have expected women to be trying to defend menstruation and pregnancy as female things (and getting fucking death threats for it) in the 21st century when I was a teenager. I thought things would be better than this.

Yep. One of my closest friends is trans and I struggle to even think of him as "her" anymore. I can't imagine using his old name or using female pronouns for him because he's just one of the guys.

My issue is with the concept of gender and those who use it to invade female-only spaces and bully lesbians into having non-consensual sex with them; not with the people just trying to live their lives the way they want to.

I don't know any trans people but I'd always use a person's preferred name and pronouns, because why would I want to offend and upset someone I didn't even know?

The words I use don't change how I think. You can change your gender but you can't change your sex.

I agree with that Ovaries (excellent username as well). My issue is the people I've heard of who are "defining as boys" at a girls' school doing so for what I think of as regressive reasons. It seems to be more about rejecting imposed notions of "gender" and "femininity" which are imposed by society, not innate, anyway. I think this is the antithesis of what should be happening, especially in that kind of environment which should be about freeing people from these expectations, and that it's happening shows how pervasive it all is. Sorry about going off on a bit of a tangent!

"because why would I want to offend and upset someone I didn't even know?"
Surely this is arse backwards? Why should someone you don't know or only know slightly be offended by how you refer to them? It should be someone you know who should be more offended surely. And as regards people I know who have transitioned, they are mostly lesbians who I first knew as lesbians who now want me to pretend they are male and straight (and always were). Or transwomen who want me to pretend they are lesbians rather than straight males. I mourn the first and won't do the latter. Out of a desire to avoid hassle and general politeness, I'll try in other cases, but the problem is with those who want to take offence when none was intended. I guess the line I seem to have discovered now is I'll try to use 'correct' pronouns if I really have to for my own sake, but I will not refer to a transwoman as a lesbian, that offends and directly impacts on me.
God, when I consider all the shit that the dykes I know had to put up with over the years, all this drama and attempted thoughtcrime over pronouns and trying to make others pretend to believe what they know isn't true, makes me a little annoyed!

I would, yes. But I wouldnt think of them as a woman.

Yes. Even though I don't believe in changing your sex, I will address someone as they wish. TBH, I wish pronouns and names were not gendered anyway!

Although, I dont like the porn star/ stripper type names many MTT pick...

I am compelled to by my workplace. I have to interact with a latently violent transwacktivist who is a misogynistic prick and who is up to the eyeballs with male privilege. This person talks down to me, corrects me and generally behaves like a stereotypical unreconstructed patriarchal male sexist shit. But I have to refer to them as 'she' I perform contortions not to do this or to avoid them

It doesn't often occur in RL conversation that you need to use gendered pronouns about someone who's in front of you, though.

I was always taught the old-fashioned "Who's she? the cat's mother?" i.e if you're talking about someone who's there, use their name not an impersonal pronoun.

So I'd address Mary as Mary if that's what they said their name was, and I'd talk about Mary to my colleagues when referring to them. I wouldn't consciously not say "she/her" but I would probably just avoid having to, which isn't too hard. I certainly wouldn't call them by an opposing pronoun to the gender they preferred.

Tbh, I am all up for any Trans person to call themselves what they like, and behave as they like, and be referred to however they'd prefer, as long as they don't wish me to accept that their desire to live as a different "gender" is not the same as them therefore being a different biological sex.

Because, biology trumps feelings.

I don't care about gender one way or the other, except to be riled that it's a stick to be beaten with.

But this is misgendering, cis privilege, etc etc. Sigh.