Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

Personal pronouns

98 replies

Sabistick · 07/12/2017 08:41

Sorry if this has already been answered.

Why are we saying , she/her to trans identifying men, to be polite?

In the rules of grammar, is it the person using the word that gets to choose, based on what they see, or is it the person being described ,who gets to say?
I didnt really study grammar as a kid (child of the 60s here), so any guidance would be good.

OP posts:

slightlyglittermaned · 07/12/2017 14:36

I have known people who preferred zie/zir, user, and I am pretty comfortable with using it. But I wouldn't use it unless requested.

TisapityshesaGeordie · 07/12/2017 14:37

I see your point, Datun, but I'm not looking to upset or antagonise people unless they give me cause to. I don't believe anyone can change sex, and I think gender is a social construct, but using the personal pronoun someone else has chosen for themselves is not an issue for me, provided they afford me the same respect.

TiffanyDoggett · 07/12/2017 14:41

To the one trans person I know (a TIF) I refer to her as him. I do this also when talking about her to people that know her. If, like now, I'm talking about her to people that don't know her I say 'her'.

Datun · 07/12/2017 14:53

but using the personal pronoun someone else has chosen for themselves is not an issue for me, provided they afford me the same respect.

I guess that’s it, in a nutshell.

Original poster

Sabistick · 07/12/2017 14:55

I dont get out much,and dont mix with transgender people, so i know it will be harder for others on the thread, but what would happen if we simply tied our use of him/her to their sex as we saw them?
If we had the courage to trust our inteligence, and if people took offence and called us names, then we could say " but you are a .....". You still treat people with respect, just not at the exspense of your inteligence.

OP posts:

AstraiaLiberty · 07/12/2017 15:18

Personally I wouldn't use an invented gender-neutral pronoun, user. If someone told me that they wanted to be called ze, sie, per, leo, or anything else of that sort, and I wanted to be polite, I'd make sure that I avoided pronouns altogether. It seems to me that those people are asserting that they are special and unique for having personalities which don't reflect gender stereotypes, and that they're mentally consigning the rest of us to the pink or blue boxes of 'cis.' I can't support that ideology.

I know that isn't quite what you were referring to, but I don't think most trans people would be happy with 'ze' either, for different reasons.

RumTumTiger · 07/12/2017 15:36

For people interested in the debate of using pronouns other than the traditional he/she you might want to watch this interview with professor
Jordan Peterson.

MentholBreeze · 07/12/2017 15:45

People compare it to remembering a name - but it really isn't - grammatical gender is a cornerstone of English - you're asking someone to have the overhead of changing a very basic part of their language for you - and that's going to be hard!

Hell, I find it takes concentration to remember to drive on the other side of the road, and I've only been driving for 20 years, so remembering that the man in front of me needs to be refered to using 'ze' or whatever is going to be a bit tricky - like learning a special language just for them.

Luckily, where I live, this is rare to the point of never happening, but if it did, honestly, I'd just avoid that person.

tiktok · 07/12/2017 15:57

A little while ago, I had some dealings with a transwoman in a work situation. This was clearly a transwoman - you could tell by looking. I then had to refer to this person to someone else, and I said 'your colleague over there said xyz, and she told me to collect it on Friday' or whatever. I think it would have been unnecessarily dismissive of this person's clear preference to say 'he'.

In these sorts of everyday situations, I don't think we need to make a political point all the time. Just live and let live. It does not mean I think transwoman are not biologically men.

exWifebeginsat40 · 07/12/2017 16:00

i wonder how many of you would say this to a transgender person’s face? all prissy and ‘no i am SHE and you are HE’ and deliberately misgendering?

because i’d bet my last quid that you would shit your pants and do as asked rather than having the courage of your convictions.

your ‘trans debate’ has become the equivalent of sitting in a pub telling lies about fighting. ‘yeah, he was all like, please use my name and i said BITCH PLEASE I CAN SEE YOUR PENIS AND ANYWAY FUCK YOU’.

this race to the bottom seems to have been won by all of you at once.

ugh.

grannytomine · 07/12/2017 16:11

I dont get out much,and dont mix with transgender people, so i know it will be harder for others on the thread, but what would happen if we simply tied our use of him/her to their sex as we saw them?
If we had the courage to trust our inteligence, and if people took offence and called us names, then we could say " but you are a .....". You still treat people with respect, just not at the exspense of your inteligence.

It would be awful to do that and then find out it is a woman she just has a rather masculine appearance, bit like asking someone when the baby is due and then realising they are just fat.

Original poster

Sabistick · 07/12/2017 16:28

Granny- if you read the cues a person gives out and make a mistake, like you say , asking when the babys due, it would be aweful, but it would be an honest mistake, but that is what it was. To start off by avoiding the truth would be a greater disservice. Like i say i dont want to offend and may use given name, but im not deliberately using the wrong sex based pronoun. Now i think about it, ex , I would use the correct sex pronoun if it were necessary rather than the incorrect one.

OP posts:

Datun · 07/12/2017 16:35

because i’d bet my last quid that you would shit your pants and do as asked rather than having the courage of your convictions.

Why the fuck do you think women might shit their pants and do as they are asked?

Do you think if we were talking about a transman that would be equally applicable?

Women who will shit their pants and do as they are told are being abused.

Ffs.

grannytomine · 07/12/2017 16:41

Sabistick I suppose it depends how you feel about it. I would hate to do that, honest mistake or not I wouldn't want to offend someone. I had a friend at ante natal classes years ago and someone asked her when the baby was due when in fact the baby was nearly six months old. She was struggling with PND and I think it very nearly pushed her over the edge. Some people might shrug it off but some might not.

Ereshkigal · 07/12/2017 16:43

Women who will shit their pants and do as they are told are being abused.

This. And that post makes it very clear. Do you despise and ridicule all abuse victims, ExWife?

nooka · 07/12/2017 16:46

I watched that interview with Prs Peterson and Pete (sp). I saw three men. I would refer to them all as 'he' or 'him' because that is convention when referring to males. However one of them says they are trans and use an alternative pronoun. Of course in practice they don't as none of us refer to ourselves using a pronoun, we use 'I" and "me", maybe 'myself', or 'us' and 'we' in the plural all of which are ungendered.

I'd be a bit concerned about adopting a convention which seems to say that if someone doesn't sound/look like the normal stereotypes assigned to male/female they should be referred to with a different pronoun. In this case the only indicator that one of the men might be gender non conforming is that they have a bit of a light way of speaking. If alternative pronouns became widespread I'd be worried about the possibility that people would use their 'gaydars' and start to refer to anyone who sounded a bit too camp to be a regular guy or a bit too butch to be a proper woman as 'ze, per etc' which would be far more othering than occasionally accidentally wrongly calling a man 'her' or a woman 'him'. Not that I think this scenario is terribly likely to be honest, alternative pronouns have not really got off the ground, and won't I think until there is some consensus on which word to use.

norahnamechange · 07/12/2017 16:52

I will always go for the 'kind' or respectful option. Partly because the abuse and hatred and womanphobia I see coming from the trans activists is so hateful and destructive that I just won't sink to their depths. TERF and cis and the elimination of our collective language (not to mention identity) is so misogynistic and aggressive and I just won't use their tactics.

I always try to remember that behind the vile MRA haters are transgender women and transgender men who are trying to live their lives as they choose.

I also strongly believe - especially those of us who are older women - that we need to remain accessible for all those young people currently being gaslighted and groomed by the pressure groups. If we 'offend' them, then they have nowhere to go if they regret. If they see older feminists as totally hostile to them, then where do they go when the quiet doubts creep in?

We will always be presented as hateful TERFS - but if the reality is that we maintain an assertive and 'open ' attitude - and to me that includes using someone's preferred pronoun where possible - then that is what I will do. Someone can call me a hateful TERF as many times as they like - but if the evidence is that I am always respectful and hopefully kind, then that message will sink in. There's enough hate in this debate and it needs to be clear who is doing the real violence - and it's not feminists.

nooka · 07/12/2017 16:53

Oh and both dd and I have sometimes been mistaken for men. It's really not a big deal. We both dress in a fairly androgenous way, are tall and have short hair. It's an honest mistake and really it's not an insult to be thought of as male. My ds has much longer hair than either of us and when younger (before he had a beard) was sometimes asked if he was a girl. Again no big deal, he thought it was a bit silly to assume long hair = girl and not = boy with longer hair.

Sometimes people call men 'she' as an insult (and women 'he') this is usually homophobia and mysogeny in action, but the context makes it very clear whether hurt is intended. NB calling Lily Madigan 'he' is simply correct, regardless of intent.

Datun · 07/12/2017 16:54

Ben Shapiro, with whom I disagree on almost everything but this, called Zoey Tur sir in a chat show.

Zoey Tur said, on air, if you do that one more time you will go home in an ambulance.

I wonder how many transmen who have been misgendered have reacted that way? How many could?

It’s only politeness or respect if you decide.

If you are coerced, it’s abuse.

nooka · 07/12/2017 16:58

Picking up on a comment below, I once worked on a committee with someone who asked to be referred to as 'they/them' as they were gender fluid (they also changed names part way through the work). It clearly made people uncomfortable because the main result is that people avoided referring to them at all. They were clearly very fragile, and touchy about other identity related matters, I suspect most people felt it was best to minimize interaction. Somehow I doubt that helped their mental health (young person in education environment).

grannytomine · 07/12/2017 17:07

nooka it is great that you and your daughter are happy enough in your own skin to not be bothered but some people will be hurt or offended. I know some grandmothers who tell me they don't like being called granny because it makes them sound old, apparently nana or grandma sound younger! Well granny doesn't bother me but does that mean they aren't entitled to their feelings?

nooka · 07/12/2017 17:13

I wonder how many women on being threatened like that - and with the person making the threat having their hands on you at the time (later described as 'I grabbed that little bastard by the neck') would feel OK to respond as calmly: 'It’s not rude to say someone who is biologically male is a male'. Although it was on camera so perhaps that would be enough to reassure you that the threat was really words alone.

MentholBreeze · 07/12/2017 17:15

I know some grandmothers who tell me they don't like being called granny because it makes them sound old

But you just happily called them 'Grandmother' - because in English, that is the word for a person who is your parent's mother - there's no point being offended if it's factually accurate, and a normal, non-insulting word.

RogueBiscuit · 07/12/2017 17:19

I wonder how many of you would say this to a transgender person’s face? all prissy and ‘no i am SHE and you are HE’ and deliberately misgendering?

Interesting. Because I wonder how many tims would say the same abusive shit to men in real life as they do to women?

because i’d bet my last quid that you would shit your pants and do as asked rather than having the courage of your convictions

Do you think that men would shit their pants? Or just women?

nooka · 07/12/2017 17:27

Deciding whether to be called 'Granny' or 'Nanna' by your grandchildren is really not the same. More similar would be asking to be called 'Mum' and then complaining when your grandchildren weren't too keen.

Flip

1 2 3 4