Preferred pronouns grrr

[Hastheworldgonebonkerz]

I work in a public facing role. I've been here for 8 years and have always got on brilliantly with all my colleagues and my boss, it's something I pride myself on. Around 2 years ago my supervisor "came out" as FtM trans. This in itself was not a massive issue obviously, live and let live etc. Although it came as a shock as I'd known him as female for 2 years by then. But I adjusted and everything seemed ok. The issue is everything that has happened since then. My formerly female boss has to all intents and purposes transitioned to become a man, with short hair, facial hair, lower voice and wearing men's clothes and shoes. Obviously presenting as male. But he will not acknowledge this in any way and insists on being referred to not as "he/him" but with his "preferred pronouns" - these are "ze/hir". How the hell is preferred pronouns even a thing, and since when was it ok to just make up your own??? I've googled these particular ones and it takes me to teenager's Tumblr blogs. My boss is almost 40 ffs. I just can't bring myself to use them and so most of the time I manage to avoid using any pronouns at all, but sometimes it's hard and I've had to say he/him. The last time this happened was in a meeting, and my boss took me aside afterwards and accused me of belittling and humiliating him in front of the team. Apparently I face a disciplinary if it happens again. Can he really do this, and can he force me to use ze/hir? In the staff room if people are having a chat he will join in and "call us out" on stuff we say, even if we weren't talking to him. It's making things really tense, and people are becoming afraid to speak. I feel like I'm being pushed out of my workplace in a way.

[Stickystickstick]

Is zi - he and hir-him?

So instead of ‘is that him?’ you’d say ‘is that hir?’ And depending on pronunciation it would sound like her or here and either way it gives the question another meaning.

Zi always makes me think of the French policeman from allo allo.

[Datun]

The only way you can both tell the truth and avoid being charged with discrimination is to use trans identified people's names.

This is true.

However, if you are inwardly fuming and realise you're being gaslighted and bullied, you can, quite easily, go out of your way to remain aboveboard, whilst making your objections perfectly plain.

Studied use of the 'correct' pronouns, using they or their name.

It's childish, but could constitute something of a safety valve if you are seriously about to blow an internal gasket.

I'm not suggesting you do this, OP, you have to work there.

I'm totally with you on how tedious stressful and irritating this is.

[panjandrumpyjamas]

I say walk in on Monday and say you have thought about it and would like the preferred pro nouns of princess and pony and you are now non binary.

[panjandrumpyjamas]

Or just imagine that Zi is their new name.

[BahHumbygge]

Jeez, I feel like I'm reading a script from 'Allo 'Allo with these neo-pronouns

Sidestep the pronoun issue by avoiding pronouns, just use the person's name. Let it sound as clunky as it is.

[BrownBiscuitBarrel]

How do you pronounce 'hir'?
You'd also need a word for 'his' as well

[Mouthandtrousersall]

A useful doc form an expert

uktrans.info/attachments/article/157/amcechaasd.pdf
The pronouns; she or he, him or her, his or her, exist entirely through customary use and practice. There is no legal requirement to call anyone by any particular pronoun, but not call someone by an appropriate pronoun can be discrimination, manifestly showing your prejudice, or be just plain rude and bad behaviour. ‘They’ and ‘their’ are very useful terms if you are not certain which gender someone is presenting in. However, if a person has made their gender identity clear – either by their personal presentation or by telling you their name – then it can be very affirming to the person if you use the appropriate gender pronoun.

So asking for special words is not a legally backed request. He is the appropriate pronoun. I work in HR and I would not uphold a complaint from a manager about a member of their team about anything other than he or she as it's not practical or reasonable.

[EBearhug]

How much of an issue is it? If you're talking directly to your manager, you're going to use the second person pronouns, i.e. "you". If you're talking with clients abour your manager, you can just avoid pronouns and use his name. And just mention to them once to the client, "Boss's preferred pronouns are ze and hir," with an innocent smile.

It's only actually an issue if you're talking about your boss to others, while said boss is present, which I can imagine happens at the end of a meeting, in a summing up, "so you'll send us your preferred dates, then I can confirm the ordering schedule and ze will sign it all off with you at the next meeting." It's probably as easy to put Boss's name there as ze, though.

[Childrenofthestones]

I can't get my head around this. If they identify as a man what is the problem with He. Surely that is only an affirmative of what they want,.... to be accepted as a man.
12 months ago somebody in his position would have been screaming about somebody calling him she and demanding they were called he.
It's like grown adults turning into attention seeking students.
Talking of students there's a college in the US that brought this in where they were allowed to pick their name pronouns and I mean anything, and a male student chose your majesty. Professors and tutors were faced with the prospect of having to call him your majesty every time they spoke to him. How it played out I don't know.
As somebody else pointed out Jordan Peterson was brilliant on this and put his neck on the line taking on the Canadian government over bill C16. Results of which was that he lost his funding for his research and had to crowd fund.
He has had countless other professors contact him in support but be too frightened come out and say so for fear of the career consequences.
Standing back and looking at this it's not a million miles from the McCarthyism that went on in the 50s.

[TerfyMcTerface]

In the video linked up thread, Jordan Peterson notes that there are 40 different pronouns circulating.

So, if I teach, say, 100 students each term, a number of whose preferred pronouns don’t align with their sex, how the fuck am I supposed to remember them all? I can barely remember all their names as it is.

I hope Canada is building lots of new jails for all the pronoun transgressors that it’s threatening to imprison. It’s going to need then.

[LassWiADelicateAir]

It is quite difficult to imagine a situation where you use a third person pronoun where the person is present.

I can imagine happens at the end of a meeting, in a summing up, "so you'll send us your preferred dates, then I can confirm the ordering schedule and ze will sign it all off with you at the next meeting."

If the person who is to sign off was me in that context you wouldn't say she will sign off you would say Lass will sign off

As for telling clients and expecting them to remember and even worse correcting them (client - can I speak to X? Answer X isn't here today - client can you ask him to call me - Answer I will ask ze to call^)

[TerfyMcTerface]

I just checked the trans policy at my work, and we are indeed required to use preferred pronouns.

I also learnt that we can "self-define" our way into which ever so-called "single-sex" facility we like, no questions asked.

[Mouthandtrousersall]

@Terfymcterface

Yes, I imagine that's already the standard.

We need a day of action where women all use the men's toilets in a raising consciousness day.

We need to go back to 2nd wave feminism techniques.

Consciousness raising (also called awareness raising) is a form of activism, popularized by United States feminists in the late 1960s. It often takes the form of a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group of people on some cause or condition.

[MrsMcGarry]

And yet of course Mumsnet isn't transphobic at all but just concerned about an erosion of womens rights....

[TerfyMcTerface]

Well, I'm concerned at being mandated to use whatever made up word someone else demands I use. When I teach 100 students a term, and already struggle to learn their names, and then have to add pronouns (matching 70 different genders, but which could equally be whatever that individual fancies) into the mix, then forgive me for pointing out that I'm being set up to cause offence.

[Mouthandtrousersall]

People are laughing at the silliness of made up pronouns. And they are silly really.

Phobia is a fear. Laughing at silly behaviour isn't a demonstration of fear. It's just laughing at silly behaviour. Laughing can puncture pomposity or enrage the person being silly, but it's a useful antidote. Have you read the cold war literature where people were imprisoned for jokes about the regime? Is that what we should fear about perceived transphobia? How much of normality it will make illegal?

[Myunicornfliessideways]

And yet of course Mumsnet isn't transphobic at all but just concerned about an erosion of womens rights....

If you believe that anything but unconditional enabling of any and all demands by anyone who self identifies, irrespective of their behaviour, of rational sense, of other people's reality and of other people's rights is 'transphobia' yes from your point of view I'm sure you're right.

[DryHeave]

Can you get around the issue by using your colleague’s name and they/their if a pronoun is required?

[BertrandRussell]

If this is real then you need to flag it up with HR yourself. And I would stop using pronouns at all-just use his first name if you think you might slip up. And if you do slip up, make sure you slip up to he/him not she/her.

[Fekko]

I came on thinking that ‘grrrr’ was a new one. I quite like it.

Sincerely yours
Grrrr Fekko