AIBU to refuse to use 'preferred pronouns'?

[BonBonns]

If someone presents themselves as transgender and says they want to be known as 'she' do I have to do that?

Do I have no freedom of speech?

I do not believe people can change sex.

I do not believe that a man can become a woman. With pronoun use. With hormones. With dresses or lipstick. With surgery.

It is just NOT my personal belief.

Is it a hate crime to refer to someone born male as a man against their will?

Even if it is against mine?

Where would that end?

I am atheist. Do I have to say I believe in God to appease a Catholic? Am I forced to refer to a priest as 'Father' even though I don't follow that religion?

If someone is called David but wants to be called Dave am I to be investigated if I choose to continue using David?

Isn't this madness?

How can my own beliefs come 2nd to someone else's delusions?

It is biology. It is science. It is common sense.

A man cannot become a woman any more than I can become 23 again or an antelope.

You can't always tell the difference. Maybe you think you can because you can spot some of them. The ones that pass, you just think are the gender they present as and call them that presumably. If you wanted to be quite sure you weren't calling a biological male 'she' or vice versa I guess you would have to use gender neutral pronouns all the time.

I can sniff out a man.

Men wall differently to women.

Men have an underlying hum in their voice.

Men have big heads.

are you the child catcher from chiti chiti bang bang?

The thing is.. You only use pronouns when talking about a person, not when talking to a person. You can be perfectly polite without pandering to their delusion

It's actually really rude to dictate how you speak when not in their presence. It's an attempt to control your right to express yourself

Hmm I agree trans women aren't actually women and the entitlement from some of the TRA is winding me right up recently, but I'd use preferred pronouns providing the person was polite and courteous. To refer to one of your own examples, if someone called David asked to be called Dave, why wouldn't you? It's what they want and it doesn't affect you. As individuals we accommodate all sorts of reasonable, harmless things we don't necessarily agree with, and for me preferred pronouns falls into that category.

I mean ya you could talk about anyone how you like when they are not there but if the person you are talking with does not understand what you are doing then all you are going to do is look rude. I mean remember all those undercover reporters that tape people saying rude or insulting things about people and what happened to they when it came out. you have the right to do that and for people to not like you for your views.

are you the child catcher from chiti chiti bang bang?

Women find it very easy to tell someone's sex Bespin. Our lives depend on it.

I think it is very wrong to compel speech, pronouns should not be legislated imo, nor the statement 'you are a man' to a transwoman - just like the statement 'you are fat' should not be prosecuted (irrespective of whether this is true or false or whether the person is maybe even anorectic).
I think both statements are in most circumstances rude, even if true, but legislating this kind of stuff is totalitarian lunacy.

As for pronouns, I agree with Jordan Peterson (which does not happen often), that you use pronouns trying to nail the gender you think you see. Hence I am also not invested in them. As such, I wouldn't mind being corrected and using the other pronoun (he or she). If the person has a beard and wants to be called 'she' I will probably simply not remember and keep saying 'he' and that should not matter either. (I regularly call Miranda Yardley 'she', though he insists on 'he' now as a transsexual who wants to make a point. It happens. The name 'Miranda' just calls for a 'she', I guess. And I don't associate Miranda with 'male' somehow, even though I know).

Again, pronouns should not be compelled, and if someone decided to call me 'he' for the rest of my life, I wouldn't care either. Pronouns do not change physical reality, I simply do not care. My name does not really give away my gender, and I get called 'he' in correspondence regularly. I do not correct that.

And because pronouns are so inconsequential, I find the idea of asking anyone 'what are your pronouns?' unfathomably silly and I will never do this, nor will I ever collude with the ze/zem xe/xem... lunacy.

I don't think anyone is legislating pronouns in the UK are they. People have the right to say what they want it does have consequences but it is not against the law unless the intent is to course hurt to others. intent is often importent

It’s such a petty thing to get upset about. pronouns aren’t used when the person actually is there anyway. So why does it matter? I’m beginning to really dislike this enforced political correctness. We are not allowed to use the word ‘fat’ in our school. Even when describing Henry VIII in his later years. The man is dead, for goodness’ sake. How offended is he likely to be? My own daughter, who looks very androgynous, gets odd looks in the ladies’ from time to time, and has been misgenderd by her teachers. She really doesn’t care at all.

I thought the Supreme Court ruling in the Ashers Bakery case enshrines our legal ability to refuse compelled speech. So we can't be compelled to express a belief or opinion we don't share. I feel invalidated and oppressed when told to express the belief that woman and she mean anything other than biological sex. I don't share that belief, and anyone who tries to make me express it is being, as someone put it, a dick.

I would really hope your trans friend does not know your in here and sees how you refer to them when they are not there as they may not want to remain your firend.

I don't share that belief, and anyone who tries to make me express it is being, as someone put it, a dick.

Those compelling speech on behalf of the person not in the room are TRA tyrants.

What an interesting and provocative first post on FWR, OP.

Personally I don't think speech should be compelled and I don't think it can be under UK law, but I think we should treat people respectfully and courteously.

Transgender people do get abuse from dickheads, particularly those who don't pass. While FWR seems to be getting a few posters who seem to be down on transgender people in general, most who oppose self ID support their right to live their lives how they want.

You can't always tell the difference. This. I think those who imagine nobody ever passes don't know many trans people.

So it's not enough to be polite, we have to swallow your ideology and delusion for ourselves, really believe it. We still have brains and eyes unfortunately, and anatomical science and hundreds of years of repression remains real for women. You do not get to wear that like a handbag or try it on like a dress, it belongs to us. We have had our own battle for equality, and if you really wanted to be a woman and cared about women you would recognise that and support us, but instead you want us obliterated. I support all trans people who behave with respect towards women, but I won't be bullied out of existence. You clearly underestimate us and don't understand women at all if you think you can do that.

Respect is earned, not demanded.

I don't see why I should have to use anything other than male pronouns for Karen White, Lily Madigan or Pips Bunce.

I will never be able to see Miranda Yardley as female, but I will use female pronouns for them in their presence, because they respect my position as a female, and neutral pronouns away from them, because I respect their position as a person.

Pronouns are not names. If David asks me to call him Dave, and I continue to call him David, that is ill-mannered. His name is his to define. The pronouns Dave uses are not his to define. They are already defined, established and understood. The language we both speak is not his to maul and degrade.

It is also my right not to express philosophical views that I do not believe. I do not believe that a person can change sex. I do not believe that a male can be a woman or a female a man.

Yes, they are, and if it's your employer, you have a fight on your hands. Trans people have to respect other people's beliefs. I'm not going to mock, harass or call out a trans colleague for believing they are the opposite sex. I deserve the same respect for the (true) belief (otherwise known as knowledge) that they aren't.

YANBU.

Was responding to hilltop: yes they are tyrants

Y to jelly

Some people's identities and sense of self are so fragile that they not only require constant validation from external sources but also that everyone else must suspend their own lived reality and beliefs.

Instead of real debate we get emotional blackmail and told that a privileged white male can instantly become more "vulnerable" and oppressed than any other person in society.

Respect must be earned not forced.

Actually, I didn't know that Miranda Yardley is using male pronouns. But my statement still stands. I was thinking about a transexual person I know who is mid-medical-transition, but I wouldn't use their name in my post, so used Miranda's name instead.

I don’t care if they change their name to a stereotypical female name. A name is just a name. It’s easy to get around pronouns, by using their name or, if you don’t know them, describing them as ‘the person that was wearing/had long blond hair/etc’. I’m with you, OP, I won’t lie about someone’s pronouns as that means I’m going along with the fallacy that people can change sex.

I rely on Bunbury for all such matters.