Update: identifying as non-binary for work award

[Somerville1234]

Can't find the old thread... but anyway, there's an award/opportunity at work, only for people who are LGBT+++. I don't remember all the categories but they included genderqueer, genderfluid and genderfree. Also K, which I'm reliably informed stands for kink lifestyle. I don't understand why someone would need a special thing at work for getting off on weeing and whips (?? I don't watch porn, I don't have a clue), but maybe I'm just old fashioned. Anyway, old fashioned or not, I'm gender free because I don't believe in gender. And I wanted the professional opportunity. (Forgive me for the vagueness - being careful because of doxxing.) And you lot were encouraging...

I ended up applying - which didn't involve saying how I met the criteria, just ticking that I did. And then I was perpexedly approached by my woke boss.
(WB "Erm... so you realise that this is for LGBT+++ employees, Somer?"
S "Yes."
WB "Erm...it was my understanding you're a straight woman...?"
S "I'm genderfree and-"
WB: "Really?"
S "Yes, and I think I need to remind you that the staff handbook recommends that no-one should assume anybody elses's gender."
WB: "Oh, terribly sorry about that.")

I then had a lovely meeting with HR where they were very keen to update my pronouns on the system. I told them that being gender free I require the box beside gender to be left empty, but that I can accept female pronouns because that's my biological sex. They were happy with this novel idea and to learn more about the difference between sex and gender. They young HR person didn't know they're not synonyms but he learns something new every day apparently.

And now... I've heard I'm shortlisted for the next round!
It's been announced to the whole company, and I've had a few bemused looks but no direct transphobia, I'm happy to report.
My longsuffering DH (works in same field) has been teased a bit for my gender identity but he's happy to suffer for the sake of my fight for equality.

Like what right do you think you'll get that you don't already have?

Well our rights mean nothing if we do not have the power to assert them.

That's things like being able to define ourselves using our own terms and without reference to men. Which includes this nonsense of 'cis women', noting the absence of the use of cis men.

It's reclaiming the use of our own language which helps us identify threats to us both emotionally and physically.

What the law says and the practical application of law are too different things and woman are unable to often seek enforcement of the law nor have their concerns taken seriously in the first place. This is important. Especially when 'the law' is used erroneously against us.

We could talk about things like how women are less likely to be given pain relief and the ideological interference which has a disproportionate influence on women's health. Or how poor women are criminalised just for being poor in various ways. Or how women are blamed for being victims when the law fails them and their rights are violated. Or how economics mean woman are silenced by powerful men with the use of NDAs or malicious defamation on social media. All these things are related directly to biology because of how having a child has a massive impact on social and economic status. It is not a gender issue based on stereotypes, but one of bodily reality and how taking take time out from economic productivity has a huge effect.

Or how social media algorithms are a reflection of those who wrote them and are sexist and racist, and since social media is often beyond the jurisdiction of national law women have, in effect, less ability to exercise freedom of speech and especially not so without fear of violence, harassment or intimidation. These companies are not transparent and have no oversight, so if you happen to have a mate on the inside there seems to be an issue. Plus whilst in law in this country sex is a protected characteristic, the same isn't true for like likes of twitter and Facebook. I'd quite like that changing...

The rights of women on the Internet most definitely come second to the rights of men; just look at porn.

Just which issue would McKinnon like to start with?

And I have not even mentioned sport.

Non binary but in denail?

OK then geniuses, how do I stop that? Wear a binder to hide my size 30F boobs? Walk on stilts?

Like seriously, how the fuck does that change anything?

I'd still would have been challenged in supermarkets for ID for years after my male 6'2 hulking mates who carry physical presence I'm never going to have.

I still couldn't play football with the lads and be competitive. Or be accepted.

Or have an ability to drink as much alcohol as everyone else.

It wouldn't have stopped the fact the burden of baring a child rested with me. Oh sure I could have adopted or something but that's not what my partner wanted. So biological pressure was still there.

Like hello, dickheads. Is there anyone home?

All non binary would do would have me forever getting my knickers in a twist over pronouns and wasting half my energy on getting upset over it. Whilst looking like a monumental drama queen which loads of people would have blamed on 'my hysterical nature' as a woman!

Non binary doesn't fucking work!

Didn’t agree with all of it but they talk a fair bit of sense.

Yes I listened to it, and found it an interesting discussion.

Like what right do you think you'll get that you don't already have?

The right to be free of the discrimination based on our sex - gender.

The right to define ourselves and reject being put in a box marked "cis" by males and compliant women.

Oh, and re the rights we already have - women's rights, specific to our sex - we want to keep those. Specific women's rights are based on the objective reality of biological sex, not any subjective gender.

Strength Somers. My advice - do not engage with a Cyclepath on any level. Many in the trans and non-binary communities have already reached that position. A cyclepath has been politely requested, multiple times, to not use the term “enby” which many Non-Binary people find offensive.

Therefore I strongly doubt that a cyclepath can engage in good faith with Genderfree folk.

All genderfree folk want is the right to identify ourselves in line with our authentic selves. Why do others seek to deny us this right?

... (a cyclepath has continued to use “Enby”, which overtly disrespects the wishes of a minority grouping. I suspect cyclepath will disrespect us Genderfree folk the same way).

Hope you're ok, Somer.

Strength, Somers. Check in here when you can

Just coming on to also lend strength to Somer if still needed.

You have my whole support. Hope you are ok.

I'm sorry you're feeling a bit beleaguered Somer. All power to you

Somer

What's "the other place?"

I think the proper thing to say here Somer is to exhort you to be your 'authentic self', mention 'stunning and brave' a lot and bemoan the 'haterz' while reporting to everyone including the postman in the style of an eight year old wittering that their brother breathed on them.

But since you'd quite rightly snort at that as a rational grown up, and a whole lot of whatever to the rationally challenged. Read a few Issendai articles, particularly the ones dissecting conversations with narcissists: that always helps me take a step back and remember you cannot have a rational conversation with someone whose reality is wholly subjective and not based on rationality or any participation in a social contract.

Explaining what the "other place" is would rather defeat the object of Somer wanting somewhere safe and quiet, wouldn't it?

I think enough people who know Somer well can probably track her down in order to give the support she wants, and the rest of us don't need to know (and it would be wrong to post it on an open thread).

Well said, Fermat

Strength to you Somerville and also Melon - I've been reading your calm, kind rational & open Twitter engagements with a motley crew of TRAs, but also some clearly well-meaning but quite naive (and ignorant of feminism & feminist philosophy, theory & history).

I find the hypocrisy almost funny - it's certainly leaving me aghast at te lack of self-knowledge & self-reflection. The denmand that we (women generally, and feminists in particular) accept their self-identification because it just is, but thei way they tie themselves in knots to deny you both your self-identification!

The binary thinking: in order for some of them to be "trans" or basically just speshul they require that everyone else whom they define as that awful term "cis" be the norm. We are not permitted (in their version of the world) to self-define as anything other than the definition they try to impose upon us. A definition which - of course! - requires us to step back, shut up, and serve them.

Now, I might have a wee bit of sympathy if their thinking were in any way based in reality - or even knowledge. But it isn't. And I think that there's a huge dose of ageism and masculine privilege in all of this. I wonder how much they expect the older women in their lives (especially their mothers) to do for them?

I've seen some very "woke" feminists seriously argue that any woman over 40 should sit down, shut up, and step aside. It's such internalised misogyny I just almost weep for what those young women don't have in their lives: as PP have said, the opportunity to mix in a wide, multi-age, multi-ethnic, multi-life experience group of women.

I did in my 20s. Some of those women I found quite confronting & scary, but I realise now just what a gift those experiences of a different kind of feminist activism were for me.

and/or for you Somerville - I'm not clued up enough to know about the other place but if you are still checking in on this, I want you to know you have my total support and respect. Very unmumsnetty hugs, and a fist bump 👊

I'm catching up with this amazing thread
I am someone who should have been 'transed'? And if the answer is yes that's a disturbing answer. Cos whatever my problems, denying my biology has only added to them, not resolved matters.

@RedToothBrush can I just say thank you for your eloquent & moving posts on this thread (I've always enjoyed your posts in FWR actually).

I recognise so much of what you're all saying - yet, I suppose that anyone looking at me would assume that awful term "cis" - but I've been a feminist in a deeply felt way since at least the age of 11.

And although I didn't experience my body in the way you so eloquently describe Red (I was skinny, no breasts till about the age of 40, and didn't start periods till I was almost 17) I think that I too have "paid a price" for the clash between my sense of myself as a person and feminism and femininity. I'm single, childless and at my age (almost pensionable!), likely to remain so.

For me, it was always about my mind, about thinking, about learning - I'm now an academic, and one of the 12% of women professors. I think that that driving passion & need to be my authentic self via intellectual endeavour set me way outside the gendered stereotype of "feminine" and actually has made me unattractive, un-nubile (unmarriageable) - in a way that I don't think similarly driven men are.

Maybe I'm just a horrible unpartnerable person, but I tend to think it's because, under a pretty conventional exterior (and I can do a certain level of femininity) I'm just not "female" or "feminine" enough in gender terms (not sex terms) for men of my generation.

Anyway, thanks to you all for keeping up the good fight.

The reason why, when all the trans stuff started, that I’ve not called myself LGBTQ+++ has been because I have wanted to honour the personal and political struggles that gay and lesbian people have been through

Excellent point! (sorry, still catching up on this wonderful thread).

My very best friend (brother from another mother etc etc) is a gay man, who reckons I'm "queer" - but I protest about that, because I'm pretty straight, vanilla etc, and there's no way I would appropriate the term in the light of the struggles that gay & lesbian people still go through. As a straight person, I've never had to come out to people, nor explain my sexuality.

That's things like being able to define ourselves using our own terms and without reference to men.

Yes, yes, yes, yes

I'm an adoptive parent and one of our DCs is not the same ethnicity as us. I've heard other adoptive parents say "ooh we are just like gay couples because it's obvious they aren't our biological children" but that is also an appropriative route I'm not going down.

This piece by Rebecca Reilly-Cooper is worth a read (or re-read)

aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gender-is-a-spectrum-is-a-new-gender-prison