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.

[EweSurname]

I think I'm more cynical than you all then! I cannot believe that any of this can be new to her - it isn't possible for someone whose job it is to know about this be oblivious to the sex/gender/feminism dynamic.

I genuinely can't see how she didn't see it before - it just doesn't seem plausible.

[FloralBunting]

Oh, I think she is both mendacious, and not very sharp. There's a particular kind of nastiness that you do see in someone punching above their weight in academic terms. It's like she has all the vocab, but none of the skill neccesary to apply it usefully. So she uses it like a cudgel, and when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail...

[ByGrabtharsHammarWhatASaving]

I constantly get the feeling with TRAs that in many ways we actually want and believe similar things, but are just massively talking past each other by not using a common dictionary for words like "gender". Like a brit and an american arguing over whether it's ok to go to work with no pants on. Two groups divided by a common language kind of thing.

[ByGrabtharsHammarWhatASaving]

It's basically a lot of people who have spent too much time philosophising and talking queer theory and not enough time living in the real world to remember that the terms they're using don't actually mean what they think they mean in common parlance.

[ErrolTheDragon]

I constantly get the feeling with TRAs that in many ways we actually want and believe similar things,

That may be true of some 'nonbinaries' and 'trans allies', but there are male TRAs who surely don't believe in women's rights at all.

[GirlDownUnder]

ByGrab I've been thinking something very similar but would not have articulated it as well.

I sometimes feel like we are talking through glass, or even into Alices mirror where both sides have almost the same argument but the point seems to slide by.

I think it maybe because the TRA side have such conflicting agendas and seems to driven by AGP, and the T in LGBT is not a sexual orientation?

[IM0GEN]

I constantly get the feeling with TRAs that in many ways we actually want and believe similar things

That might be true to some extent with the troubled teens who want to identity out of the strict gender roles that are imposed on them. We both see these roles as harmful, to the individual and society.

But their answer is to switch boxes and ours is to get rid of boxes.

But I think we want the OPPOSITE of the AGPs and voyeurs. They want into our safe spaces to force us to participate in their sexual fetishes.

And the MRA, who want our sporting scholarships and our awards. Who want to destroy our refuges and shelters.

They see shelters as a symbol of women’s power, they are for women who are trying to escape from men who control them. They really REALLY hate that.

We see them as a last resort for vulnerable omen who are completely desperate . They despise that vulnerability and see it as an opportunity to seize back control. These women need to know that there is nowhere that is safe from men.

Like women’s bathrooms . Only JY and a few other freaks actually believe that they are full of women wandering around naked discussing san pro. But they ARE a place where women can get away from men, where they are not in charge and they hate not being in charge of everything.

They have no right to be there and who are we to limit men’s rights ?

They hate us having rights over our own bodies. Getting to chose who we have sex with. Controlling men’s access to PIV sex. No wonder they laud prostitution - it’s about men controlling women again. Like the incels.

Deciding who can and cannot do a smear or an internal medical exaimnation on us. Or provide intimate care in a nursing home. If they want it, then they have a right to it. Who are we to stop them?

Fundamentally I don’t think it’s about sex or gender for most of the MRAs. That’s just their language and currency.

It’s about power and control. Their right to tell us what to do and think.

You see that very clearly with the likes of Dr H and why #genderfree has created such a twitter storm. They created the language and now we are using it against them and they don’t know how to stop us. Yet.

[TheBullshitGoesOn]

Great post IMOGEN.

[LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD]

It seems like an anger directed at what they cannot have/be.

[ByGrabtharsHammarWhatASaving]

Yes I fully agree when it comes to the MRA/ AGP types. I guess I'm thinking about the teenagers, well-meaners, allies, and possibly even the Suzie "I desperately need to believe I haven't done something unforgivable to my child" Greeners. Take this article for example, about someone who complained non-trans male model/ makeup artist James Charles was "performing woman-face". The author gives a list of reasons that this is wrong and one of them is that it's transphobic. And the reason given for why it's transphobic is:

to say that only men should look one way and women should look another erases the entire existence of a group of people [trans people]

Now, clearly the author has got this exactly backwards. Saying that men should look like GI joe and woman should look like princess barbie is what transgender identity is built on. Trans people need to be able to keep makeup as a woman's thing because otherwise how will anyone know that they're a woman when they put on their makeup? What erases trans identities is saying that men can look however they like without it making them trans.

This poster illustrates that point by arguing that JC should be dropped as an ambassador for makeup brands because makeup is only a woman's product and only women should wear it (specifically they want trans women to be used in ad campaigns - shock). When someone says "so do you not see trans women as real women then? If so then what would be the point of using a trans woman as it'd be not more remarkable a selling point than using a cis woman" the OP has no answer and huffs off.

My point is that I think a lot of people supporting this are actually coming at it from the POV that it breaks down/ rejects gender stereotypes, they just haven't followed their own thoughts all the way to the end. When it comes to actually rejecting sterotypes trans people feel threatened because "woman face" is ultimately all they have. And I wonder if a lot of TRAs and GC arguments will ultimately end with people just shouting "but that's what I'm trying to say", "No that's what I'm trying to say" at each other.

[pancaketosser]

I think that in some cases, a person can have such a strong idea of what they believe/have been told the GC position is, that when they actually listen to what that position is they get very confused that what people are saying to them is very similar, sometimes even the same, as what they believe.

There's a thread in feminist theory called "What makes a woman?" (or it could be the thread that led to that one) where something very similar happens and the OPs views on gender and the GC view of gender have a good chunk of overlap.

[pancaketosser]

It's possibly not surprising that the OP of the thread mentioned in my PP and SH are female.

[Datun]

IM0GEN

Excellent analysis. Accurate and insightful.

[TheBullshitGoesOn]

I didn't pursue a PhD or career in academia as I thought I wasn't clever enough.

I never realised the bar was so low.

[welshgendercrit]

Hey-ho, I'm blocked. Well, I guess Sally doesn't want to learn or set her students a good example of engaging in debate with other points of view. It's obviously a case of "If I can't see the genderfree concept , it doesn't exist."

[ErrolTheDragon]

Maybe Hines defines as GenderFreeFree?

[LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD]

Common sense free more like.

[KatvonHostileExtremist]

[Needmoresleep]

I let rip on a M&S survey. Ticked gender/none using the dialogue box to explain that many women did not identify as a gender, ranted about the amount of plastic used to wrap my internet order, and then added more about links with Ocado and their erasure of women. I will be firmly marked down as a nutter. So satisfying.

[LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD]

What was the survey on?

[GirlDownUnder]

What was the survey on?

I'm really hoping the answer is "Do you like our custard"

[Needmoresleep]

How satisfied was I with my internet shopping experience.

Bloody gender. However a chance to select 'none' and a dialogue box to comment on the survey itself. Im not sure they will have expected a rant about the erasure of women.

[LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD]

I do that too. God help anyone who puts a free text box on one of these. And if they have a long list of genders with an ‘other’ I tick that and enter my ‘gender de jour’.

[GirlDownUnder]

Oh boooo! that's a much more sensible survey and you're answers now aren't quite as out there

Good for you though, bet it felt cathartic