I spotted a preferred pronouns badge in the wild

[EoinMcLovesCakeJumper]

I was in a shop today when I noticed that the person behind the till was wearing a big badge in the trans flag colours with the words "They Them" on it. It's the first time I've seen one of these and it just set me to wondering what the point of them actually is.

If I'm participating in a retail transaction with a shop assistant, I'm not going to be using their third person pronouns. At most, I might say "you", as in "Could you put it in a bag, please?", but surely I'd only say "he/she/they" if I was talking about that person to someone else? Perhaps I've missed something, but it seems like a way of drawing attention to one's special status in a situation where people might otherwise not notice.

And anyway, if I hadn't spent so much time reading about this stuff on MN, I would probably have assumed that They Them was the name of some band that I hadn't heard of. There was The The back in the day, after all...

Finns can't get to grips with pronouns either

Interesting. I've heard the same about Hungarians and understand Finnish and Hungarian are related to each other but not Indo-European languages.

Ah, ok, makes sense! Yes there's constant misgendering. Amazing she's still a friend really, with my and my family's inner essence constantly under attack...

Ask me about my pronouns

“Hey man … tell me about your pronouns.”

They has always been an acceptable first person singular pronoun in British English - useful when you don’t know or it’s utterly irrelevant what sex or ‘gender identity’ the person has. So I might say to a second helpful shop assistant - No, thank you I am already being served by your colleague - they have just gone to look in the stock room for X .

So - if the first helpful shop assistant has on a silly badge saying ‘ I use zir/ Xie ‘ or ‘ I use he/him’ or ‘I use she/her ‘ - and I say ‘ they’ as I have done for decades - am I now mispronouning ?

Not that I care, tbh, because all I want to do is buy the thing and say please and thank you during a polite transaction.

Alltheprettyseahorses- which museum? I went to the Walker and they had colouring in sheets for children saying
-Trans is Rad
-NB is lovely
-Pan is the Plan
-Ace is Great

(Also Gay is ok and Lesbian is tres bien).
The Curator there has a twitter account where she tweets about 'queer feminism'

Also from Liverpool
twitter.com/ThinkingFilm/status/1184393959134711808

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/local-news/liverpool-youngsters-what-its-really-17064044

"I use bla bla bla."

"That's nice, dear. You go ahead and use bla bla bla."

Has any one read the Ben Elton book Identity Crisis? It has an old school copper in it getting in a right muddle about the new pronouns minefield. With absolutely hilarious results. You kind of get Ben Elton's stance on the madness of it all.

It's all so self centred - have yet to see a badge that says "tell me what your pronouns are/what pronouns would you like me to use". Mind you that could be because the vast majority of people would either ignore it/say they don't care/or ask what the heck are they on about.

Er, no it's not, is a fundamental part of civil society. By your reasoning Prince Andrew's ngger in the woodpile comment is a ok.*

No, by the reasoning on this thread, if Prince Andrew told everyone to refer to him as black that would NOT be OK.

Your example isn’t quite the right equivalent.

Pan is the Plan

For kids? For real?

and in that link, vagina, '

"After I realised [I was trans] I couldn’t then have long hair, I just couldn't cope with that, so I wore it in a hat for weeks until I could get a haircut, even when I was in doors I wore it in a hat.'

Is that not just quite a lot of angst about hair? These young people all seem terribly delicate. I hope they learn a bit of resilience.

I see the advantage of these badges as giving me a convenient way of allowing me to steer well clear of individuals who are predisposed to be self-absorbed and desperate to take offence.

Yes

What museum is that exactly? Museum of beards or something?

Blimey flip, vaginafetishist!

Not sure what to say about that, I would like to say I’m surprised, but I’m utterly not.

On the topic of pronoun badges, I am Ms Maidenname, and I have been through my whole adult life, and two marriages. It’s very important to me, and I very much dislike being referred to as Mrs or Marriedname. It makes me feel invisible, subsumed by my marriage, and like my feelings don’t matter. It happens quite a lot.

But if I tried to address that by wearing a badge to work saying “it’s Ms”, people would think I was a massive dick, and they’d be so right.

And so with pronoun badges. Like surnames, second person pronouns are rarely used in face to face contact. It’s overshare, and it’s unecessary. If it is crucial to a person, it’s easily addressed by saying, politely, at the time “actually, I go by they”, like I do with my honorific and surname. Easy peasy, no hurt feelings ensue.

Unless of course the hurt feelings are the point?

Fuckaduck, that's appalling vagina!

The Walker Art Gallery Liverpool, very keen on their queer credentials.

I complained, apparently they are for 'educating' children.

Also, as a language geek, I am infuriated by how culturally blind this is. Others have highlighted how many language don’t used second person gendered pronouns for humans, but what about Arabic? In Arabic, you conjugate pretty much everything you say depending on the sex of the person you’re speaking to.

You couldn’t even start the conversation to find out what someone’s pronouns are.

“Ma ismak?” (What’s your name? - to a male)

DID YOU JUST ASSUME MY GENDER? It’s MA ISMEK YOU BIGOT!

The Woker art gallery did you say? 🧔

vaginafetishist It was the World Museum. I've seen those Walker colouring pages but I'd forgotten about them - or maybe blocked them from my mind because of the stupidity. And that film! Makes me remember another reason why the pronouns thing gets on my nerves; the assumption kids like those have that everyone is just gagging to know what words they're allowed to use about them. Like they're saying 'I'm so special! You must centre me in every thought you have!' But most people won't be that interested because they have too much of their own stuff going on to give it much headspace.

The pronouns thing is terrible but the adults at that queer 'youth group' are to blame for grooming those kids.

The first girl in the film, who wants to be known as he/him