Line Manager just "come out" as Non-binary

[SpinningTooFastWantToGetOff]

My line-manager emailed everyone in the office last week to say she was non-binary and we should use they/them pro-nouns.
Today I inadvertently called her she in an email to a colleague in another office, but line-manager was copied in, plus her line-manager. Are you keeping up?
My line-manager responded to the email and added at the bottom a reminder about her pro-nouns.
I do not believe in the gender identity ideology and so object to being told to speak in an unnatural and incorrect way, but what I am incandescent about is being called out in front of 2 other colleagues.
Am I over reacting?

R0wantrees

I have no argument to counter what you say and personally although not always will make an effort to use a third space which for me is as much about privacy, cleanliness and special comfort than anything else. My appearance isn't particularly masculine and I don't have the ability to rape although like you I could technically 'conspire' to comit rape so I hope when I do use the ladies I'm not causing universal discomfort, I'd be mortified if I am. I can't really make the GRA arguments as I don't believe in changing it's present form apart from some administration and cost. Why should the tax payer pay for a panel to do what your GP, surgeon and GIC can already adequately state?

I am aware though that I do risk distracting this thread from its original purpose and I've made my point with regards to that so its the turn of others. DM is open though if you or anyone else want to discuss more, I can be slow to reply as that annoying being a human stuff with things to do gets in the way. I'm not really GC but quite often I'll read a thread and have my opinions challenged if not changed.

(Minus the ‘ why is that in there?)

I'm sorry that you feel an infringement and I hope the occasions I do use the ladies, I walk in put my head down and get it all over and done with as quickly as possible and even now hope to god no one notices and I don't cause discomfort. I think most trans women feel like this. Being outed in the toilet is the stuff of nightmares.

What of the 'nightmare' scenarios which girls & women fear when they recognise males using female intimate spaces?

In 2018 two girls were separately assaulted by a young transwoman whilst using supermarket toilets in Scotland.

(extract)
"A mother has blasted the sentence given to a sex offender who attacked her 10-year-old daughter in a supermarket toilet.

The woman – who cannot be named to protect the identity of her child – voiced fury that Katie Dolatowski had been freed to serve her sentence in the community.

Dolatowski, 18, sexually assaulted the girl in the toilets of Morrisons, Kirkcaldy.

She grabbed the terrified youngster by the face, shoved her into the cubicle and ordered her to remove her trousers.

But instead of being jailed at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, Dolatowski, who identifies as a woman but was believed by her victim’s family to be a man, was given community payback and tagging orders.

The mum felt “very, very let down” and said: “I don’t have any confidence whatsoever that he will not go out and do something equally as bad or worse.”

The girl had been sledging when the assault occurred on March 4, last year, a month after Dolatowski had filmed a 12-year-old girl on the toilet in another supermarket in Dunfermline.

When she came out of her cubicle, Dolatowski shoved her back in and told her there was a man outside who would kill her mother.

The brave schoolgirl, however, punched Dolatowski in the face, stomach and groin and ran to her father and siblings waiting just outside the toilets.

Her mother said the girl was hysterical after the attack and continued to suffer flashbacks.

She said: “This is something that will remain with her for the rest of her life." (continues)
from thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3496984-Article-in-Dundee-Courier-about-assault-of-10-year-old-girl-in-supermarket-toilets

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3329936-teen-films-girl-in-toilet

My appearance isn't particularly masculine and I don't have the ability to rape although like you I could technically 'conspire' to comit rape so I hope when I do use the ladies I'm not causing universal discomfort, I'd be mortified if I am.

Male pattern offences against women & girls are not limited to rape & include sexual assault, voyeurism etc.
To be very clear Im not suggesting for one moment that you would commit these but think it important to be clear as to the nature of risks which males (as a class) present to girls & women.

That's bullying in my workplace. Do you feel bullied OP?

Yes.

This is the point for me. Why does one woman's wish to announce her non-relevant in the workplace identity so that she feels dignity and a lack of bullying trump another woman's?

Stats I don't think you're part of any problem here. You seem respectful, considered and realistic (apart from your lack of understanding that intersex people are still genetically male or female (apart from one incredibly rare case of genetic chimera)). I would deem that as deserving of exactly the same respect back from me in the workplace. Its more the younger trans warriors that tell us to "suck lady dick" and "die in a grease fire TERF" that we have an issue with. Plus the ones maliciously doxxing and deplatforming women, which I see no evidence of you being interested in doing.

R0wantees - I'll do one more(can't resist, I have an addictive personality)

You are right in this case I agree that the sentencing was leanient given the gravity of the crime. Personally, if anything I think it would be good for the GRA reformists if judges/procurators were to send out a tough message in these cases. I would question if that particular procurator is known for leanient sentencing or did something cause them to diverge from their norm? I assume the sentence had to comply with some set of guidelines? Alternatively the offender most definitely should have been complying with the law and human decency.

Males definitely do offend at a higher rate however when I had a cursory look with sparsely available figures trans women based on around a 0.3% incidence amongst 65000000 appeared to offend at a lower rate than males but at a higher rate than females. When you take into account that 85000 or so males are locked up it still means that the percentage of non offending males is very high, more than 99.7%. Of those not most will have committed socio economic crimes but, yes male violence is still a problem, particularly against each other it seems.

That doesn't mean to say we should disregard protections such as single sex spaces, I agree with you there, although offending patterns suggest that single sex or even unisex intimate spaces don't come anywhere near the level of sex offending in the victims home, workplace or public transport network. These caveats just make me a little more reticent to support legislating for punishments that are meant to deal with the few becoming things that allow their actions to impact on the many.

It's a tough one and I have a bias so I'm probably not best placed to take the argument forward. . Plus it's easy to assume all have my standards of adherence to the law and decency. I think whatever happens will happen and whether I like it or not I'm going to have to make the best of it. I've managed up until now so I've no reason to doubt that will change.

As I said earlier DM is open if you want to discuss it further sometime. Take care.

I hope when I do use the ladies I'm not causing universal discomfort, I'd be mortified if I am.

"Universal"?
You require 'universal' discomfort? Do you mean, you'll discount and ignore the distress of one or more women and girls because you need every single woman and girl to be universally distressed?
Seems like an equation where 1 male person > multiple female people. Is one woman's discomfort not enough? How about two? Is there a different weighting for girls, perhaps 3 women + 1 girl = equivalent to one male? Or does it work with a veto system; 99% of women and girls are distressed/scared/angry, but so long as one woman is found to give her consent, the objections of the 99% are vetoed?

How do you imagine women's consent works? If you can find one woman who is ok
and consents to sharing space with you, you don't need the consent of all others? Can 8 year old girls give their consent to 45 year old men? Do they have capacity to relinquish boundaries around their bodily privacy?

Of COURSE you cause distress, there will be women and girls who can tell your sex. Please don't tell yourself that the absence of a no is a yes.

I'm entitled to bodily dignity and privacy from all men, even ones I trust. I'd be mortified getting naked in front of my brothers. Yet they wouldn't hurt me. Why on earth would you imagine I'd be ok undressing with any other man? I'm entitled to space that excludes EVERYONE of the opposite sex to me. And so is my daughter.
We don't consent, ever, to men using the sex segregated spaces that are for our sex.

As far as the opposite sex is concerned, this is the relevant question. Will you respect us and our rights, or will you disregard our consent and violate our privacy anyway?

There will Im sure be many groups of males with a shared characteristic who statistically may have lower measured statistical offending rates (if available or accurate) to males as whole.
Sex-based Safeguarding doesnt work by making exceptions for some males who may individually have a lower risk profile.

The same is true for age-based Safeguarding policies.

Findumdum1

I think you are right there that in this case there is unlikely to be much material change and I would question whether an announcement was necessary. I find my self thinking back to coming out (if that's the right word) and it was such a flipping relief at the time that, I was no longer searching for an answer to the my distress that I can imagine that feeling can allow some to get carried away with their expectations.

You are right about my knowledge on intersex stuff though my biology prowess in general leaves a lot to be desired. Funny seeing as I've spent much of my life fighting against Mother Nature, you'd think I'd have worked it out by now.

Anyone demanding or saying those things you mention on line probably isn't acting in compliance with the misuse of communications act and in person the public order act or worse. I hope it's a minority of us but unpleasant individuals all the same. I hope they get told where to go, in fact reading some commentators I'm pretty confident they do.

I promise this time I'm off, my boyfriend who claims he is incapable of cooking has this look on his face that is inducing guilt. DM is open, take care.

@Barracker
Exactly this.

To me it sort of gives rise to an idea that I am fundamentally so potentially dangerous that I can't be allowed in a space that fits my needs.

However lovely you may be personally, this access isn't granted on grounds of having been thoroughly and objectively assessed as lovely first. I can't expect to be excluded from a dbs check on the grounds that I seem lovely and I'm upset about being considered so potentially dangerous: the fact is that I belong to a class of people in which harmful people exist and use their access to do harm.

And with respect, the space is there to meet female people's needs. Female people are not only entitled to privacy if they can prove beyond all doubt that the male born person in their space will definitely be a threat to them, they're human too. Their need for female only spaces doesn't change or go away because a male born person feels that space meets their need too. There are other solutions to meeting your needs, such as third spaces, without removing female only spaces for females.

@statsgeek1
I thought you had gone?

The same is true for age-based Safeguarding policies.

Adult females have a significantly & substantially lower risk profile than adult males however when there are age-based Safeguarding policies which protect children all adults are (rightly). subject to these.

Being excluded from being unaccompanied in schools/nurseries as my DBS is not current & Im not employed/vetted doesn't imply that I am a sex-offender. It is & should be reassuring that the children in the school are being Safeguarded appropriately.

I'll do one more(can't resist, I have an addictive personality)

You are right in this case I agree that the sentencing was leanient given the gravity of the crime.

The point of sharing the details of two young girls aged 12 & 10 assaulted in supermarket toilets was nothing to do with sentencing. It was asking that the impact on girls & women of males in female single sex spaces be considered alongside the feeling described as a 'nightmare of being outed'.

This is a parent describing the impact on her 12 year old daughter:

"Her mother said the girl was hysterical after the attack and continued to suffer flashbacks.

She said: “This is something that will remain with her for the rest of her life."

recent relevent thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3815177-Are-non-binary-people-protected-under-the-Equality-Act-Legal-briefing-admits-not

The passive voice is our friend here, I think, and the relative pronoun 'who' which is both gender less and numberless.

“Please reply to Angela, who is taking over this project. Submissions need to be received by end of business on Friday 13th Feb, after which they will be considered and the favoured proposal selected. We will be informed of the choice by email by Angela as team lead, and actions will be assigned at the next team meeting. "

Easy when you know how. The minefield of preferred pronouns successfully navigated without landing on a single one. Angela cannot find any slips or anything to grumble about or report here! It's done by changing the subject of the sentence with the object:

I sent the email, becomes: The email was sent.

Your best guide is a top primary child as they learn it it is taught in Y6.
(See what I did there?)

@NearlyGranny

Do you really think the OP (or any of us here) is incapable of using the passive voice?

Parents, teachers & governors should be aware of newly released CPS guidance for schools which if adopted could impact school children whose peers announce their non-binary identity /preferred pronouns etc
thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3804613-New-Year-New-Judicial-Review-CPS-Hate-Crime-Guidance-for-schools

@NearlyGranny
That is a good way around pronouns, I just have to remember but I guess that will get easier after I'm reminded every time I do forget 🙄

Neatly missing the whole bloody point there, NearlyGranny
But thanks for the English lesson.

Apologies, school children will of course also be impacted by their teachers' announcements of gender identity /preferred pronouns, not just their peers.

Because if there’s one place that’s wholly appropriate to get your validation for your special Ze/Zie/Zo/Zum status; it’s a classroom full of children you’re being paid to teach
I really think I’d haul my kids out of a school where they had to tread on eggshells to remember that Sir isn’t actually a He, they are far too special for that mundane shite - that’s for the Hoi Polloi, this Sir is special.

Neatly missing the whole bloody point there, NearlyGranny
But thanks for the English lesson.
Sorry I've missed the point too. What is the problem here? That it isn't challenging the use of incorrect pronouns? 🤷🏻‍♀️

that I can't be allowed in a space that fits my needs

That sentence.
What, especially, about female spaces fits your needs? The sanitary bins? Or the presence of people of the opposite sex?

Imagine two unlabeled rooms, with a set of toilets in each.
One designated for each sex.
Washbasins. Mirrors. Soap.
Let's even assume both rooms have sanitary bins.

Which one "fits your needs", statsgeek1?
They're identical rooms, no?

The elephant in the room is that it isn't particular material facilities you're after. Your 'needs' aren't physical. They're validatory. And it isn't enough that there is a law which validates what isn't true, that a male person is now 'female'. You expect women to do it too.

It isn't a room that 'fits your needs'.

It's people. The other people in it. Female people.

You want the room, any room, whichever room, that has in it. Regardless of the label on the door, regardless of the sanitary bins for our menstruation needs.
It's the presence of actual flesh and blood female people that you are seeking.
You've said as much, by explaining how you resent using facilities that aren't communal to a single sex.

If, in a hypothetical experiment, all the women happened to use the toilet labelled 'men', and all the men used the toilet labelled 'women', which toilet would you choose? Which is the 'women's toilet'? Is it the one declaring itself such on the label, or is it the one you observe the 'menstruators' (as the TRAs like to call us) are using?
What is the definitive revelation of the meaning of 'woman' in this scenario?
Is it the label, or the biological females that reveal the true meaning?

Would you be content to share with your own biological sex group, because the label on the door said 'woman'? Would that room now 'fit your needs'? Is your need simply to wear a label?

Or would you choose the room full of biological females, erroneously labelled 'male'? Is your 'need' actually a perceived entitlement to the presence of people of the opposite sex, regardless of their needs?

None of us are entitled to the enforced presence of others. You don't get to use other people for our validation.

YOU don't get to observe the biological sex of other people and use that as your premise for your choice of space, whilst denying that anyone else should be allowed to do the same.

You recognise our sex and we recognise yours.

YOU don't get to observe the biological sex of other people and use that as your premise for your choice of space,

Nailed.