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?

Look upthread Eckhart and see what happened to my dd today. Neither she nor I needed to ask the pronouns of the person who harassed her. Men inflict violence on women. Pronouns won’t save you from violence. All they will do is persuade a few credulous people that pronouns change your essence. And that women can magically opt out of oppression and men can magically stop posing a threat to women. Abracadabra. Just like that.

It is offensive that anyone thinks we are that stupid.

How is this being asked to use a preferred pronoun, an insult?

It's not, although it's an inappropriate request, much as asking me to acknowledge your God is the one true God is inappropriate too.
Especially in a workplace.

However, in the same way as you must accept that my politely declining to endorse your belief about the existence and primacy of your God isn't an insult, so you must accept that my politely declining to pretend you aren't the sex you obviously are, or that your belief in a psychological gender which negates or has primacy over sex isn't an insult.

People are free to believe that their biological sex doesn't exist, or that they have an invisible gender which overrides it.
However those beliefs should not be compelled of others, and certainly not in the workplace.

From the article linked above by a PP,

"So to call oneself non-binary is in fact to create a new false binary. It also often seems to involve, at least implicitly, placing oneself on the more complex and interesting side of that binary, enabling the non-binary person to claim to be both misunderstood and politically oppressed by the binary cisgender people."

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

Yes, very much yes! And an interesting article, well worth reading.

It really IS bollocks, really!

What has absence got to do with it, Charlie? Surely people should be referred to in the same terms regardless of who is present?

Yes, I read your posts upthread, Binterest. I didn't know those were the reasons people chose to change pronouns. They're not the reasons of the 2 people I know. But presumably you know more than me and have discussed their reasons, so I'll defer to your greater knowledge.

Nice passive aggressive argument style there.

People who think they can identity out of their sex may have plenty of reasons. None of them have a foundation in fact. Many of the reasons I have heard so far are actively damaging to me and my sex class. But feel free to keep putting forward good faith arguments and when I hear an argument that doesn’t damage me and has a basis in fact, I’ll revise my view.

Thanks for your approval :D

What are the arguments you've heard so far?

What has absence got to do with it, Charlie? Surely people should be referred to in the same terms regardless of who is present?

Ok, so let’s take the theory that Donald Trump releases an edict that whenever he is talked about anywhere in the world, by anyone, at any time, he is referred to as WORLD’S GREATEST PRESIDENT EVER, in capitals.

Do you do it? It doesn’t cost you anything whether you believe it to be true or not, it would hurt his feelings if you didn’t. It’s his personal choice to be referred to in that way. He would think you kind and respectful if you did it. So you’d do it?

"A bit of background, she has been my line manager for 18 months since a restructure. I foolishly didn't go for the post for personal reasons, but have in effect been doing her job all along. She has had long periods of sickness, but was able to complete an album for her band during her last one as well as perform on stage at gigs. She is not interested or capable of doing the job. Fair enough she is sick, fair enough she in not interested. I know I should leave but sadly for me it is a job I have loved for 6 years and I have a great team of other colleagues.

I have always shown her respect and support until the past 2 months when I have realised she is taking the piss. In 18 months we had two 1:2:1 meetings and three team meetings, so she has shown me no respect as a line manager."

"Maybe I should talk to HR on Monday. Maybe speak to my union too but I don't think they would back me. 33 years in the union and they will shaft me too.

I feel really fed up with this, I have been so stressed over past month with this situation- before she even declared her specialness- not sleeping, worrying. DH and DC v supportive but getting fed up with topic as I go over and over it at home. And now this is the final insult 😥 "

"I'm the only one she manages. It's a small team one other member who is line managed by someone else.

I have raised my concerns with "management" don't want to say to much on here..."

The "Pronouns Thing" is on top of all that prior piss-taking??

"In 18 months we had two 1:2:1 meetings and three team meetings, so she has shown me no respect as a line manager."

So she is failing to fulfil her contractual obligations and you have raised this with management but they have not (to the best of your knowledge) taken any action.

"I feel really fed up with this, I have been so stressed over past month with this situation- before she even declared her specialness- not sleeping, worrying. DH and DC v supportive but getting fed up with topic as I go over and over it at home. And now this is the final insult 😥 "

Your health and your family are more important than this woman's pronoun nonsense. She is being paid to manage and she is not doing the basics of 1:1 supervision and team meetings.

It is easy for me to say, "I would . . . " but . . . in the circumstances, I would seriously consider a visit to the GP with a view to getting signed off for Work-Related Stress.

If your work has an Occupation Health Dept. they might want to see you, which will give you the chance to pour your heart out about the grief she has given you. Seriously, "pronouns" sound like they are the last straw rather than the main issue and therefore not the thing to focus on if you take this course of action.

HR might be more inclined to step in and do something about this situation if it is brought home to them that the organisation has been failing in its duty of care to you. If you can have some time away from work to recover then you should also be better able to deal with the situation.

For example, if the woman has been failing to provide adequate support and supervision and you have already brought this to Management's attention then it would not be unreasonable to follow up by asking what they are going to do about it. HR or Occ Health might do that for you. Even you GP might write a supportive letter. If there is someone else who could provide support and supervision then that might get her out of your hair altogether.

By the time you get back she might be gone anyway. Neither Management nor HR are going to be happy about a good worker driven to illness. Apart from lost productivity they are automatically going to be thinking about the possibility that you might bring a Grievance.

This is and should be about you, your health, your workplace - not her.

ps. NEVER resign without getting union advice first. As you are a union member it would be worth speaking to your workplace rep/shop steward and dropping them a line so you have something on record. Personally, I would not mention the "pronouns thing" as this has arisen after you have already been made ill with worry by the situation.

What has absence got to do with it, Charlie? Surely people should be referred to in the same terms regardless of who is present?

No. You do not refer to someone in the third person when they are present. If someone is present you use their name or you/your to refer to them. You only use he/she/him/her/etc when someone is absent. This is pretty basic stuff....

NotBadConsidering No, but it's not a good example. Trump is just one person and he's in an internationally powerful role. Totally different, conceptually.

@Aesopfable the OP was referring to emails to which the Line Manager was party. Was the Line Manager present or not present to the email conversation?

How is the line manager telling their employee any different? The line manager has the power over the OP. Trump is a single person. And the concept is the same, one person demanding asking you talk about them when they aren’t even there.

Who decides whether the degree of power the requester has is disproportionate to that request?

If you're arguing that the LM and Trump are in the same conceptual position, I quit.

You would say no to Trump compelling you to talking about him a certain way but you think the OP should say yes to having speech compelled. You say it’s because Trump is in a greater position of power. But that’s not true. Trump has no power whatsoever over me. Trump has no power over the OP. The OP is weakened in a power dynamic way more than the Trump example because there is the power of HR and workplace rules hanging over her.

Why wouldn’t you comply with Trump’s theoretical request? After all, it wouldn’t cost you anything.

@Aesopfable
Exactly. I happen to have used it in an email to a colleague which LM was copied in to 🙄
Tempting to respond saying I wasn't talking to you but when I do I will be sure to use they/them 🙃

@NotBadConsidering
I see what you mean and agree completely.
She's bothered what I say to Frank not what I say to her.

I've never said anybody's speech should be compelled. This is nuts. I'm out.

You think people should be referred to how they want whether they’re there or not. That’s compelled speech.

I know this thread is about pronouns rather than the concept of non-binary, but I can't get my head around what non-binary is supposed to mean. I understand that trans is about wanting to be the opposite sex and so people want opposite sex pronouns used for them, but are non-binary people pretending that they don't have a sex at all?

I think Eckhart's original point was that she doesn't mind using different pronouns for someone. It doesn't bother her. She sees no great significance behind it and so has no need not to do it. I don't think anyone here can tell her she's wrong for that. That's her choice.

Oh and FWIW, since the discussion was about doing it out of respect and not to offend somebody, the Trump question is easy to answer: I wouldn't do it for him because I have no respect for him and would be overjoyed to offend him.

Ok so we’ve established that some people’s demands about how they are spoken about are ok, and some people’s aren't and it depends on the goodness of the person; we will change our language if the nice person wants to compel us to, but not if the bad person wants to compel our language.

So that leads to two follow up questions:

1. who decides on the niceness of the person? For example MNHQ won’t moderate posts that refer to Karen White as “he” but will for other males. What’s the level of criminality and niceness? Where’s the line drawn?
2. how is someone being nice and respectful if they are insisting on the correct pronouns with follow up emails and there is a need to involve HR to get clarity? For me, that instantly puts that person at a level of being disrespectful: anyone insisting on anything in that way isn’t respecting anyone. By choosing to compel, by being that sort of person, I instantly don’t respect them.

@OldCrone nonbinary is the acceptably woke way of being almost gender critical.

As I expect you know, woke faith requires that we all believe that everyone has an inner gender essence, unrelated to our biological genetics, which is our true identity and real women have a female gender identity regardless of whether they have a penis or ovaries and all facilities and opportunities for women belong to such persons. whereas real men have a male gender identity regardless of whether they have a penis or ovaries and these are the only persons who should be excluded from facilities and opportunities for women.

Non Binary exists as a gender identity for those who have the confidence to see that the above is a load of bollocks as far as it pertains to themselves as an individual as they have no such inner sense of being male or female. however they don't make the last (GC) connection that it's actually bollocks for pretty much everyone except those who are suffering from (obviously real and distressing but very rare) gender dysphoria, or are terminally narcissistic, or have been captured by the evangelists of the above (eg those with ROGD).

so Nonbinary lets someone preach the compulsory faith of gender boxes and insist that women don't have the right to boundaries that exclude males for privacy and dignity etc, whilst distancing themselves from either category.