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?

Fascinating thread. On the use of the passive voice as a get-out, the style guide at my work advises never to use it because of its lack of clarity, and how it’s used to hide and obfuscate. Obviously, in this instance the thing you’d be trying to hide and obfuscate would be your secret heretical thoughts! But as with clunky pronouns, it makes language less clear, less accessible, less communicative (naturally enough, as it has its home in post modernism and queer theory, which is all about obfuscation and slippery language)

Also, it is not a sign of good mental health to be overly preoccupied with what people say about you when you’re not there. Fretting over what pronouns someone used about you in your absence is never going to lead to happy outcomes, and it’s no kindness to encourage this sort of thinking in people who may already be prone to rumination and offence taking. As an old (binary) line manager used to say to me: try not to worry too much about what people think of you, it’s really none of your business.

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.

Exactly 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

@SophocIestheFox
Mental health is a big factor in my situation sadly.

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?

Only 1.7% of rapes reported are successfully prosecuted in England & Wales.

Whatever happens, OP, it lloks as though you'll be picking your way carefully through this, protecting yourself and trying not to provoke your LM. HR, if approached, are likely to be squinting at the situation through the lens of inclusivity and newly-exercised rights and you risk suspicion of 'transphobia' or non-binary phobia, if that's a thing, or plain bigotry.

It's enough to paralyse anyone before you even start thinking about work! If you do go to HR or to your GP, do stress how difficult it has become watching every step to ensure you aren't inadvertently offending anyone and how distracting it's all becoming from the job you are, after all, there to do!

Best of luck.

As PP have said treat with dignity and respect, look for other jobs. Use exit interview to highlight unsuitability for management role.

I've never said anybody's speech should be compelled

compel verb past tense: compelled; past participle: compelled force or oblige (someone) to do something.

oblige
make (someone) legally or morally bound to do something.
do as (someone) asks or desires in order to help or please them.

Similar:
require
compel
bind
make
constrain
obligate
force
put under an obligation
leave someone no option
impel
coerce
pressure
pressurize

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

Many people may well conform to the 'rules' and expectations when in 'controlled' intimate spaces - but when left to talk and speak freely will use the language that most reflects what they see and what they really think or feel. Only the most righteous are going to continue to monitor and censor themselves when in private.

If you don't believe in gender ideology if you don't believe that someone can literally be 'born in the wrong body', then being forced to speak in an unnatural way is an oppression; and furthermore an oppression which denigrates the facts, rights and dignities of your own sex.

As PP have said treat with dignity and respect, look for other jobs. Use exit interview to highlight unsuitability for management role.

Yes, the LM should and she should explain that she’s unsuitable for a management role, as she’s incapable of carrying out her current duties. She’s using woke none-binary bullshite in order to protect herself against any accusations, as she can pull out the ‘most oppressed minority’ card, as protection.

You need to come out as ‘Gender Free’, OP. Naturally, as you are of the Gender Free faith, you will insist that you don’t recognise gender and find the concept of it oppressive, insulting to your faith and triggering. Double think is your weapon.

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

But you are...in essence.

You are saying that people should speak in ways which go against their every instinct and/or belief.

I'm assuming that is because you yourself genuinely believe that it is possible for someone to be born in the wrong body? However, you need to understand that not everyone does believes in that.

But are non-binary people pretending that they don't have a sex at all

I think what they are saying is one of two things, or maybe several things, but one of them may be that they are not yet ready to come out as 'gay' - certainly in a culture which celebrates trans'ness above all else; and another maybe that they just want to be themselves - just like the rest of us -and not have to conform to any gendered expectations....but they are not that distressed - and certainly not enough to want to have to take hormones or under-go surgery.

To be non-binary is to be 'in the spirit' of the movement; to belong to it....to be seen as freeing oneself of the shackles of gender altogether. Being no-binary is like 'a holding space' that gives one permission to be whoever you are.

None of this is new, though...that's the thing. People have been playing around with gendered roles and expressions for a long time.....but in those days it was not framed in the language of gender ideology and queer theory.

but they are not that distressed - and certainly not enough to want to have to take hormones or under-go surgery.

But female non-binary people sometimes take testosterone and bind their breasts, or even have mastectomies.

Most non-binary people appear to be female.

Will this get deleted for stating that non-binary people have a sex?

'Non binaries' know gender stereotypes are bad for them.

GC feminists know gender stereotypes are bad for all women as a class (and men too in some aspects)

I'll take a bet that sexism still applies to nonbinaries.

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.

My perception of many people who define themselves as non binary is that they are totally immersed in gender ideology. In order to be non binary, they have to believe that gender is real and binary in the first place.

But maybe you're right and some of them are just saying that they don't believe in gender stereotypes and would just need a little nudge to see that this is what feminists have been saying forever.

But female non-binary people sometimes take testosterone and bind their breasts, or even have mastectomies

For those girls and young women - non-binary is most likely felt to be a more accurate reflection of their feelings. They don't want to be men, as such, but they are deeply uncomfortable with their emerging sexuality and the demands of gendered expectations as they relate to girls and women.

This bollocks of a definition can be found here

"So what exactly is non-binary?
Non-binary is an umbrella term in which an individual identifies as either;
having a gender which is in-between or beyond the two categories ‘man’ and ‘woman; and/or
fluctuating between ‘man’ and 'woman’; and/or
having no gender, either permanently or some of the time.
It is clear, therefore, that non-binary relates to an individual’s “gender identity”"

We’re all non-binary (‘having no gender’) then!

Hang in - how can you ‘come out’ as... well ‘nothing’? Are people really that desperate to come over as ‘fascinating’?

As post-menopausal woman the previous posts ring a bell, in that I have arrived at what I call sofa territory; ignored by the male gaze, free to be myself and able largely to relinquish the expectations of my sex. For the first time I'm wondering if I have grown into what non-binary and even ROGD young women are seeking?

I'm learning so much on here.

The non binary people I know are all heterosexual. They're also all raging narcissists. I'm not sure if that's a coincidence

And I think we can expect heaps more people identifying as non-binary after Mermaids gets into more and more schools, presenting a visual gender spectrum - to even primary-aged children - which shows a Barbie doll on the extreme left and a GI Joe doll on the extreme right. Who would honestly see themselves as identifying with either extreme? Children are being encouraged to evaluate their pre-pubescent identities and adopt labels. I was an outdoorsy/bookworm of a child who loved climbing trees, balancing on fences, swimming and riding my bike as well as curling up with a book (or more likely tucking it into my shorts and taking it up my favourite tree). If I'd been shown that spectrum aged 9, I have no idea what I would have made of it.

Gender conformity wants dismantling and the expectations and judgments that grow out of it are our real enemy, not the confused people who are trying to place themselves on an artificial and essentially meaningless spectrum.

Most narcissists are heterosexual, yes.

Hang in - how can you ‘come out’ as... well ‘nothing’? Are people really that desperate to come over as ‘fascinating

It's all driven by social media......and yes, people seem to be looking for external validation and 'likes'.