I am being asked to go into a meeting and introduce my pronouns to everyone in an hour and a half!

[WhatTheFuckHappenedHere]

I am part of a work group tasked with running a big event that will take almost a year to plan. The first meeting is in an hour and a half over Zoom. The organiser, who I've never met, and goes by they/them pronouns according to the email signature, sent round an email reminder this morning with the meeting link, and including an agenda. The first thing on it is to introduce ourselves, our work area, an our gender pronouns. I don't really want to do this, but I need to work with this person and the group as a whole for the best part of a year! I'm feeling like I'll just have to go along with it lest I get accused of enacting literal and actual violence. Any advice?

What a difficult one

I’d not want to be strong armed into saying this

I might do vagueness and leave it out but if everyone says it at end of their intro it’s tough

Self care is definitely wank BEFORE meeting

+1 for the payslip.

This 'woke' stuff deserves nothing less than the thoroughgoing piss to be taken out of it. But they are all sooooo po-faced.

Ridiculous isn't it that anything less than 100% compliance instils such fear in us that we don't 'dare' refuse as the consequences are potential cancellation. I want to laugh, but I'm too angry.

Loving the new 'I'm taking the 5th' - really that nails it.

"I am taking the Yogyakarta Principle 6."

(Everyone frantically googles.)

@Shizzlestix

Also placematking. I’m intrigued to see if the OP”s colleague has the balls (e cause my sexism/genderism!!) to reject being asked. World’ has gone mad. Can’t people (is it offensive to say people??) just use names?

We have a very elderly vicar sitting in on it (he's contributing to something we're publishing). Really, that should deter me but it only makes me want to do it more.

If he's anything like the five retired vicars in our parish (1 woman, 4 men) he'll bliddy love it (but may have to feign shock). If he starts to choke, I can promise you that he is fighting back laughter!

Don't know how I git a quote there - I must have clicked it by accident - sorry.

Hope you managed to get out of it op

Bloody woke nonsense that actually harms women as sexism.is still rife.

Course no one cares though its just women.

How did it go?

My line manager suggested my name was even more confusing for some & did I want to feminise my name.
That is awful. “Would you like to invite unconscious bias against you in order to help other people feel comfortable? They wouldn’t ask you to make your name sound more obviously identifiable as your race or religion would they.

I'm v curious as to what the 'self care' instructions for the meeting were?

All light a candle or an incense stick, do two minutes of guided meditation focusing on the flow of your breathing innnnn, and ouuuuut, and all say OM.

FFS.

I wouldn't say anything about my pronouns on my introduction but if pushed, in a meeting in front of everyone, to state them, I'd say "my pronouns are obvious" followed by these faces >

anything less than 100% compliance instils such fear in us that we don't 'dare' refuse as the consequences are potential cancellation

Thing is though, and what pisses me off the most, is so much of this expects that you will stay in your box to enable others to identify out of that box and that you will co operate by providing the norm to the more interesting variations of others.

I'm afraid if interesting variations are an option then either everyone gets to do it or no one does. Like inclusion and kindness. Either it's an equal value applied equally by everyone to everyone else, or it's a term being used to disguise something else entirely.

I am glad it hasn't come up (yet!!) where i work. I am a bit thick as I did not know what pronouns were!

If anyone asked I would say

Deathraystare
Born female
Her/she
Dunno what else.
If anyone pushed harder I woud just look totally confused!

I had this at a zoom training session a couple of weeks ago.

I skipped over the pronouns, I didn't update my name with my pronouns, I discovered another 3 GC people on my course - 1 male, 2 females. And i tried not to boil with rage when the facilitator corrected herself from pregnant woman to pregnant person.

I have not been called out for by my non conformance, but if I was I was going to say I didn't feel comfortable with my identity and did not wish to discuss it.

In addition I would say this could be uncomfortable for others in the meeting who do not wish to disclose pronouns.

This is what infuriates me with people who do this: when they and their feelings are all that matter and everybody else can just get stuffed. Like with the 'cis' thing. The kind of person who will use it about/in front of you will invariably, when told that you find it offensive and do not wish to be described in that way, inform you that you are mistaken, it is an acceptable term and it's just a neutral descriptor, they are not being offensive, so they have every right to use their preferred term to describe you. Some of them might go as far as telling you that you're just trying to draw attention to yourself by rejecting the term and that they find your lack of co-operation personally upsetting....

I would love you to share the self care though!

Feminise your name?? Oh my goodness 😱😱

I actually have the unisex name you used as an example. It's never once occurred to me that people might assume I'm a man, and now that it has occurred to me...it doesn't fucking matter does it? In fact, if it makes them more likely to do what I tell them then all the better 😂

'I’ve an ambiguous name eg Sam, that can be confused with either male or female but when people meet me I’m clearly female. My line manager suggested my name was even more confusing for some & did I want to feminise my name.'

This is what causes all of the antagonism. It's considered that 'boring one-dimensional' people who 'blindly accept' the traditional gender role (i.e. sex) that society has assigned to them since birth need to toe the line and compartmentalise themselves into tiny restrictive little boxes at one of the two ends of the broad spectrum (nearly always the female end), to avoid confusing or upsetting the important folk who then have the entire rest of the spectrum (the 'interesting' part) all to themselves.

I'd be sorely tempted to play them at their own game and tell the meeting

" I am all woman. My pronouns are he/him/his."

What happened, op?

How did it go?

"I'm pronoun free"

And let them un befuddle that.

I will absolutely 100% steal this if I ever get backed into a corner over pronouns - love it!

To be honest this annoys me so much I would just say my pronoun is Jessica, or whatever your name is

Or if I was brave enough say it’s private and leave them to flounder

What a disgrace is all I can say!

I would love you to share the self care though!

Does anybody remember the promotional video made by one of the teams on The Apprentice (it was shown again recently in one of the 'best bits' shows) where they were meant to be advertising Alan Sugar's expensive airline seats? The model they used was ostensibly supposed to be settling himself in and just wriggling around, luxuriating in the extreme comfort of the seat. Unfortunately, it unmistakeably made it look like he was having the time of his life indulging in a wonderful old session of hedonistic self-care