"But it's true - that's what they are." Please help me unpick this.

[PikesPeaked]

Using sex-accurate pronouns to refer to somebody is often defended by it being factual reality. Even though the pronoun is a 'name' that the person does not want to be called by.

This calls to mind 'Yid' being used as a derogatory term for a Jew. Something that has been defended by "that's what they are" and "that's what they call themselves". Which is true. The word for Jew in Yiddish is 'Yid'.

Why is one acceptable but not the other?

For full disclosure, I am a gender critical Jew from a Yiddish-speaking background (though I don't speak it).

It's the "that's what they call themselves" bit that's the red herring, or crucial difference. But yes, would be interested to hear the OP clarifying.

Not really, I don't care which mountains you claim you have climbed. I am assuming you are here to collect screenshots to prove that Mumsnet is transphobic and to use a slur against Jewish people for your own amusement. You cannot realistically be in possession of an internet enabled device but have no understanding of the arguments put forward by posters on this very board that you have discovered to post your query on.

@Whatwouldscullydo I suspect that the way that religion can intersect with a person's lifestyle, norms and affiliations would actually make it pretty relevant to the investigation, but I'm really being picky and derailing now.

@growinggreyer

Not really, I don't care which mountains you claim you have climbed. I am assuming you are here to collect screenshots to prove that Mumsnet is transphobic and to use a slur against Jewish people for your own amusement. You cannot realistically be in possession of an internet enabled device but have no understanding of the arguments put forward by posters on this very board that you have discovered to post your query on.

Are you troll-hunting? If you have doubts about me, report this thread to MNHQ.

In fact, I shall report this to MNHQ myself, and ask them to leave your posts standing.

That is fine, none of my posts use the term you seem so pleased to share with us today. In fact, it is years since I last heard someone of the Jewish faith referred to by that term.

@PikesPeaked I completely missed that you are the OP. Does my response address your question?

I think the two examples given are not equivalent.

Correct sex pronouns are not generally used by people outside of the group as a slur, they refer to material reality, and are still needed by the group they apply to.
If people don't want others to use them they can think of something that doesn't erase the reality of the group that still uses them.

It's interesting because language is full of little unsaid nuances and rules.
For example, the n word was originally created to 'other' a group of people. Black people have reclaimed it, but white people don't use it unless they are trying to provoke. Interestingly language around race is so fraught that many white people don't even like saying the word black, which makes clarity difficult at times but such is the hang up from the awful past.

There’s nothing derogatory about he for males and she for females.

You said yourself yid is derogatory. You answered your own question.

I’m Scottish. Born there and grew up there until uni. But my passport is British. If someone calls me British I may feel like it invalidates my Scottish identity (I don’t but some do) but British is just what I am according to my passport so I can throw a hissy fit. Pronouns are the same thing and are already the recognised and accepted usage of language.

People don’t get to dictate how others refer to them. It’s not ok to use derogatory terms and there are times it’s worth listening to how people ask to be referred to (I think person with disabilities is a distinct and important difference from disabled person, but others feel disabled is a better term and so on. It’s good to listen to arguments about these terms from those of us living with disabilities but we can’t dictate which term you use as neither is degrogatory or outdated in terms of usage in laws/policies etc).

Remember the Gardaí (Irish police) alerted women and girls in Ireland to be alert to a teenage girl who stated that they wanted to rape and kill them.

If you said Ze wanted to do this, you may not know what to look out for. However, it is worse is that the Irish state deliberately misled and lied to women and girls, caring less for their life and limb than someone's adopted identity

Irish women pay taxes to a state which treats them in such a way. Mother and baby homes attitude to women by the state still alive and thriving.

My point is that using the wrong pronouns led to women and girls being more at risk as they were told to be alert to a dangerous teenage girl.

It is frequently said that it is easy to use a different pronoun. In my experience that is NOT true. I spend a lot of time speaking a foreign language and I frequently get masculine/feminine endings wrong because, although I am fluent, I am not perfect. I also teach over a hundred students. One (previously male) students asked be to use female pronouns - and I did, although sometimes I slipped up. It was really hard though - this person did not look any different. Imagine having four or five or more and having to remember which pronouns to use on pain of being denounced. The cognitive load is too much. It just becomes easier never to talk to those students, it's too risky. (I am not saying I would do this but I can well see it happening in the current climate).

I think your example is a false equivalence.

Surely the argument about use of he/she pronouns is whether or not the person the pronoun is applied to, is considered male/female by the person using the pronoun?

So a religious example would be whether someone is considered to be Jewish if they had been born to a woman who had converted to Judaism but wasn't Jewish by birth. My understanding is that (ultra?) orthodox Jews wouldn't consider a person born to such a woman as Jewish, but non-orthodox Jews would.

So the underlying question is whether or not they are Jewish (or male/female) and who decides that. Not whether a (pro)noun used to describe them is derogatory in some contexts.

Should a woman giving evidence in court be forced to refer to her be-penised rapist as her simply because the accused says that's how he would feel comfortable being addressed?

My answer to this is hell no.

I'll call a transwomen she in social interactions, just as I send my friend's Christmas card to Reverend Mrs Bloggs, even though I don't believe in the God by whom her congregation assume she is revered, and even though I don't think language should have honorifics which force women to disclose their marital status. Out of politeness, not because I share the beliefs.

But where there's a direct clash of rights - me having promised to tell the truth in court for instance and being called upon to bear witness to what actually happened to me - then I'm not going to lie for politeness' sake.

The next thing is apparently "neopronouns". A poster on another thread said a child in her DC's school was excluded temporarily because they referred to a child as "she" when she wanted to be called "mews/mewself"

@Ereshkigalangcleg

The next thing is apparently "neopronouns". A poster on another thread said a child in her DC's school was excluded temporarily because they referred to a child as "she" when she wanted to be called "mews/mewself"

Although neo-pronouns are a pile of wank, I think I'd need to see the evidence for that particular event because it just screams "things on the internet that never happened" to me.

(Bit like some of the alleged details on this thread but hey, play the ball substantive point, not the player.)

I totally get pronouns to be a cognitive overload. I work in education and have trouble the first few days remembering names. I once had an official complaint made because I forgot the preferred name of a child and referred to them as per the register. The name was initials that didn't match the child's name so linking them to the student was hard.

Neo pronouns would however represent the ever changing goal posts.

Realistically we know it would serve no purpose but to stress out the children who would no doubt worry about remembering the right one for the right child. Is the intention to make gender non conforming children more comfortable ir ti deliberately cause a situation that would maintain a level of perceived discrimination etc

I went to Google 'neopronouns' and discovered that 'Catgender' is actually a thing! And has sub types including Meowgender and Mewgender.

lgbta.wikia.org/wiki/Catgender

I don't see that the two things have anything to do with each other. Terms like "Yid" and "Paki" are hate-terms because they are used as such by people who are racist. Their literal meaning doesn't matter - the meaning is all in the usage.

Pronouns aren't used as hate terms. They are descriptive. Females are referred to using the terms "she" and "her" and males using the terms "he" and "him".

I agree, pronouns are not offensive in any context. They do not carry value (well, apart from patriarchy etc). Calling someone 'her' is not an insult, it's a mechanic of language.

Using a word which has been used as a perjoritive is a descriptor is quite different.

For example, just because some friend groups refer to each other as 'bitches' doesn't mean you can refer to any woman as a bitch.

I agree with pp it's a false equivalence. The issue here is that male people are asking to be regarded as female people, which some might regard as fine in some circumstances but definitely poses safeguarding risks if applied in every circumstance.

I think a better equivalent if we are sticking with the theme of Judaism would be if I changed my name from "Jane Smith" to "Rabbi Smith" and wanting to be addressed and treated as a Rabbi, despite it being apparent to everyone that I was not a Rabbi and had no real knowledge/experience of Judaism. Even with that example though, I don't think that's it captures the risk issue which is at the heart of the problem with what many TRAs are seeking (eg access to female sexed prisons, access to communal female changing facilities, access to domestic abuse services intended for women).

^ I think in the above scenario you'd be quite right to say "No, I'm not going to pretend you are a Rabbi, Jane"

@CaraDuneRedux just because my main purpose on this thread seems to be being an enormous pedant, Reverend means that they revere a God, not that they are revered by one.

I otherwise completely agree with your post.

And I also now suspect that the OP started this thread disingenuously to try and get screenshots of us using racial slurs.

@bourbonne I bow to your pedantry, I am in awe of your pedantry... I might even go as far as to say I revere your pedantry.

And I too share your suspicions, especially since the rubbish analogy (which even an 11 year old SATS student could see was rubbish) that started the thread was I suspect contrived with the express intention of shoe-horning in a really offensive word in the hope that someone would pick it up and run with it.