Best responses for being asked for pronouns in person

[Seraphinite]

I’m going to a residential training course (not UK) and I suspect they will ask us for pronouns when we introduce ourselves on day one. (I’ve been to something with this organization before and have seen it)

What are some good responses I can give? Is saying ‘I prefer not to say’ best?

I don’t want to draw attention to it, be adversarial or open up discussion, I just don’t want to answer.

(For avoidance of doubt, I don’t buy in to gender ideology so that’s why I don’t want to answer. To me, stating my pronouns indicates I think it’s an ok question to ask in the first place )

@Warmduscher

Jesus, LurcherLot, your posts are so humourless!

Not sure where the joke is in stating an incongruous pronoun to try and provoke a negative reaction is, to be honest. Either you won't get a negative reaction, in which case all you've proved is no one else in the room is as uncomfortable with trans people as you are. Or you will get a negative reaction, in which case you've just gained personal insight into why some trans people appreciate a supportive environment in which to share their pronouns. Either way, self-own.

@WeeSisters

I have never had difficulty identifying someone’s sex. It is instinctual, and even if appearance doesn’t give it away, how someone walks does or the sound of their voice. It is really not a mystery that humankind have struggled with.

But I do find the pronouns at work issue toxic. Pronouns assert that gender identity trumps biological sex, and requires colleagues to show they are an ‘ally’ or risk being seen as bigot if they think sex is real and it matters.

That is a political stance which, like all political stances, has no place in the workplace.

This. It is essentially a trick question. Are you a performative ally or a bigot.

@ArabellaScott

An ESL speaker would already have learned he/him, she/her, they/them as a beginner to the language, there's not any requirement for them to learn new pronouns, just the same ones they already know.

Lots of people with English as a foreign language at my workplace. Can confirm that some with a pretty good standard of English struggle enormously with some grammar rules and regularly and blithely muddle up she/he/her/his.

I agree with you Arabella, I’m no expert on languages but the Hungarian people I know regularly use “he” when they mean “she”.

I wasn’t talking specifically about the poster who suggested using the “wrong” pronoun to try to mix things up a bit.

I meant all your posts. Your responses are so intense, it’s like someone needs to introduce you to lightheartedness.

We’re talking about words that 90% of the time people use when you’re not even in earshot. Seriously, why would it warrant such over-analysis?

And I say that as someone who was frequently mistaken for a man when I was younger. People made a mistake. No one died.

Highlighting pronouns as an ordinarily unimportant part of speech that has suddenly become utterly loaded, impossible difficult to remember, and extraordinarily important is really not helping out any trans or gender non conforming people I know, I have to say. The opposite, in fact.

"Pronouns?" Look baffled.

"Pro - nouns?"

Sorry. Not great at grammar but my name is X

@Warmduscher

I wasn’t talking specifically about the poster who suggested using the “wrong” pronoun to try to mix things up a bit.

I meant all your posts. Your responses are so intense, it’s like someone needs to introduce you to lightheartedness.

We’re talking about words that 90% of the time people use when you’re not even in earshot. Seriously, why would it warrant such over-analysis?

And I say that as someone who was frequently mistaken for a man when I was younger. People made a mistake. No one died.

If it's such a trivial matter and warrants no deep analysis, why is OP or any of the rest of you even bothered by it? Why is it such a frequent topic of conversation on the board?

Just give your preferred pronouns, they're not asking you to change them. Just to make sure they address you they way you like to be addressed.

I like to be addressed as your highness.

It depends if you want to start a debate, and on how much you want to stand out. I honestly think that most people will just be confused if you don't just pick a pronoun....Not saying that's right, just that it's not on most people's radars....

@twelly

I would introduce myself as xxx and then add wife and mother (don't know if that is the same aa you op) if someone is stupid enough to them ask for pronouns I would say she of course

I really like wife/mother as pronouns 😀

@Talkwhilstyouwalk

It depends if you want to start a debate, and on how much you want to stand out. I honestly think that most people will just be confused if you don't just pick a pronoun....Not saying that's right, just that it's not on most people's radars....

On the contrary. Experience has shown that most people are confused by the pronoun question.

In most real life situations I know of (outside of particularly performative circles), once the first person declined to play along, many more followed suit.

@Mumteedum

Does anyone watch the kominsky method on Netflix? Fun episode ( and somewhat surprising )with Morgan Freeman playing a gender fluid character and doing a scene with all the pronouns. Wish I had a clip but couldn't find one.

I saw that last week. To They really pointed out how stupid it all is, and I laughed at the last line where Morgan Freeman called the writers bullies.

but it's your own life you're making awkward at the end of the day.
It's really not.

@AlwaysLatte

Just give your preferred pronouns, they're not asking you to change them. Just to make sure they address you they way you like to be addressed.

I don't have any preferred pronouns. Have you any idea how mad this sounds?

An ESL speaker would already have learned he/him, she/her, they/them as a beginner to the language, there's not any requirement for them to learn new pronouns, just the same ones they already know. There's no reason at all it should be any harder for them than anyone else. It's not like trans people don't exist outside English speaking countries either, so I don't know why you'd assume the concept would be particularly hard for someone just because they're ESL.

This is an ill-informed statement, I'm afraid. I'm not only an ESL speaker myself, I also work with/encounter many ESL speakers. More than half of all languages do not have he or she pronouns. This includes the two languages with the most speakers in the world - Mandarin Chinese (which introduced he and she in written Mandarin a hundred years ago, but in spoken Mandarin both pronouns sound the same and so functionally are the same) and Hindi.

Very many other languages spoken in Asia also do not know gendered third person pronouns. As do various Indo-European, African, Oceanien and American ones.

ESL speakers from those countries frequently confuse he and she. L1 interference in such a fundamental of language is hard to overcome even for ESL speakers with considerable language skills.

My native language is gendered for animate and inanimate objects. I speak and write English at a native level and work as a writer and editor in both English and my native language. And yet, gender is such a fundamental feature of my mother tongue, I still find it strange that a table or a flower or an apple is neutral in English. And in spoken communication I still occasionally use gendered pronouns for inanimate objects in line with my mother tongue.

That's because language transfer in regard to such fundamentals requires constant and considerable and conscious effort to overcome. And sometimes we're too tired or stressed or hurried or emotional to do it.

And in my view, the requirement to mis-sex contrary to the learned rule that he refers to a person of the male sex and she to a person of the female sex makes the whole problem worse. This adds considerably to the stress of a non-native speaker.

You demand consideration for those who do wish to dictate pronouns to others, because it matters so much to them their mental health requires compliance. That's fair enough - as I tell my kids, you can ask for anything you want.

You just can't have everything.

In turn, I'll repeat what others have asked of you before - consideration for those of us who struggle with that requirement (for instance those who are ESL speakers or neuro-diverse) and experience adverse mental health effects because of it.

P.S. and FYI I have attached a map showing a distribution of languages without gender (the white dots). It's from here: wals.info/feature/44A#0/-44/130

So interesting, CharlieParley to see where gender is not used. I spent a bit of time trying (and failing) to learn a Bantu language with huge numbers of genders/noun classes which defeated me.

English language pronouns are sex-based, and humans are naturally hard wired to recognise sex, hence every in-person meeting for the last however many thousand years not having to start with a pronouns round.

It’s another part of the recent concerted attempt by believers in gender to uncouple not only the automatic association of the word 'woman' with females but also the words 'she' and 'her' so they can refer equally to males as well.

Lurcher, if you google 'stereotype threat' you will see lots of academic studies whereby the act of drawing attention to one's race or sex can have a negative impact on performance etc
Announcing you are a she/her still comes at a cost in a sexist world.

If you are not convinced about it being compelled speech/additional mental load etc, I saw someone's twitter where they described themselves in their bio as 'Multigender. No pronouns, please'.
Just try talking about them!

Apologies. You can see I just mis-pronouned them three times in that last paragraph.

Oops. And again.

Still, I note with a degree of schadenfreude that even the most extreme gender ideologues also get it wrong.

This, for example, is a TW on Demi Lovato.

"She's come out as non-binary."

She??? Good heavens! Wherever did you get that idea from?!

It won't be long before stating pronouns be as dated as putting "(Mrs.)", "(Miss)", "(Ms)" or "(Mr.)" in signatures.

Signed
B. Whabylon (Miss)

Exactly, Charlie. In my second language, possessive pronouns agree with the gender of the object, not the subject- so if you say “he loves his car”, it is “il aime sa voiture” - the feminine “sa” possessive pronoun being applied because “voiture” is feminine, despite the possessor being male. If you’re used to this, the idea that his and hers are static and do not change regardless of what they’re applied to is very difficult to master, and is made the more so if you would also have to remember that the possessor that you’re talking about doesn’t use the sex based pronouns that you’ve managed to master.

French has non binary pronouns, but it’s....messy at best. You can use “iel” and “ielle”, but then you’re left in a muddle with the verb agreements, which can be forced into place in the written form but I have no idea how it works in the spoken form, because I haven’t heard it used at all.

I saw this used recently as an example and it made me laugh because look at the indecision over the heureux/heureuse 🤣 - would the speaker/writer pick one? Or say both?

“Regardez Chris! Iel a l’air heureux/se aujourd’hui! Je vais ellui demander s’iel veut venir avec nous plus tard”

Then you’ve got Arabic, where all the verbs you use are conjugated according to the sex of the person that you’re talking to - so “how are you?” would be “kayf halak?” to a man and “kayf halik?” to a woman. What a minefield! I have no idea how Arab speakers are approaching preferred pronouns, would love to know.

Anyway, my prolonged language nerd out is meant to illustrate that the whole “it doesn’t cost you anything!” Is very culturally specific. If the goal is inclusion, then to me it falls down because it assumes native English language facility, which seems to me to be a pretty colonialist, exclusive concept, which I had been given to understand by my wokest friends, is a horrible thing... 😬

"It’s another part of the recent concerted attempt by believers in gender to uncouple not only the automatic association of the word 'woman' with females but also the words 'she' and 'her' so they can refer equally to males as well".
I think this is probably the most important objection I have as well. The attempt to change our language in order to change reality.

Pronoun policing
I can't forgive having my time wasted in a meeting, conference, training or whatever. I want it to be productive, focused, purposeful and to get things done. Pious pronoun policing pampers to verbal bullying and digresses from the meeting purpose into political religious context that brings up the war on women, children and LGB.

"If my pronouns aren't obvious to you, you are always welcome to use my name."

If it's such a trivial matter and warrants no deep analysis, why is OP or any of the rest of you even bothered by it? Why is it such a frequent topic of conversation on the board?
Do you really not understand why people are bothered? Do you wonder if it might be because organisations are falling over themselves in the rush to look “progressive” by encouraging staff to include pronouns on emails and when introducing themselves in group settings?

And when people say “No thanks”, you get others saying, “What's the big deal? Just say what your bloody pronouns are, and move along ffs!”

Do you think it could be that?

Excellent posts @CharlieParley and @Sophoclesthefox

Not sure where the joke is in stating an incongruous pronoun to try and provoke a negative reaction is, to be honest. Either you won't get a negative reaction, in which case all you've proved is no one else in the room is as uncomfortable with trans people as you are. Or you will get a negative reaction, in which case you've just gained personal insight into why some trans people appreciate a supportive environment in which to share their pronouns. Either way, self-own.

The sentence is italics is where you are going wrong. I'm not sure if you are projecting your own issues, deliberately misrepresenting gender critical people or just misunderstanding so I'll be kind and assume the latter.

Discomfort with the current trans orthodoxy is not discomfort with trans people.

There are many ways trans people could have been supported.

It is Trans Orthodoxy that has taken it upon itself to claim the only way to support and accept trans people to to believe categorically that gender identify overrides sex, and that any distinction made for any reason between trans women and women, or trans men and men, is hateful and negating.

It is Trans Orthodoxy, not trans people, that requires public demonstration of adherence through rituals - and I choose that word deliberately - like the sharing of the pronouns and the removal of the words.

People who look for logic in these rituals (eg "How come a trans man can give birth, yet be negated by pronouns?") miss the point. It's not about logic or practicality or consistent meaning, it's about symbolism and public displays of obedience.

But the problem with Trans Orthodoxy as the "only" way to accept and support trans people is that is it simply wrong. It requires those of us who are not trans to lie about ourselves and who we are. That is how I know it is wrong. Not because of anything I feel about trans people and trans identities, but simply because my own identity, which I know as deeply and as as certainly as trans people know theirs, cannot exist in the reality Trans Orthodoxy requires.

Simply, if I believe in my own identity, which I do, and I believe trans people are honest and genuine about theirs, which I do, then Trans Orthodoxy is the thing that is wrong, because it can't accommodate both of us. We need to talk more, think more, dig deeper to find the truth that encompasses both.

But Trans Orthodoxy won't let that happen. It shuts down anyone asking "is there another way, a better way, a way that accommodates both the truth trans people know about themselves and the truth I know about myself?" by shouting "bigotry" just as other orthodoxies have used accusations of blasphemy and heresy to prevent discussion opening the cracks in the façade.

So my choice is not between "be kind" by submitting or "self own" by blaspheming. My choice is to lie about myself and submit to an orthodoxy that I cannot believe in, one that reduces and denies me, or to resist and continue to respectfully state my truth and ask that we push for a better way.

The only self-own is if I choose to submit to an orthodoxy in which I do not and cannot believe just for the sake of an easy life.