The look at me of pronouns

[Ritascornershop]

Recently I’ve had two interactions that have startled me. One was with legal aid (I’m in Canada) where the young lawyer rang me and said “Hello this is Thomas from xx, my practice is x and my pronouns are he/him.” Just in case I thought someone with a male voice and whose name was Thomas might like me, when speaking to him, to refer to him in the third person as she/her. I laughed and pointed out that as I was speaking directly to him, his pronouns wouldn’t be relevant.

The other interaction was after I’d written my member of parliament’s office asking for an answer on something I couldn’t get a Ministry to answer me on. 3 months later I finally got a reply suggesting I contact that Ministry 🙄 and signing off “Benjamin Lastname, he/him, Useless Twat, Your MP’s office”.

I replied telling him it was useless information that should not have taken 3 months to cough up, and I didn’t care what his pronouns were and I wasn’t going to proffer mine as doing so for women tended to increase sexism in professional interactions.

Is this as rampant in the UK? It just seems so unprofessional and so “look at me!” I’ve no interest in how they hope people refer to them when they’re not there, I just want answers to my questions that they are qualified to provide.

Why is it important from a relationship perspective to know someone's sex or gender?

Surely you are better off not making assumptions about people? Treating them on merit

It's useful when you finally meet as it stops people looking around for a man when you are standing in front of them, but that's always a short lived problem

I think if challenged at work I'll just keep repeating my name, in 'Groot' style.

Colleague: what are your pronouns ?
Me: My name is ablutiions
Colleague: but we need to know your pronouns so we can address you properly
Me: My name is ablutiions
Colleague: but how will we know what to call you ?
Me: (quizzically) My name is ablutions ?
Colleague : but won't that make your colleagues feel excluded or unsafe
Me: My name is ablutiions (smiles)

Despite my parents being pretty feminist and anti- gender stereotypes, I inevitably observed and absorbed a huge amount of cultural and societal bias and many powerful expectations about what it means to be a girl or a woman.

So, Helen, reasonably, what do you think a man is doing when he says he identifies as a woman? When he asks everyone to use the she/her pronouns?

He's not actually become someone producing a different gamete. So what, realistically, is he identifying with exactly?

And don't you think, given women's status as a lesser than, it's detrimental to them when you endorse a system which reinforces the "huge amount of cultural and societal bias and many powerful expectations about what it means to be a girl or a woman."

Including the expectation that women should validate men and comply with what they want, despite it disadvantaging them?

Doesn't the conflict in what you think and what you say make your head explode?

@HipTightOnions

Helen8220 it’s interesting how tentative you are in suggesting you are female:

I have the primary sexual characteristics which generally result from xx chromosomes
...was registered at birth as female
...this idea of myself as a ‘woman’ came to be deeply ingrained in my sense of self
...am used to - and comfortable - being regarded by others as a woman

but at no point do you commit yourself to “I am female” or “I am a woman”.

You are similarly tentative about other people, for example whether they are likely to have been recorded at birth as male or female not “whether they are male or female”.

Do you even accept that people can be a sex, or is it just about how other people perceive them?

Yes, it’s the tentativeness I was trying to get at with my previous post. Beating around the bush.

“Whether they are likely to have been recorded at birth as male or female” - you say you are a lawyer so you’re a reasonably intelligent person, yes? So you do know that there’s no need to use the word “likely” in the sentence I have just quoted. A baby is born, the sex is immediately obvious (I’m not talking about a minuscule percentage of cases where it isn’t obvious) - girl or boy? That’s it. It’s noted every time a baby is born. In the days before 20-week scans, it would have been the first question asked by the mother immediately after delivery - is it a boy or girl? It’s pretty much - health concerns aside - the first question that the wider family and friends ask. And you know this, don’t you?? So stop your faux naivety - it’s doing your (presumed from your professional status) intelligence a huge disservice.

This is what I sent to our diversity manager when asked to declare my pronouns.

1. I have experienced a great degree of sexism at work. Bringing attention to my sex increases the likelihood of my being treated differently as a woman as this experiment demonstrates: www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/gender-inequality-man-woman-switch-names-week-martin-schneider-nicky-knacks-pay-gap-a7622201.html
2. Singling out a woman’s female status can result in ‘stereotype threat’. hbr.org/2016/08/why-women-feel-more-stress-at-work
3. I hold ‘gender critical’ beliefs, which are protected under the Equality Act and recently confirmed in www.gov.uk/employment-appeal-tribunal-decisions/maya-forstater-v-cgd-europe-and-others-ukeat-slash-0105-slash-20-slash-joj

What did they say?

KittenKong she said 'ok'. I get the impression she was a bit shocked and just assumes that everyone is on board.

Since Maya's judgement I am openly but politely TERFy at work, and push back where gender is used instead of sex.

Of we don’t say something, the assumption is that it’s all hunky dory. Because a lot of people don’t actually think about it.

Yes. I see pronouns on some of my colleagues' emails and know that some are true believers - like the bloke who announces his pronouns are he/him at the start of every meeting - while others don't give it much thought.

[quote Wrongsideofhistorymyarse]This is what I sent to our diversity manager when asked to declare my pronouns.

1. I have experienced a great degree of sexism at work. Bringing attention to my sex increases the likelihood of my being treated differently as a woman as this experiment demonstrates: www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/gender-inequality-man-woman-switch-names-week-martin-schneider-nicky-knacks-pay-gap-a7622201.html
2. Singling out a woman’s female status can result in ‘stereotype threat’. hbr.org/2016/08/why-women-feel-more-stress-at-work
3. I hold ‘gender critical’ beliefs, which are protected under the Equality Act and recently confirmed in www.gov.uk/employment-appeal-tribunal-decisions/maya-forstater-v-cgd-europe-and-others-ukeat-slash-0105-slash-20-slash-joj[/quote] Brilliant - thank you for this. I have just copied and pasted for future use.

This is what I sent to our diversity manager when asked to declare my pronouns.

Oh, brava! That's perfect.

So people with diversity managers... I’d love to see their job descriptions and also the breakdown of their job with regards to all the groups on the EA. I really would (and how much they get paid and then CBA for their position)

So I finally got a piece of work yesterday I’d been waiting for from a contractor. Sheher (no surprise, sheher has blue hair) took two months to complete it (it should have taken a day max). I am not happy.

I won’t use this person again because I have had to firefight my clients over this delay. Maybe focus on doing your sodding job?

But funnily... a news headline from today from the Indy (couldn’t do a link to the page):

“Police launch search for naked man wearing latex mask spotted ‘staring at traffic’”

And what was my first thought? ‘How did they know it was a man’ 🤣

This is getting ridiculous...

I don’t believe in gender identity ideology so I won’t take part in this silly game where I’m meant to play pretend. It’s against my moral compass to participate in a lie.

Going along with the idea that a male can be a she or that there is such a thing as non-binary when we all every last one of us know it’s not real is not something I’m prepared to do.

@Siameasy

I don’t believe in gender identity ideology so I won’t take part in this silly game where I’m meant to play pretend. It’s against my moral compass to participate in a lie.

Going along with the idea that a male can be a she or that there is such a thing as non-binary when we all every last one of us know it’s not real is not something I’m prepared to do.

Would you use someone's chosen pronouns? Would you be prepared to lose your job over this?

At work I would try to avoid using any pronouns in the person’s earshot. I imagine though that the truth would accidentally slip out. After all, I’ve 40-odd years as a native English speaker so of course I’m going to instinctively use my own language to correctly describe what I see. It would be an interesting tribunal for someone dismissed for this scenario.
Outside of work no I wouldn’t use untrue pronouns. I don’t share your ideology- why would I use its language?

And no one has the right to dictate how they are spoken about when they aren’t even present. So oppressed aren’t they!

It's not my ideology.

I'd have no problem using people's CHOSEN pronouns at work, as opposed to the pronouns provided by the language that have served for 100s of years, because the only people I see choosing to choose and emphasize said choice are men choosing he/him or women choosing she/her so luckily, the 2 dovetail quite nicely

@Wrongsideofhistorymyarse

Yes. I see pronouns on some of my colleagues' emails and know that some are true believers - like the bloke who announces his pronouns are he/him at the start of every meeting - while others don't give it much thought.

Is in doubt, I feel that people are so fragile today

In the Maya case, she did use colleagues' chosen pronouns.
I think that not using a colleague's pronouns when your employer instructs you to do so might not end well.
That's not my ideology - just pointing the issue out. Judges in court are instructing victims to use the defendant's chosen pronouns, fgs.

I believe she got it wrong on social media with a person with a beard - and she quickly retracted when she caught herself (was that the one?).

@Sunndown

It's not my ideology.

I don’t mean you that was directed at the imaginary pronoun-demanding person. I should’ve put that sentence in “”

@HipTightOnions

it’s interesting how tentative you are in suggesting you are female

You are similarly tentative about other people, for example whether they are likely to have been recorded at birth as male or female not “whether they are male or female”.

Do you even accept that people can be a sex, or is it just about how other people perceive them?

I was consciously trying to describe the situation in a purely factual and objective way, without presupposing the meaning of terms like ‘woman’. I am a woman, on pretty much any definition, but I think that is the culmination of a series of events, rather than something that followed inevitably from my chromosomes.