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.

My pronouns are me, myself and I.

*@Feelingmardy That argument won't work though. Most people can tell your sex by looking at you or your name, so pronouns don't change that.

What is does do that is emphasise the fact you're a woman and that your name is a female name. It's basically like a message saying 'JUST IN CASE YOU DON'T KNOW I'M A WOMAN, I'M JUST LETTING YOU KNOW HERE! OK???' , and women should have the perfect right not to feel comfortable with that because of associated discrimination.

Because of the ideology that surrounds it, it's not simply a woman saying 'I'm she/her not because of my biology', but more like 'I'm a woman because I 'feel' like a woman - and I like baking, high heels and fashion generally'.

The woman has the right not to buy into those ideas, and to also not use use other wording that is part of that ideology, such as they/them or not using pronouns at all.*

Totally agree, esp the bit about "I feel like a woman" (which is implicit in the pronoun announcement and which reifies the idea that one can actually 'feel like' a woman). If the only contact is via email though and your sex is not obvious from a name, women are disadvantaged from the off.

@EarthSight

"Hmmmm.........you're gender critical are you???

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to see your previous posting history before I believe that.

Are you sure you know what gender they are?

Again, I'm going to need to see a long posting history here on Mumsnet before I believe you're gender critical after you said this."

Good lord. I know you're sitting behind a screen here, but that was astonishingly rude of you. I absolutely don't need your permission to think my thoughts or offer my opinion on an anonymous messageboard.

I didn't realise there were criteria, and that you were in charge of them.

What does ‘gender critical’ actually mean? Let’s take a second to think...

Do you believe girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice?
Do you believe that boys are made of slugs and snails and puppy dogs tails?
Are girls pre-programmes to like pink, glitter and dollies?
Are boys pre-programmed to like monster trucks and action man?
Is their such a thing as a soul? And if so, is god infallible?
Is sex the same a gender?
Is gender just a series of ‘rules’ that are pretty rigid and harmful (so a girl is told that she can’t play with the toy car and told to go and help mummy make dairy cakes)?
Should women be allowed to go out to work?
Should men be allowed to take parental leave and be stay at home parents?
Should boys be allowed to take cookery classes?
Should girly be allowed to take woodwork classes?
Are the Taliban right?

I shall now do ‘biology deniers’...
Etc etc etc

@EarthSight

Sorry *@astoundedgoat*

That's okay. It's a fraught topic and I appreciate you responding.

Ugh, I was going to add more to that post, but never mind! :)

@astoundedgoat

@KittenKong

Everyone is entitled to feel safe - but why is it purely those who are actually in no physical danger??? Panic buttons in lecture halls, dial a snitch police numbers for ‘thoughts’, arggggggg

I wonder about the premise though - are we actually all entitled to feel safe?

My workplace just put out a survey for staff, as the local mandates about masks and social distancing are about to change as we reach a certain level of vaccination. The purpose was to see if staff felt safe relaxing these at work, and that maybe they would still require us to do certain things based on the staff's feelings about safety.

My question was, is how people feel about this actually the right bar to use? Does feeling safe actually need to reflect reality? Life isn't totally safe, how close to we have to be to complete safety? If for over a year the press has been emphasizing to people that they are unsafe, doesn't that tend to affect their perceptions? Etc.

Then there are actually lots of workplaces that are by their nature physically unsafe. In workplaces that are mentally challenging, or intellectually challenging, even if we accepted the idea that this is a kind of "safety" why should people have an absolute right to safety that doesn't exist with regard to physical safety?

I worked in an office that had a stalker. He had a real hate of women and would walk into the building and into our office to scream (right in your face) at the women working there (never the men). The police helpfully suggested double locks and a peephole but did agree that we needed to ensure he didn’t access the office (or other areas of the work where he would lurk) and we shouldn’t be alone in there. So that was definitely a feeling of being unsafe.

I have worked in places where people have had screaming fights (some got pretty nasty and rather personal) but I didn’t feel unsafe (a bit embarrassed for them).

Nowadays people ‘feel unsafe’ if anyone doesn’t agree with them or says something they done like. Or perceive some sort of insult. It’s bonkers.

If someone states their pronouns, I sort of assume they must be the opposite sex to what the pronouns suggest...... I think I'm wrong but I can't help it. I've gone on some very confused mad googling expeditions trying to work out the sex someone is. Probably says as much about me as them!

@Franca123

If someone states their pronouns, I sort of assume they must be the opposite sex to what the pronouns suggest...... I think I'm wrong but I can't help it. I've gone on some very confused mad googling expeditions trying to work out the sex someone is. Probably says as much about me as them!

I think the opposite. I assume they are of the same sex as their pronouns suggest. Trans people are rare and if you genuinely have dysphoria around your sex I imagine it causes you pain and you don’t want to draw attention to it - granted there are exceptions. But for those who don’t have gender dysphoria putting pronouns on emails etc is no effort and all about signalling how great and woke you are at no cost.

@Franca123

If someone states their pronouns, I sort of assume they must be the opposite sex to what the pronouns suggest...... I think I'm wrong but I can't help it. I've gone on some very confused mad googling expeditions trying to work out the sex someone is. Probably says as much about me as them!

Yes, I'm the same. I know more and more people are doing it, but my brain automatically assumes that they must be the opposite sex to what they are saying. Why would you need to do it else?

I have not been asked at work yet, but I see it often on IG and puts me off immediately.

Now, I have a question - in English you can use the argument that pronouns are not needed when you are talking directly to that person. That's not the same in Spanish, my native language, as there are male/female adjectives, so when you talk to someone directly you do imply their sex.

I might be wrong but I feel this makes it more difficult to argue agains it?

How often do you misgender or indeed mis-sex someone though? I don't think I have ever done this. There has been the very unusual circumstance where I haven't been sure - although the person's sex has been clear - and I have just been very careful not to assume.

I have been mis-sexed a handful of times as a teenager. This was back in the 80s (fashion being as it was back then) and got called ‘son’.

I found it most amusing. I did not die.

DS2 used to have shoulder length hair and quite often used to be announced by the female version of his name when show jumping. He coped.

Oh I just remembered my gruff biker brother was referred to as ‘a lassie’ from behind when he was a young man - long flowing locks (and he had a sleight frame). He wasn’t amused.

Just to balance this up a bit - my organisation employs around 2000 people, and on the basis of the sample of emails I receive from people in various areas I’d say roughly overall half of them state their preferred pronouns in their email signatures (me included). I’ve seen pieces posted on our intranet by people explaining why they do it, and one explaining why they don’t. I haven’t been aware of any adverse judgement directed at people who don’t do it, and the organisation makes it clear it’s entirely a matter of individual choice. I am very involved in the organisation’s LGBT+ network, and when I’ve attended meetings in that context with people I haven’t met before we tend to start by introducing ourselves and stating our pronouns - there are often people present whose preferred pronouns aren’t obvious from their name or the way they present.

I’m not a brainwashed lemming or a naive child. I’m a professional in my 30s and I’ve thought carefully about my position on this. I suggest you hesitate before making judgements about people based purely on their decision to include their preferred pronouns in their email signature, just as I don’t make assumptions about people just because they don’t do it.

Pronouns are sex based not ‘gender’. This isn’t a LGB thing - this is a recent trend.

People aren’t harassed and bullied for adding their pronouns - but there are plenty of people who feel bullied by not doing so. I cannot support a movement that is so inward thinking and yet so unselfaware.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4307160-8-000-civil-servants-to-be-asked-to-include-pronouns-in-email-sign-offs

From the thread -

The Scottish Government is backing proposals that would ask its 8,000 workers to take a “pronoun pledge” under which they would add terms reflecting their gender identity, such as she/her or he/him, to signatures at the bottom of every work email.

Some people who class themselves as non-binary prefer pronouns such as they/them, while others prefer “non standard” terms such as “zie” or “zir”, which civil servants would be free to use.

Supporters of the plan to “normalise the inclusion” of pronouns have said this would “foster an open culture that is supportive of the LGBTI+ community”.

*However, the plan has provoked opposition from civil servants, after an internal survey set up to gauge opinion provoked a row which left some workers in tears.

Almost 60 per cent did not want to add pronouns to their emails, the results showed.

Meanwhile, campaigners raised fears that workers could feel pressurised to comply with the “stupid” and “authoritarian” policy, which has been backed by the Scottish Government but is yet to be rolled out.

Comments written by workers expressing concerns alongside the internal poll were dismissed as “disappointing” by Leslie Evans, Scotland's top civil servant, in a meeting with staff last month.*

The Scottish Government are making it clear that it's not a matter of individuals choice. I've seen many posters saying that that their HR departments are insisting that their staff add pronouns to their email signature and asking for advice for how to challenge this.

I'm not going to take active steps to make it more easy for people to discriminate aginst me as a woman. That's not 'inclusive' for women.

@Helen8220

Just to balance this up a bit - my organisation employs around 2000 people, and on the basis of the sample of emails I receive from people in various areas I’d say roughly overall half of them state their preferred pronouns in their email signatures (me included). I’ve seen pieces posted on our intranet by people explaining why they do it, and one explaining why they don’t. I haven’t been aware of any adverse judgement directed at people who don’t do it, and the organisation makes it clear it’s entirely a matter of individual choice. I am very involved in the organisation’s LGBT+ network, and when I’ve attended meetings in that context with people I haven’t met before we tend to start by introducing ourselves and stating our pronouns - there are often people present whose preferred pronouns aren’t obvious from their name or the way they present.

I’m not a brainwashed lemming or a naive child. I’m a professional in my 30s and I’ve thought carefully about my position on this. I suggest you hesitate before making judgements about people based purely on their decision to include their preferred pronouns in their email signature, just as I don’t make assumptions about people just because they don’t do it.

I’ve never in my life met anyone whose pronouns aren’t obvious…what kind of organisation do you work for where it’s often - your word - not obvious?

Pronouns are sex based not ‘gender’

Why do you think that? I can’t see any reason why the nature of my chromosomes or genitals should necessitate people referring to me in a particular way.

Because its the way language is. You don’t refer to people by their star sign, hair colour of health do you? Why the push to change it?

@Waitwhat23 clearly the Scottish civil service and government are taking a different approach to my organisation. I am definitely against mandating it, not least because that would put those who may be unsure of their gender or what pronouns they want to be referred to by, or who are not ready to disclose that they are trans, in a very awkward position.