"Inclusive Language Guide"

[AlieninWokeLand]

NC for this.

I work in a large Govt Department which is predominantly male. The Diversity team has just published a 30 page inclusive language guide, after a series of focus groups, of which no fewer than 5 pages are dedicated to "gender", with a whole page devoted to Trans. (Religion and Belief gets one short page, with no mention of people using, for eg "Jesus Christ" as a swear word).

No space to reproduce it all here, but highlights;

‘Woman’ or ‘female’?
• Female and woman mean different things but are often used interchangeably.
• The term ‘woman’ refers specifically to human beings, while ‘female’ could refer to the sex of any species that is capable of producing children.
• Referring to women as females is perceived by many as reducing a woman to her reproductive parts and abilities.
• Not all women are biologically female, and the conflation of ‘female’ to ‘woman’ erases gender-nonconforming people and members of the trans community. (my emphasis)
• The word female in its primary usage is an adjective. When clearly talking about human beings, use of female as an adjective is correct. However it should always be relevant to the context: E.g. female representation, female participation, female personnel.

More inclusive Less inclusive

The women in the ...
The females in the ...
Doctor, nurse
Female doctor, male nurse

Pronouns
Pronouns are how a person wants to be referred to in the third person. Examples include:
• He/him/his
• She/her/hers
• They/them/their and other gender-neutral pronouns
Using an individual’s pronouns correctly is a way to continue to practice inclusion and foster belonging. By respecting others’ pronouns, you recognise their sense of self and show you respect their gender identity.

If you are unsure, the best thing to do is ask.
Try asking: “May I ask how you prefer me to address you, for example what pronoun do you use?” or “Please remind me how you would like to be addressed”.
Most people, if asked in a sensitive manner, will appreciate the question and will simply tell you.

Sharing your pronouns
For a cisgender person (a person whose gender aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth), the risk of sharing your pronouns is minimal.
For a transgender or non-binary person, sharing pronouns can be riskier, sparking lengthy conversations or outing a person to their colleagues before they are ready.
Cisgender people sharing their pronouns normalises this process and can have a big impact.
You can do this by:
• Adding your pronouns to your email signature
• Adding your pronouns on your public profiles on social media
• Sharing your pronouns when introducing yourself in a meeting or at the start of a presentation.

(Definitions all supplied by Stonewall.)

I really want to tackle this, but in a way that won't see me hauled up for poor behaviour. I'm starting to think I'm the only person in the orgnisation who hasn't drunk the kool-aid, and even people I respect are putting she/her on their email signature blocks.

If you are unsure, the best thing to do is ask
Try asking: “May I ask how you prefer me to address you, for example what pronoun do you use?” or “”Please remind me how you would like to be addressed

If I were asked "Please remind me how you would like to be addressed" depending on how grumpy I was feeling I would say "Ms Nightmare". On a less grumpy day "Kimiko is fine". In no situation however would it occur to me to tell you what pronouns I use.

What a load of genderist bullshit. I will continue to refer to people with pronouns based on their SEX.

Get back to them and say.

That normalising pronouns is a problem as it makes trans people who are not out feel pressure to do so. Or for them to feel forced into circulating prounouns that indicate they are 'cis' which is very upsetting.

Cite yogacarthy (SP) principles.

You could also ask what they would like to be used if there's a need to indicate all female employees as a group.

They say female is biology but can be animals so that's no good.
Women is all who identify as women.
What should be used if not female? - think of an example that might happen in your work and ask them for best practice.

Ask them the protocol so as not to exclude those who are agender.

This is a good suggestion:

As for how you tackle it at work, I'm not sure, other than a sensitively worded email with reference to protected beliefs.

Given the protected belief aspect could you tell them they need to highlight that not everyone subscribes to transgenderism and this advice could fly in the face of the recent court case and constitute compelled speech or discrimination?

Plus pointing out that forcing trans people to out themselves, per their own guidance (!), isn't a good idea.

I had a similar thing at work (another govt dept).

I played innocent and rather than coming out as GC, which would be risky and is anyway none of their business, I just said that I didn't think we should be compelling anyone re pronouns but if people wanted to use them they could.

It felt pretty hard for others to then argue that yes, EVERYONE must use compelled speech whether they liked it or not. No-one has come back to me to disagree, but if they do, I will point out that there is loads of research that women are at a disadvantage in the workplace when people know they're female, so we shouldn't be obliged to point it out, that not all trans people might be comfortable outing themselves at work either, and that no-one should be forced to give info on their protected characteristics - we aren't required to list our ethnicity or disability status do why would we list our sex? Surely we can't force people to give private data on protected characteristics legally? Given they may then face discrimination as a result. I come from an ethnicity that faces a lot of discrimination so am very uncomfortable with forcing people to label themselves.

My main focus was to make this seem as uncontroversial, uninteresting and unimportant as possible. So no long debates just saying surely we wouldn't want to dictate to people how they must label themselves, surely, innocent face? At which point everyone went oh no, we wouldn't want to do that.

Gently pointing out that compelled language is quite extreme seemed to do the trick where I am. Then you seem quite reasonable and anyone insisting everyone does it comes across as the extremists they are.

Also, doubt this is popular at the most senior levels in whichever govt dept you're in - let's face it, most Tory ministers are not keen. So not something most senior civil servants are going to want to have as the hill they die on.

Do they also have a section on men/males and speak about how not all men are biologically male? If not, I’d certainly complain about the obvious sexism.

@rigmarolo

I had a similar thing at work (another govt dept).

I played innocent and rather than coming out as GC, which would be risky and is anyway none of their business, I just said that I didn't think we should be compelling anyone re pronouns but if people wanted to use them they could.

It felt pretty hard for others to then argue that yes, EVERYONE must use compelled speech whether they liked it or not. No-one has come back to me to disagree, but if they do, I will point out that there is loads of research that women are at a disadvantage in the workplace when people know they're female, so we shouldn't be obliged to point it out, that not all trans people might be comfortable outing themselves at work either, and that no-one should be forced to give info on their protected characteristics - we aren't required to list our ethnicity or disability status do why would we list our sex? Surely we can't force people to give private data on protected characteristics legally? Given they may then face discrimination as a result. I come from an ethnicity that faces a lot of discrimination so am very uncomfortable with forcing people to label themselves.

My main focus was to make this seem as uncontroversial, uninteresting and unimportant as possible. So no long debates just saying surely we wouldn't want to dictate to people how they must label themselves, surely, innocent face? At which point everyone went oh no, we wouldn't want to do that.

Gently pointing out that compelled language is quite extreme seemed to do the trick where I am. Then you seem quite reasonable and anyone insisting everyone does it comes across as the extremists they are.

Also, doubt this is popular at the most senior levels in whichever govt dept you're in - let's face it, most Tory ministers are not keen. So not something most senior civil servants are going to want to have as the hill they die on.

Excellent advice.

If we all did as they wanted and called ourselves 'cis', how long do you think it would be before they said they were cis too and needed to be in ciswomen's spaces?

Hasn't India W recently referred to self as a cis woman?

If you've had your birth certificate altered and you have your belief in your gender identity made material through medicine, they're now aligned. If people accept the meaningful nature of cis in this context (I don't) then the alignment of birth certificate + gender identity = cis

@AlieninWokeLand, I was listening to the Helen Joyce interview at the Conservative Conference (livestreamed on twitter) yesterday.
Helen said that the words 'Man' and 'Woman' are actually DEFINED in the Equality Act 2010. So your organisation have absolutely no business to try changing the law by redefining them!!

I've just looked up the Equality Act on the gvmt website.
Section 212 General interpretation
(1)In this Act—
“man” means a male of any age;
“woman” means a female of any age.

There are other definitions too, but those are the 2 you are looking for. Here is the direct link:
www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/212

So you get straight onto HR, and tell them that their precious document is out of step with the Equality Act. They need to act in accordance with the law.

Good luck

@oldwomanwhoruns thank you so much, just what I needed

@AlieninWokeLand we're in the same dept. I've just read the document.......

Can you confirm for me OP - that quote Not all women are biologically female, and the conflation of ‘female’ to ‘woman’ erases gender-nonconforming people and members of the trans community

• is that a direct quote from Stonewall??

I'm trying to fight the use of Stonewall, and that looks like a useful quote to use to prove my point. But I wouldn't want to attribute it to them, if it isn't their handiwork (if anyone else has any good bits from their teaching materials, do let me know!)

Can you archive the original somewhere, Alien or threeb ? It's always good to be able to have these archived somewhere.

@threeb have you read all the comments? Turned into a bit of a bunfight over white males being side-lined

@oldwomanwhoruns the quote was from our document. At the bottom they had an index of sources and Stonewall was on there but I didn't click the link.

@timetodateagain good idea to archive the document. I will download it into my onedrive.

Turned into a bit of a bunfight over white males being side-lined

In the document or in general?

[quote AlieninWokeLand]@threeb have you read all the comments? Turned into a bit of a bunfight over white males being side-lined

@oldwomanwhoruns the quote was from our document. At the bottom they had an index of sources and Stonewall was on there but I didn't click the link.

@timetodateagain good idea to archive the document. I will download it into my onedrive.[/quote]
Now why does that not surprise me.........haven't seen the comments yet so I'll have to go and have a read of them tomorrow.

--All women are female, all men are male.
--there's no such thing as cisgender
I don't need to ask how to refer to people when they're out of the roomI can correctly identify who is male and female because I have eyes, ears and a brain.
--Lying is wrong. Normalize truth.

Have you seen this brilliant document from sexmatters, OP?

sex-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Sex-Matters-Understanding-Stonewall-Risk-080721-FINAL.pdf

It goes through the Stonewall advice in detail, showing where it contravenes the law. And presumably, a lot of the text in your workplace document has been lifted directly from Stonewall. Some of it may be of help to you!
Good luck

We are having a debate on work about adding pronouns to our signatures and this thread is very helpful.

The advice in the op is contradictory. Forcing pronouns may out people transitioning. How does cis people using pronouns help? That is a real and genuine question. I really do not understand.

If forced to choose, I'd rather be a they.