MS are handing out pronoun badges to their staff

[PostingForTheFirstTime]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10173649/M-S-diversity-managers-staff-pronoun-badges-customers-know-address-them.html

I will be emailing the appropriate departments advising them that gender ideology is still a hot political topic; its decision to allow men to use women's changing rooms made me so uncomfortable that I will not shop for clothes in their stores any more, but its decision to push a political stance with which I fundamentally disagree means I won't be using them at all from now on.

So sad, because I love their trousers and their Christmas party foods.

Which assistant did you mean?
That one over there...
Which one?
The one with the hair
What?
Has hair. On their head, two eyes...
Eh? Male or female
I have no way of telling...

Reminds me of when I was in the office and someone was trying to describe someone I had met at a function. I had no idea - in the end she said ‘the one with two arms!’. I did actually did get it after that. She was someone who looked similar to one of our colleagues who had one arm (I didn’t notice that until we’d worked together for about a year).

occa
It's a store, not a bloody dating site.

This.

I don't care about their sexuality if they can do their blasted job without making a fuss.

Is ‘genda’ sexuality? It’s just a vague self-feelz.

I was being all-inclusive.

I also wouldn't care if they had dyed themselves purple all over or were covered in dappled fur so long as they were able to answer a question informatively. Though if it were particularly spectacular I am old enough to get away with saying wtte "love the fur, by the way: it looks great on you" when I was thanking them. (Only if it did, obviously.)

It's definitely optional as a couple of us have said.

Also against bashing a store that employs large numbers of women fairly, abiding by employment legislation, in a really hostile retail environment which has seen a million plus workers, many of whom are women lose their jobs since the credit crunch.

I always contrast the lack of concern from the left for women losing their jobs, with the miners situation and the folklore that surrounds that - even though it was global capitalism that did for the miners just as much as it has been for high street retail.

Ok so if you don't use a pronoun that is gendered then it is fine. I have trained myself to use they for virtually everything now. However if you object to pronoun badges and you misgendering someone then you deserve the full force of the woke police and possibly a conviction. All because you objected to something that would make things easier.

I'm always a bit 'meh' about the pronoun thing. The way i see it - having pronouns in your email, on your badge, whatever - is it's just a way of either saying "i look like a man/woman but I identify as a woman/man" or "I'm a trans ally". More than that? i can't work it out. So i just see it as shorthand for that and i'm ok with it.

I can not imagine a situation where I'd have to refer to someone in their presence in the third person without using their name. If i did, i hope I'd use the one they want. If i made a mistake, I hope they'd say "actually it's 'she', Bref" and I'd apologise, and we'd move on and I'd use the correct one in future. It doesn't hurt me and i can't see how it hurts anyone else*. If that person started talking about how I'd done them a "literal violence" I'd say "look, mate, that's bollocks since I haven't touched you. I have apologised for my mistake let's move on now". And i hope that would be it. If it went further? I'd exit the conversation and be accused of transphobia, most likely and would have to handle that if it ever came up.

I won't be putting pronouns (i am she/her) in my email because i have spent all my working life in a male industry being discriminated against in terms of salary and promotion etc etc. But i don't mind others doing that if they want.

Tl;dr - suck it and see. The sky won't fall in. M&S won't go bust because of it (because of their shite stuff, maybe)

*having said that, of course, people perceive things as slights or violence all the time that other people think is fine so there's no real way of knowing.

I agree that in the beginning i felt preferred pronouns seemed innocuous and on an individual level i wouldnt be an arsehole. But on a societal level its part of the conflation of sex and gender and whole you can change your sex which obviously you cant.
Its demanding that we all buy into the ideology.
Its potentially being used as a stick to beat people with and act the victim if someone makes a mistake and misgenders.
It totally backs up and supports all the ideology which i find problematic.
Tbh don't we all try to be polite and kind generally if i see someone who i am not sure of gender i will do all i can to not refer to a gender so do we need these badges?
It also demands that i deny the facts in front of me ie calling someone who is clearly one sex by the universally accepted term for the other sex, its a dangerous route to go down.

@Mouseonmychair

Ok so if you don't use a pronoun that is gendered then it is fine. I have trained myself to use they for virtually everything now. However if you object to pronoun badges and you misgendering someone then you deserve the full force of the woke police and possibly a conviction. All because you objected to something that would make things easier.

Am I misreading, or do you seriously believe shop customers deserve a criminal conviction for saying "he" instead of "she"?

Is this hyperbole to prove the point? A form of satire?

@Mouseonmychair

Ok so if you don't use a pronoun that is gendered then it is fine. I have trained myself to use they for virtually everything now. However if you object to pronoun badges and you misgendering someone then you deserve the full force of the woke police and possibly a conviction. All because you objected to something that would make things easier.

Easier for whom?

Why is it the job of a customer to make the life of the person employed to work there 'easier'?

What about the many people who don't find this makes their lives a lot easier but in fact a lot harder because of having to jump language through hoops and say things that are against their perceptions and beliefs?

What about that it's not ok to compel other people's speech and enforce participation in beliefs they do not hold? You think there should be criminal convictions for that? [confusion]

You're rather missing the point here. People have the right to call themselves whatever they like, choose whatever identity they like, describe themselves however their like. Their rights stop at the point of compelling another total stranger to provide a service to them. Society does not consist of the served and the service providers. Other people have rights and troubles of their own, and this stuff does not make their life easier at all.

Telegraph says that NatWest and HSBC are now considering staff pronouns badges. What a dumb waste of money.

@Mouseonmychair

Ok so if you don't use a pronoun that is gendered then it is fine. I have trained myself to use they for virtually everything now. However if you object to pronoun badges and you misgendering someone then you deserve the full force of the woke police and possibly a conviction. All because you objected to something that would make things easier.

Nope. My right not believe in transgenderism, and my right to believe that sex is immutable and that it matters, has been protected by law, thanks to Maya Forstater.

Pronouns are usually used when the person is not present, and if I never use their preferred pronouns, I am perfectly within my right.

The trouble with pronoun badges, with “preferred pronouns” generally, is that going along with it is an active statement in support of a partisan ideology. And it involves those who read the badge/email/name on a zoom account etc in that ideology.

What is the underlying message of preferred pronouns? It is a proclamation of the ideology that gender identity is real and overrides biological sex. That some people who are clearly, visibly of one sex should be referred to by all they come into contact with as if they were of the opposite sex. And by extension, that those people should have access to the facilities and services set aside for members of the sex they do not belong to.

So even when someone who is clearly, visibly female wears a badge saying “she/hers”, she is supporting and promoting this ideology. She is promoting the idea that one’s sex is irrelevant and no indication of how to refer to a person, that only “gender identity” matters. Otherwise there would be absolutely no need for her to advertise her pronouns, because it’s blindingly obvious to anyone who sees her.

And the more people wear these badges, put their pronouns in their email signature, or their zoom or linked in account, the more this ideology is propagated, the more it takes hold and becomes normalised in society.

The more it is embedded in our culture that a biologically male person, aka a man, should be perfectly entitled to be treated as if he were a woman and allowed access to all women only spaces and services, if he claims to have a “female gender identity” (which of course cannot be defined in any meaningful way).

And the harder it becomes for those of us who are protesting this ideology as deeply as we possibly can to push back against it.

M&S absolutely should not be supporting this blatant promotion of a partisan ideology, one that many of its customers actively reject and see as threatening their own rights and safety. Even if it’s entirely optional for staff to wear these badges, the fact they exist as an option at all is still an outrage and and offence against women’s rights, against equality for and inclusion of women, against women being seen and treated as full human beings.

And it’s supposed to be a fucking shop, not a fucking ideological radicalisation portal.

A slight digression but still on the subject of pronouns - I saw the latest Bond film at the weekend and James Bond referred to a bad guy saying ‘it really blew their mind’. It was surprisingly jarring.

This really makes me feel uncomfortable. Women are going to lose their rights again.

If I could shop in M&S I think I'd get myself a big badge and put my pronouns on it every time I shopped. But I wouldn't be sticking with she/her. Not a hope. I fancy Zig/Zag as my pronouns. In fact I could have different badges with ridiculous pronouns for different shopping days. And then I can complain if the staff miss-pronoun me. Imagine if every Mumsnetter did that.

M&S absolutely should not be supporting this blatant promotion of a partisan ideology, one that many of its customers actively reject and see as threatening their own rights and safety.

This. Its not a neutral act.

@Cailin66

If I could shop in M&S I think I'd get myself a big badge and put my pronouns on it every time I shopped. But I wouldn't be sticking with she/her. Not a hope. I fancy Zig/Zag as my pronouns. In fact I could have different badges with ridiculous pronouns for different shopping days. And then I can complain if the staff miss-pronoun me. Imagine if every Mumsnetter did that.

Better would be Zrt/Zng.

If they mispronounce it, that's Literal Violence.

I have recently been in a large M&S store and did not see pronouns on any of the badges. The badges are really quite small too and it isn’t easy even to see the name unless you are very close up and try. So that seems reassuring.

I looked in the main dressing room for women’s clothes and one good thing is that it is made up of completely closed cubicles, floor to ceiling, with full doors which look as though they lock. There are a lot of them too, with a wide passage between the two rows. So if a transwoman did go there at least no woman would ever be undressing where such a person might see them, or have to bump into them because of the passage being too narrow. It still might be disconcerting, but not as much as it would be if the cubicles were those with just curtains, or if there were an open dressing room, or a space for coming out to look in a mirror which is quite common in some shops. There always seems to be a female staff member looking after the entrance too.

ScrollingLeaves
All of which is good but doesn’t get around the risk of hidden cameras which are much easier for a male to place in the changing rooms which women are more likely to use when males can access any changing room.

I thought I’d do a quick search for a relevant news article to link to as I’ve read lots of news reports of males being charged with that type of crime and I made the mistake of typing ‘voyeur changing rooms’ into google and got a page of porn links for that specific type of porn

An unforeseen (really?) consequence of M&S's inclusion policy is that there are lots of stories on Twitter and TikTok about men trying on dresses in changing rooms, wanking in them and putting them back. They are posting photos and videos with aggressive, sometimes violent, messages to the terven.

Sorry but
Even if you don't think that your gender is the same as your sex or aligned with your sex , your age and sex will mean that you can't use anything but she /her

@Gottasinggottadance

How ridiculous. I have zero need to know a shop assistant's pronouns.

This is so true when I approach a sales person I say something along the lines of " excuse me could you please tell me where the [insert item here] is"...no need for pronouns

Even If you needed to mention a member of staff to another one I would say something along the lines of " your colleague [insert name] told me the [insert item] was over here but I cant find it"

@MNHarpie
You are right, there still would be problems and allowing [biological men] trans women into the changing rooms/ changing area at all constitutes a process of ever increasing erosion of boundaries.

Sorry for what you found when you tried to look up hidden cameras!