How do you cope with being a closeted gender critical feminist...

[bananatwain]

...in a really fucking woke workplace? Everyone attending mermaids training, putting their pronouns at the end of their emails, mostly in support of the likes of Lia Thomas etc. I feel so silenced and if I speak out I will be vilified, won't be promoted etc. I work from home so doesn't bother me day to day but deep down I have a huge issue with it. I worked so hard to get my job and can't leave as I'm a lone parent and won't find anywhere else that it so supportive and flexible, so need advice on how to cope day to day. I feel like such a coward.

@VelvetChairGirl If someone says they're not cis then it's going to sound like they are transgender which I don't think OP wants people to assume about them.

My workplace is very full on TWAW and 'most marginalised' etc and has been for a few years. I don't publicly talk about it at work but I'm on the the senior team so I've openly pushed back against the use of 'cis', compulsory pronouns, and I insist on the correct protected characteristics being used. It's caused some tension with my line manager who has hinted she finds my views 'problematic'.

I hadn't done anything too public as I need this job. However one of my colleagues compared GC feminists to nazis and I just snapped. Wrote to the Head of the Organisation to share my experiences of staying quiet and feeling unable to talk etc. he wrote back thanking me for my bravery and I'm meeting him in person next week (never met him before!) to discuss further.

I still won't discuss too much in my office as the most rabid trans allies there are very aggressive in their views and I don't have the patience for that.

[quote Cheetocat]@VelvetChairGirl If someone says they're not cis then it's going to sound like they are transgender which I don't think OP wants people to assume about them.[/quote]
Don’t be so ridiculous. That’s not OPs concern at all. It’s insulting to be called cis. Women are not a subset of their own sex.

It’s generally very clear when someone is trans and really doesn’t need announcing.

@jackjack0962 That's funny because I've corresponded with people for years before knowing they were trans so I just don't make assumptions at all. Also I don't think the people using the word "cis" think it means you're a subset of anything, it just means you were born how you identify, a biological man/woman, so I don't think the colleagues have bad intentions.

I don't think the people using the word "cis" think it means you're a subset of anything, it just means you were born how you identify, a biological man/woman

I don't identify as a woman - there's no need, I just am.

[quote Cheetocat]@jackjack0962 That's funny because I've corresponded with people for years before knowing they were trans so I just don't make assumptions at all. Also I don't think the people using the word "cis" think it means you're a subset of anything, it just means you were born how you identify, a biological man/woman, so I don't think the colleagues have bad intentions.[/quote]
When you say ‘corresponded’ do you mean you’ve actually seen them face to face? Are you male?

Also what @RubyTrees said. ‘Cis’ people don’t have an identity. They just are. I don’t believe in gender so it’s insulting to label me as though I do.

[quote Cheetocat]@jackjack0962 That's funny because I've corresponded with people for years before knowing they were trans so I just don't make assumptions at all. Also I don't think the people using the word "cis" think it means you're a subset of anything, it just means you were born how you identify, a biological man/woman, so I don't think the colleagues have bad intentions.[/quote]
If someone wants to identify themselves as trans then that’s fine, but why do people who make such a thing about having the right to identify yourself as how you want to be seen and known get so snippy when women who just want to be called women try to assert their right to be known as what they want to be known as? I don’t want to be called a ciswoman, just as I don’t want to be called a girl, a bit of stuff, a tart, a skirt, a chapess or a bird, I am a woman.

It’s not bad intentions, it’s double standards.

( funnily enough autocorrect changed my fat fingered typing of ciswoman to acid woman, I could go with that I think )

I think simply saying 'Actually, I'm not Cis' if someone refers to you as such is very effective. I did this when a transactivist at work called me Cis. They immediately apologised. No doubt because they had assumed I was one of the boring people but now they understood I must be one of the special people.

@Cheetocat

I think pronouns are useful, I often can't tell how someone would identify from just their name. Your colleagues probably already know you don't have the same views as them since you're not participating in publicising your own pronouns etc.. I don't think your employer would do anything if you complained because what you are describing is quite normal in 2022.

But you don't refer to someone wiht pronouns. Why do you need to even know? Lots of people I work with I have no idea what sex they are - it has literally zero impact or bearing on anything.

Working from home is so key! I'm fully remote in my work thank the gods! I could not exist in such a space, keeping silent is not my strong suit but something I've learned is people simply do not care about logic or the truth. Things have become absolutely nuts and still people won't back down or listen to reason.

You would 100% not be doing yourself any favours by speaking up. I spoke up a lot about this on social media three years ago and won so many enemies, ‘she's a terf’ etc.
Today I simply do not discuss it. I do ask questions though.

You can either keep your mouth shut and smile and nod, or you can simply ask questions and genuinely, not sarcastically, information gather on their views, say it's so you can understand. Ask, ask, ask, and then just say you're considering their points and don’t disagree.

This will make them think and will keep you covered.

There aren’t too many pronouns where I work but the D & I team and committee are very full on. Following on from a D & I survey that asked about gender but but not sex (and assumed the respondents believed in it) it was so disheartening on International Women’s Day to read various posts, most of which had to bring trans women into them. And all 4 women (including 2 senior ones) in an online discussion included their pronouns and described themselves as cis.

I did write to my (male) boss about the misogynistic implications of all this and we’re going to have a chat about it. I suspect he hasn’t thought about it from a GC perspective at all.

@Cheetocat

I think pronouns are useful, I often can't tell how someone would identify from just their name. Your colleagues probably already know you don't have the same views as them since you're not participating in publicising your own pronouns etc.. I don't think your employer would do anything if you complained because what you are describing is quite normal in 2022.

Why do you need to know whether someone you're speaking to professionally is a man or a woman? Surely you wouldn't treat them any differently. Or would you?

www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/man-swaps-email-signatures-with-female-colleague-and-is-disheartened-by-way-he-is-treated/R7G4UZBFAKNHBJECY32OAA5ACA/

I'm leaning towards just asking more questions and trying to pull more focus on Women at work rather than actively rebutting all the gender stuff.

For example, when we had IWD I contacted HR and asked why there was no gender pay gap reporting published for our company.

When the R&D team were suggesting replacing sex with gender on the drop down demographics collection I highlighted the need to retain the Sex question as actually early socialisation is as if not more important to us than personal identity as adults.

We had Skip level meetings with the CEO in the past few months and I asked his opinion on why there were so few women in the exec group.

Wrote to the Head of the Organisation to share my experiences of staying quiet and feeling unable to talk etc. he wrote back thanking me for my bravery and I'm meeting him in person next week (never met him before!) to discuss further.

@Chrysanthemum5 this feels worthy of a thread

I have to work incredibly hard to phrase things in a way that don’t cause too much aggro unfortunately. I work in a public service that holds a lot of reflection on these issues which would be fantastic but they are fully on board with TWAW and I’d be scared of the repercussions for my career if I said what my views were

I am out and proud at work (teaching) and I've had lots of constructive conversations with people who hadn't engaged brain before but now agree with me. And only 1 argument. It's worth speaking out if you can.

I work in the public sector. We are supposed to be politically impartial but it feels like that has been dropped somehow. A political ideology is being pushed (I wouldn't describe it as a left ideology - it's far more individualist liberal than that). If anyone challenges that, on the internal social media or in training etc, they are shouted down. It's very different to how it used to be. Personally, I focus on activities outside work to keep me sane.

@whitecreambluejug

You can ask questions can't you? If others bring it up in conversation, you can still ask questions about the position they have brought to the table.

That's how I handle people expressing views I disagree with but don't want to stay silent on. I don't disagree I just ask questions. That way the gaps in their positions naturally start to open up.

This is how I am planning to handle it too. I've seen it in action - a simple 'why?' - and it's quite amusing actually.

I also work in a public sector that is supposed to be very impartial and politically neutral, but it isn't, at all. They also feel the need to indoctrinate us on how we should think about various topics, without even spending much effort to pretend they are talking about our professional interactions or work.

It's both maddening and upsetting. Not putting pronouns on my email signature or name-tag has been my major line in the sand. I haven't had many talks with people, I know some are fully on board with all of it, though I did have a conversation with one coolege who was surprised when an activist objected to something related to JKR, and when I told her what the controversy was, she actually agreed entirely. The media quashing these controversies here means a lot of people are totally unaware.

I actually love the place I work, but I'm training to switch over to another sector, which I know I won't like as much, but they won't presume to tell me what I should believe, and they'll pay me a lot more too.

I used to do a lot of consultancy work with a company whose employees all had pronouns in their email signature and a little explanation of why they felt it was valuable. On the very rare occasion that the topic came up, it was shut down instantly.

The company made several of them redundant at the start of Covid, but we’re still in touch. Not one still has the pronouns in their official work signature now that it isn’t compulsory.

It would be very interesting to see how things would balance out if the compulsion was dropped.

Asking questions.

A friend works in London for a super-woke US company. There’s a blue-haired person who for years was always being asked by HR to deliver training on trans rights, non-binary inclusion etc. They tyrannised anyone who made a mistake on pronouns and whenever they didn’t get promoted it was transphobia. Etc.

Anyway a very brave colleague started asking questions. All very calm, nothing aggressive, respectful language. The blue-haired person couldn’t answer. Got very angry and aggressive and cried transphobia but a lot of people had seen that the whole ideology fell apart on probing, and they saw with their own eyes that the colleague had been polite and careful. This includes my friend, who had absorbed all this unthinkingly when she first joined. She’s now gender critical.

Depends how you look at it. I've written to my MP, responded to consultations in my own name, attended a meeting, have a couple of friends I sometimes talk to about this. But that's it; I don't talk about it at work. My view is that I'm not at work to take any belief-based stance, I don't wear political lanyards (it actually contradicts our dress code to wear one, not that anyone seems to take any notice of that) or participate in any campaigns in my professional capacity at work. It is still fairly rare to see pronouns in email signatures and I think it could go either way in the next year or so.

I have overheard some conversations in the office that confirm to me I'm not alone, at least. Right now, staffing is so low and tensions so high that i can't imagine anyone is going to ask us to do something challenging like this without an immediate benefit to the service.

I feel that way as well, Permanent. IN general, work is not the place for political discussions that might be divisive. Sure, occasionally you might work with people who can have those discussions with no ill will, but that's unusual in my experience, and people should not feel like they have to try to be that way either.

That's part of why it is so maddening - to be asked at work to do or affirm things that are political opinions, as if it's ok for an employer to query or influence your political views. It kind of reminds me of the days when employees often did have to vote the way their employer wanted, or lose their job.

I was just reading Kathleen Stock's substack, and found this which seems to really touch on this topic - she connected some dots I certainly hadn't.

kathleenstock.substack.com/p/the-missionaries-in-your-workplace?s=r

Wonder what nonbinary can do to distinguish them from others who look like the same sex as theirs in countries which don't have separate pronouns for male and female people but just one type for everyone?

I haven't been able to figure out what the gender role expectations and norms might be for the nonbinary category, but there must be some, given that when biological sex is erased then all gender categories must be based on nothing but stereotypes.

My guess is that they believe they have freed themselves of such stereotypes altogether, while assigning all others to retrogressive boxes (Barbie dolls, GI Joes).