He/They

[BloodyloveGeorge]

Bloke at work, complaining that the new pronouns policy on forms etc isn’t inclusive enough (they/them and ‘other’ then write your own included with she/be etc) Because he is ‘non-conforming’ and uses he/they or him/ them and it’s very common in his ‘community’.

So I asked him how that works, as someone who is actually gay ( he’s white, straight, male appearing) I hadn’t come across he/they before. It was a genuine non-goady question.
He said he’s happy with being addressed as either and chooses which he’ll use on the day. And that if on the day he’s being ‘they’ it would be nice if people noticed and used ‘they’.

Is this a thing now? Or is he just saying call me anything but she/her???

@FrancescaContini

What an attention seeking knob

👆 This

it is wrong to label people who chose to display pronouns and it gives the GC movement a bad name.

By declaring pronouns they are declaring an allegiance with a misogynist and homophobic, anti-science movement. I realise they might not realise what they're doing because they're just following orders or someone has told them it's what they should do to "be kind". But allying with an ideology without looking into it properly is also not a great sign if you value critical thinking skills.

I wouldn't shun them or treat them badly but I don't see what's wrong with registering what they've chosen to display about themselves.

‘ Jessasamantha
I have a colleague like this. Not only are his pronouns in his email signature but in his actual name as it appears in my email inbox eg John Smith He/They. He is a mature adult who is very well respected in his field but I cannot take him seriously after this show of narcissism and cringe whenever I see it, I am absolutely sure I am not the only one who thinks less of him for it.
that is just bullying. if you company encourages pronouns he may have many reasons for using he/they. I don't like companies encouraging it but if they do it is wrong to label people who chose to display pronouns and it gives the GC movement a bad name.’

You clearly have no actual idea of what bullying entails! I inwardly eye role at pronoun signatures, but that’s not bullying, that’s having an opinion which I keep to myself. And if a male presenting, bearded colleague requests to be called she then I will. Won’t stop me thinking what I think though, will it?

Having an opinion is not bullying. Calling people knobs, controlling, narcissist because they have a different one is bullying, especially if they are following what is (wrongly in my opinion) perceived best practice for inclusion.
Instead of throwing slurs around (I get why given the behaviors described) does not help, instead argue why pronouns are a bad idea without insulting people. We are better than this.

@elferian

Having an opinion is not bullying. Calling people knobs, controlling, narcissist because they have a different one is bullying, especially if they are following what is (wrongly in my opinion) perceived best practice for inclusion. Instead of throwing slurs around (I get why given the behaviors described) does not help, instead argue why pronouns are a bad idea without insulting people. We are better than this.

Can’t be bothered, quite honestly. The arguments against pronouns have been made many many times by many people.

I must be surrounded by extraordinarily normal people as I haven't come across this either in my personal life or work life.

I don't know any transpeople and women are she/her and men are he/him.

People should try it, it makes life so simple.

@MoonOnASpoon

it is wrong to label people who chose to display pronouns and it gives the GC movement a bad name.

By declaring pronouns they are declaring an allegiance with a misogynist and homophobic, anti-science movement. I realise they might not realise what they're doing because they're just following orders or someone has told them it's what they should do to "be kind". But allying with an ideology without looking into it properly is also not a great sign if you value critical thinking skills.

I wouldn't shun them or treat them badly but I don't see what's wrong with registering what they've chosen to display about themselves.

No one has time to look into anything though. All the workplaces in the same sector as mine across my entire region adopted pronouns in signatures at the same time, after they all held implicit-bias training workshops. The few people who haven't are those who really know what it's all about, but that's very few - it's much less in the news here compared to the UK. ANd I know for certain that many that have them would be appalled to know, for example, that men were being put into women's prisons, or that this was being pushed by activists.

I've come across this.

A (former) friend of DD's currently lists themselves as she/they.

They are a 12 year old child.

Not unrelatedly, they are also incredibly socially awkward, miserable at school, really struggling to make or keep friends, and generally an unhappy child who spends far, far too much time stuck in their room on video games and social media.

I felt sorry for them, until they tipped from a bit controlling with DD to outright emotional blackmail (you'd give up that hobby if you really loved me!) and then to frankly nasty bullying, including trying to message DD's new school friends and accuse her of being 'nb-phobic'.

That was around the time we blocked the kid.

It absolutely is attention seeking. This is a lonely child, who massively struggles with social interaction and appropriate behaviours. They're far from a bad kid, but lockdown did them no favours and they weren't given any real boundaries throughout, including doing no school work whatsoever. They appear to have gotten very used to having a lot of their own way, unlimited hours online, and re-joining the real world was and is a horrid shock. They're happiest online, frankly, in their echo-chamber spaces, which is sadly a common thread for kids like this.

But they bring the online into the real world and then can't cope when real people, particularly adults, don't react the way they want, particularly when it comes to attention-seeking behaviours.

When geek wasn't special enough anymore, they tried gay. When gay didn't work anymore for attention - and this was full-on pride flag wearing, 'are you being homophobic!?' levels of it (and, frankly, when they couldn't cope with even 12-year-old's level of reality that being gay means being attracted to the same sex) - they've gone for this.

It's absolutely a way of controlling people and the way they're allowed to interact with them, particularly their peers, because they're hyper-quick to shout 'phobia! hate speech!'. The measure of the self-centred came when they openly showed disability discrimination and stated that various disabilities are 'not a real thing' if they stop people perfectly and immediately complying with the gender-woo rules in place that day.

It's such a shame, but such is what's happening.

@ginnybag This is a very sad, very unhealthy existence for a 12 year old.

I'm looking forward to retiring. Only early 40's, but I literally don't understand this shit nowadays.

I can barely remember people's names, there is no chance I could remember pronouns (assuming I wanted to).

It does all make me feel ancient at times, younger staff don't seem to have any issue with it and I'm repeatedly explaining why I - a gay woman who generally supports trans rights- decline to put pronouns on my signature. I am a woman, I look like a woman, and if someone can't tell my sex from my name in an email, that actually irrelevant and sometimes beneficially as far as I'm concerned.

@Ahgoonyegirlye

It does all make me feel ancient at times, younger staff don't seem to have any issue with it and I'm repeatedly explaining why I - a gay woman who generally supports trans rights- decline to put pronouns on my signature. I am a woman, I look like a woman, and if someone can't tell my sex from my name in an email, that actually irrelevant and sometimes beneficially as far as I'm concerned.

Hard to know what younger people think about this. It's a little like asking fish if water has a taste. Many of them (who have been to unis) have been brought up with these rules and just follow them without thinking or interpret them as 'being kind.'

For women to be told that they must remind others they don't belong to the default human type ('female' is the marked alternative, 'male' the default one, still) is not exactly kind.