Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

My 10 year old DD being asked her pronouns

24 replies

SJApronouns · 20/04/2022 22:25

My 10 year old DD has recently started at St John Ambulance cadets. I like the focus on practical skills and (as I thought) the lack of ideological bullshit.

Today she came home from the meeting saying that she'd had to fill in a form where they asked her pronouns.

She has absolutely no idea about this stuff. She's 10 years old for goodness' sake.

I find it really depressing that adult ideological preoccupations are being brought in to a kids' activity. I realise that DD is one of the youngest there (the oldest being around 16) and if there were any youngsters to whom the pronoun issue applied, that could be dealt with sensitively without trowelling this bullshit on to every kid in the unit.

I suspect it's come from some woke individual in the central organisation. I'm not sure whether to make a fuss or just to shrug it off. I'm assuming that there's not much I can do - and I don't want to make things awkward for DD with the kind volunteers who run the unit.

OP posts:
Live4weekend · 20/04/2022 23:01

I wouldn't expect a child that age to be completing a form.

EmbarrassingHadrosaurus · 20/04/2022 23:02

I don't want to make things awkward for DD with the kind volunteers who run the unit.

The dilemma of preference falsification. Nobody speaks up, so there's no record of people objecting and it's assumed that everyone supports the new status quo.

She's 10. There's a plausible argument that I'm surprised she has standing to fill out a form beyond her preference for squash.

doggiescats · 20/04/2022 23:04

Sorry but the world is ridiculous!! Tell her to write what she is comfortable with!!

donquixotedelamancha · 20/04/2022 23:44

I suspect it's come from some woke individual in the central organisation. I'm not sure whether to make a fuss or just to shrug it off. I'm assuming that there's not much I can do

Make a fuss, it's deeply stupid and far more likely to drive people away than encourage members.

People always think there is nothing they can do. The last few years of activism by ordinary women have proved that very wrong.

OnTheBroom · 20/04/2022 23:51

YANBU. That's annoying, my dc 11 does cadets too. Recently two of the older teenagers had a long and loud talk about being gay and LGBT when they partnered up with her and she came home feeling uncomfortable. She accepts anyone for who they are and wouldn't judge but this is so ideological and I sense that she finds the topic inappropriate. Not sure what to advise other than either not filling in the form or saying she/her. It's friggin ridiculous.

SJApronouns · 21/04/2022 00:01

Fair points. I have emailed the leaders asking them who I can contact in head office about it. If it's the leaders themselves who have instigated it, I'll just have to be "that" parent.

My older child pointed out that they have it drilled in to them to check the competence of the patient to agree to treatment eg are they conscious etc. In this case my DD is very much not conscious of gender ideology!

OP posts:
YesYouAre7 · 21/04/2022 00:01

Unfortunately, It’s becoming the norm now. I am a student and we must give our pronouns to every teacher and write it with our name when we hand in any piece of assessment (admittedly we are all adults). One person does refuse and has been given a disciplinary because of it.
Whilst I don’t think 10-year-olds should be asked theirs, I just think it’s something that isn’t going to be easily stopped and I don’t think complaining will do anything.
For what it’s worth I don’t think people should be forced to out their pronouns as it can lead people to be put in a vulnerable position as not everyone wants to publicly share them.

SunThroughTheCloudsAt6am · 21/04/2022 06:05

Whilst I don’t think 10-year-olds should be asked theirs, I just think it’s something that isn’t going to be easily stopped and I don’t think complaining will do anything.

Not complaining definitely won't do anything! Some people at work have put their pronouns. I haven't. Someone suggested it should be added to the registration form for our website (ecommerce) - I, and two other high level managers said no.

I fucking refuse to announce myself at everything - "Hi, I'm Sunlight, and I'm a woman" given the well studied and proven unconscious bias against women.

That student getting a disciplinary for it is an absolute travesty.

SunThroughTheCloudsAt6am · 21/04/2022 06:09

I need to say a bit more.

For what it’s worth I don’t think people should be forced to out their pronouns as it can lead people to be put in a vulnerable position as not everyone wants to publicly share them.

Doesn't want to publicly share them? This is why custom pronouns are ridiculous - they're a standard part of language, they're not some secret thing about someone, 3rd party ones aren't even very used when you are present, so the idea that you might not want to publicly share them is ridiculous they are not yours to share, they just exist.

I think this is more of the word games - people are using pronouns as a proxy for telling people their 'gender identity' because they feel like they can get away with saying 'Sunlight - they/them' where if they said 'Sunlight - I would like you to see me as neither male or female' everyone would take two steps back and start avoiding them.

tabbycatstripy · 21/04/2022 06:30

‘Unfortunately, It’s becoming the norm now. I am a student and we must give our pronouns to every teacher and write it with our name when we hand in any piece of assessment (admittedly we are all adults). One person does refuse and has been given a disciplinary because of it.’

Pardon? What is the disciplinary for?

WorkingItOutAsIGo · 21/04/2022 06:54

YesYouAre7 - what sort of place is it that has given someone a disciplinary for not stating pronouns? Please tell your fellow student to kick up the most almighty fuss: mandatory pronouns are against Yogyakarta Principle 16 as they take away trans people’s rights to privacy. I have successfully challenged them on that basis.

OP you should use the same argument. Outwoking the woke is the only way to go.

SushiShopSearch · 21/04/2022 07:57

This is all so depressing. What are they trying to do to our children?

sashh · 21/04/2022 08:42

SushiShopSearch · 21/04/2022 07:57

This is all so depressing. What are they trying to do to our children?

I think we all know what they want, which is one of many reasons I'm GC.

FemaleAndLearning · 21/04/2022 08:51

Glad you are being that parent OP. We have to complain and raise these issues. We can't just say oh it's the way it is! It is an ideology and a dangerous one that has crept I to our lives we all need to speak out more and kick back.
By asking your child pronouns they have made assumptions about your child. They have assumed she has a belief in an inner gender, much like some people have the belief that they have a soul. This is why I get annoyed when I get ask my gender in forms, I don't identify as a gender there should always be the question do you have a gender identity. Currently I choose other then write I do not have a gender identity.
I know your child is only 10 but this is a good time to talk about sexist stereotypes and human biology, if you haven't already!

EmbarrassingHadrosaurus · 21/04/2022 12:47

I just think it’s something that isn’t going to be easily stopped and I don’t think complaining will do anything

Passively allowing it will allow it to continue: the above is a counsel of despair and coalesces with the agenda of people who wish us to believe that we're powerless.

Preference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one’s wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, such as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies, Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including those rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities.

A common effect of preference falsification is the preservation of widely disliked structures. Another is the conferment of an aura of stability on structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. When the support of a policy, tradition, or regime is largely contrived, a minor event may activate a bandwagon that generates massive yet unanticipated change.

In distorting public opinion, preference falsification also corrupts public discourse and, hence, human knowledge. So structures held in place by preference falsification may, if the condition lasts long enough, achieve increasingly genuine acceptance. The book demonstrates how human knowledge and social structures co-evolve in complex and imperfectly predictable ways, without any guarantee of social efficiency.

www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674707580

LiesDoNotBecomeUs · 21/04/2022 18:14

Challenging this nonsense is difficult - on a scale from socially embarrassing to actually dangerous- but it doesn't feel right to try and live with lies/errors just to keep everyone quiet.

SushiShopSearch · 21/04/2022 20:32

@LiesDoNotBecomeUs I don't think it's £socially embarrassing" or "dangerous" to challenge this nonsense and I don't understand what you are meaning. It's just what needs to be done and we need to stand together for our children and women.

DaQwickNameChange · 21/04/2022 21:24

Fuck. Does anyone have any more info about this? My children are in badgers, I am going to have to pull them out if they start this shit. They love it.
I will absolutely challenge the leader if this happens, I help out nearly every week and I'm going to need to think about what to say if this comes up...

DaQwickNameChange · 21/04/2022 21:26

I would absolutely challenge it, any suggestions of what to say for me to muse over just incase are welcome. I hope we don't have to stop this activity.

DomesticatedZombie · 21/04/2022 21:40

I'm not hugely well disposed towards SJA, I'm afraid.

'Voluntary paramedic organisation St John Ambulance has been accused in the Dáil of “closing ranks,” in response to an independent investigation into historical child sex abuse in the organisation.'

www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/st-john-ambulance-closing-ranks-in-abuse-inquiry-d%C3%A1il-hears-1.4746132

'The St John Ambulance service has apologised after it emerged that senior figures tried to distance themselves from dealing with allegations of abuse of young volunteers in the 1990s.'

preview.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/11/top-st-john-ambulance-staff-tried-to-distance-themselves-from-ab/

DaQwickNameChange · 21/04/2022 21:44

Sorry OP, I didn't really respond to your post properly, initial shock about this sort of activity.
If this happened st the younger group I helped out with, I'd say it was very odd to test you all on grammar, it must be a mistake and just leave that box and change the subject asking everyone to pick an adjective to describe themselves in a circle as a gentle change of subject. I don't think the leader would say anything but if she did, I'd say it isn't really appropriate. Obviously this didn't happen with you!
I'd probably relay that sort of message to DD. If the gender ideology comes up.. .explain that there are lots of different ideologies in the world, for example different religions. Then say some people think that if a man wears a dress, they are a woman, isn't that funny? Then have a chat about how men and women can have whatever clothes etc and it doesn't take away or change anything fundamentally. There is no collective 'this is what It means to be a woman'. We simply know what it means to be us, and we are aware we are a boy/ girl just as we are aware we have X coloured eyes. I always wanted green eyes, but I know they are brown!

DaQwickNameChange · 21/04/2022 21:48

Perhaps you can talk about ideologies in history too. That history is very important to understanding today but many haven't heard or have forgotten.

DaQwickNameChange · 21/04/2022 21:55

And absolutely say something. If we sit quietly and do nothing, our children will not be safeguarded. It will escalate.
P.s. sorry for the 50,000posts.
Ramble over, I promise!

LiesDoNotBecomeUs · 22/04/2022 12:22

@SushiShopSearch I am not disagreeing with you and am very glad the OP is challenging this for her DC.

What I am saying is that for many of us standing up for the truth is not an easy thing to do. Certainly, speaking out on being gender-critical or suggesting this by refusing to put pronouns on e-mails (the right and truthful thing to do) will put my job and work-relationships at risk.

Other people have had verbal abuse and even death threats.

Not everyone is able to take this to court as Maya and Alison have done so bravely.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page