Not using they/them pronouns

[Belafonte]

Our dd19 is gay. She is not a very happy girl. She lurched from one drama to the next and is surrounded by friends who encourage this. Recent events include declaring she has a particular MH condition (she does not and has since been told by gp and specialist), cutting her long hair into a buzz cut and waking up with a hangover to declare she’d been spiked. Plus other stuff.

The latest - and we have seen this coming for a while - is to say she is NB and ask for they/them pronouns. She has announced this on social media to an absolute chorus of stunning/brave congratulations but has not told us yet officially.

Initially I thought we should give her announcement as little attention as possible but am now thinking we may actually say, no, we love you but we will not be doing that, and here are the reasons why.

The reasons we would give are -

1. you are asking us to lie. We know you are a girl. We do not want to have to pretend that you are not.
2. we (as she knows) believe the ideology that pronouns are an extension of to be very harmful to women, children and gay people.
3. we especially do not want to ask her younger siblings to go along with this as we have brought them up to believe that you should be kind to everyone but that people can’t change sex and that there are two sexes.
4. we think non binary is a deeply regressive concept as it serves to entrench sexist stereotypes rather than expand the boundaries of make and female - why not just be a girl with a buzz cut?

We have enough faith in the strength of our relationship with her that she will accept what we have to say.

Would be good to hear other thoughts. Any non constructive posts from the monitors/TRAs calling me a bigot will be ignored.

That all sounds very sensible. I would also add that pronouns are used when people are talking about you, not to you and as such you cannot expect to tell people which ones to use. How you are discussed when you aren't present really isn't any of your business.

Personally I’m not indulging this nonsense for strangers or acquaintances. If I thought I’d lose my kids over it I’d do it (I’d do a lot more). But if you think she’ll accept your stance, that works too.

Tell her she's acting like a sheep in copying the latest trendy thing to do rather than think independently. You'd rather encourage her to be herself rather than jumping on the latest trend.

Forcing they/them pronouns from people is a tedious act of rebellion designed to annoy the crap out of everyone around.

It's fine to be a gay female with a gender non conforming style. That's who she is.

She should embrace and love her true self.

It always amazes me that to be your authentic self you need constant validation from others. To me that means you don't really believe what you are saying but need to hear it a lot to validate your new sense of self. It is truly bizarre.
Your daughter does seem to be a sheep and this can make her very vulnerable.
Totally agree about smashing sexist gender stereotypes rather than conforming to them. A girl can have a buzz cut and fancy girls.
You don't need to be a boy to be attracted to girls.
Good luck OP💐

I too am not accepting any of this nonsense. Happily my children know this and think I am Terf mom so they will never bother me by trying it on with me as I'm a hopeless case. I use the links on here and from elsewhere to email them my views by saying nothing, sending items that will peak their interest so they will eventually cop on. Thanks to MN I've become even more strident, and educated.

But isn't it best to respect people's pronouns? How does it hurt you? Mine are she/they since gender is irrelevant to me as a person.

All sounds sensible, OP. Wishing you and your daughter well. It's not an easy time of life!

‘But isn't it best to respect people's pronouns? How does it hurt you?’

Compelled speech is a human rights abuse. Nobody should be forced to say things they don’t believe. Ever.

I would only do this for my children. I would make it clear to them that it was under protest, and if at any point I thought they were harming themselves in their embrace of this ideology, I’d stop.

I must admit I'd be happy to call everyone they as i still don't see the point of continually referring to someone's sex and I don't want to give people gender limitations or descriptions

However I would expect Them to afford you the same respect

Everyone is they them or no one

To me they them is very different to wrong sex /gender affirming pronoun use

You're in that "pick your battles" place. I'd be tempted to minimise the reaction to her. A sort of "that's nice dear, let's sit down and talk about it sometime over coffee and cake" rather than have a dramatic discussion.
I agree with all the points you make (and you know her best) so I'd be asking what is likely to be the most useful for her and you in terms of family life? A boundary setting discussion with you clearly saying "no" as you suggest or a more minimising the drama and the finding opportunities to unpick what's going on at a later date?

I'd be tempted to say I'd read more about it and realised that I was also non binary and would also like to be referred to with they them pronouns. Depends on your relationship though.

@JohnMcCainsDeathStare If gender was irrelevant to you, surely you wouldn’t have just told us what your pronouns are. Those of us who do not believe in gender or who see it as a damaging social construct don’t tell others what our pronouns are because we don’t need to. We just expect people to do what has always been done, which is use the pronouns corresponding to our physical sex (which is usually obvious to others). And we also don’t really care how others refer to us when we aren’t present. I’m a woman so I assume people probably use ‘she’ when they’re talking about me, but for all I know they could be referring to me as ‘he’. I’m not there to hear it so 🤷🏼‍♀️

Non native English speaker… how van you dictate the way you are spoken about if you are not there?

Using they/them for one person at times is correct English but also it places a huge burden on those of us who learned English as a second language and wish to continue to speak correct English.

All the talk about “inclusion “ but no one ever mentions non native English speakers and how demanding us to validate your fragile sense of self is going against correct grammar.

I consider myself fluent in English, but even so it is a mental strain at the end of the day if I have to speak English all day.

I am back living in Sweden so obviously also speaking Swedish, but I come into contact with non Swedish speakers at times.

It bothers me that in a global world there is a demand that all of us learning English must now use incorrect grammar because you can’t validate yourself.

It is compelled speech and it’s not inclusive of non native English speakers so seems to me going against the very thing they argue for. So most of the world must be compelled to do this when we speak English?

This is something you can mention OP. It places a huge burden and some people don’t have a good handle on English to remember these nonsenses rules about pronouns to do this. It’s mentally exhausting.

So it’s ok to exclude non native English speakers so we validate the feelings of others who could easily accept that they are their actual sex and this is nonsense? Got it.

If we hide the sex of everyone around us by referring to everyone as they then we also hide the fact that often the majority of these people are male.
If you don't see sex you can't see sexism.

And to the OP I think I would also be acknowledging the obvious mental distress/anguish and offering to help with that whilst reaffirming your belief that the pronoun issue is not the way to feel better.

😄

I agree it places a huge burden. Imagine a surgeon or a midwife or a commanding officer in a war placing their mental focus on the problem in front of them, but also having to remember the preferred pronouns of eight members of staff who have decided they/them/ze/zir/zem are too special to be referred to in the ordinary way.

In a similar situation with my dd, same age as yours but even more confused and possibly neurodiverse. A couple of years ago she announced that she was NB and 'her pronouns' were they/them. I told dd that I loved her and respected her feelings about herself, but that pronouns were about how the speaker perceived the world. As a person's sex cannot change, despite how they feel about it, I could not change the fact that I perceived a female, and therefore I would not adopt that language. She already knew that I am GC and was terrified of my reaction - no doubt she had been taught online that GC TERFs were evil and that I would reject her. She also knew my opinion on coerced speech in general, though I'm not sure she has understood that requiring pronouns is also coerced speech. (The difficulty for an autistic person to generalise from one specific situation to another?)

What I did do, though, and without calling attention to it, was to use less sex-specific language around her when referring to her. Things like saying "I love you, my gorgeous child", instead of "I love you, my gorgeous daughter." I be kept it up since then, carefully modifying the degree of neutrality in my language according to her degree of stress and distress.

This is not coerced speech, this is a mother trying to support and protected her child's already fragile mental health, and keep rationality, safeguarding and the route home open.

I refuse to use they/them pronouns. If people want to use it for themselves then fine. However, please don't force your stupid ideologies onto me. A lot of people, (not saying your daughter OP) get very offended when people get it wrong but why don't other people have the right to speak as they want? It's all getting very Orwellian if you ask me.

‘This is not coerced speech, this is a mother trying to support and protected her child's already fragile mental health, and keep rationality, safeguarding and the route home open.’

You are choosing to do this. But the proposition that we must use preferred pronouns or gender neutral or feminised or masculinised language when we talk about another person according to their self-perception does support coerced speech.

It's been easier for me to avoid sexism when people haven't been aware of my sex

I am not saying we shouldn't collect data about sex , highlight when sexism occurs

I just see the use of sexed pronouns as making sexism easier and playing no role in enabling us to identify and call out sexism

‘I just see the use of sexed pronouns as making sexism easier and playing no role in enabling us to identify and call out sexism.’

People know what sex other people are. The way to defeat sexism isn’t to hide sex; it’s to teach that intrinsic value is unrelated to it.

Not always they don't

Although this is probably uncommon

I have worked on lots of remote international projects where my name isn't a give away to my sex and time zones mean that most initial work is via email

I know people have made the male assumption when they jump and stutter when we meet

I'd quite like more none sexed names

Watching with interest. Sorry no useful advice here but your DD sounds so much like friends in my punky/outsider friendship group around 20 odd years ago. Shaved heads, body modification, drama, just know many of us would've been NB, many of our parents would've just let us get on with it & been clueless (not saying that's the best approach).

Interested to know how GC parents are handling it.

I think you misunderstand my post. I am not using they/then pronouns to refer to dd, not even in her hearing. I have made it clear that she remains female, in her body, in society and in my perceptions.

What I have done is not rub that in when she is distressed. This is not coerced speech.

The only reasons ever to use they/them are when referring to a group of people or when to an individual whose sex you do not know and is not relevant.