I am embracing virtue signalling pronouns in emails

[MsFogi]

I have realised I have made too many assumptions about gender over the years. I had always assumed that Paul (name changed of course) in my company was a man simply on the basis of his appearance (well over 6 foot, well built, big beard, low voice that only someone with an Adam's apple and whose balls have dropped could have). Imagine my relief to find that I have not been misgendering him for over a decade because he has helpfully added his pronouns to his email auto signature - they are he/him/his. There is no company diktat to add pronouns on emails so clearly this is important to Paul or maybe he has been misgendered recently.

So, I thought I would ensure that Paul was not offended on a Teams meeting this afternoon and kicked off the meeting by asking everyone to note that Paul's pronouns are he/him/his and that given that he has stated these that everyone please be sensitive to ensuring that they use them. No one said anything so I think they all took it on board, no one misgendered Paul and I like to think that his move to include his pronouns at work has been embraced in my meeting. Maybe as a result others that attended the meeting will add theirs to their auto signatures too.

I have yet to meet anyone in real life who used anything other than those three. I’m not sure how I feel about the many others - social interactions require compromise and reasonableness, and I’m not convinced it’s reasonable to expect people to remember essentially individualised pronouns. I have enough trouble remembering names.

Why would trans identifying males be offensive? It’s biologically accurate? I suppose we could call them males who wish to present as females but often fail but that’s a bit of a mouthful isn’t it?

I haven't read all of the thread. I'm not particularly gender critical, but neither am I a TRA, and am very far from being "woke" - in the diminished sense of that word.

One can't get the full nuances without having been at the meeting but my take on it is-

It's not funny and it wasn't done in good faith. As an employer, if I'd been at that meeting I'd have been thinking what the hell OP was up to?

An excellent argument against enforcing /announcing pronouns is they are not used face to face.

If one were at the meeting and needed to refer to Paul, one would say "Paul". Zoom, Teams etc has the benefit that if you've forgotten their name/ weren't listening- it's there on-screen. Ergo there was no need to announce Paul's pronouns other than to score a point.

Unless your workplace is centre court at Wimbledon, scoring a point over a colleague generally isn't in the job description or conducive to amicable working relationships.

In the old days one wouldn't refer to another person in the meeting as "he" or "she"- that is more impolite than 'fessing up you don't know their name.

(One side effect of the great pronoun debate and having to think about pronouns is I find I now swap out he/ she in written correspondence- not because of "wokeness" - far from it- but actually it's frequently clearer and more polite to use a person's name)

It is biologically accurate.

The acronym though is TIM and they don't like being called TIMs. The monitors that is.

Thank you

@aseriesofstillimages

I checked the guidelines, the use of cis is not forbidden, though it can be reportable if used in a specifically offensive or hostile way (like if I referred to someone here as being cis, knowing they find it offensive).

The convention on this board is to only use cis when referring to a person or group who you know to use it, in order to avoid misgendering those who may to you appear to be cis but do not in fact identify that way and may find it offensive.

So for example, 100% OK to refer to yourself as cis...you should know! Talking about an individual friend or public figure who has identified as cis is again entirely defendable.

Moving on to larger groups is shaky ground...you might have to defend why you feel confident the women you are talking about identity as cis. An example here might be that female women in an explicitly TWAW group like Stonewall can probably be assumed to identify as cis, but women in most other contexts like, for example, the female staff in a supermarket probably should not be.

Statements that divide all women into cis and trans, implicitly forcing cis identity onto every female person who has not actively identified as trans, will be robustly challenged, as will statements like "but cis just means not trans" which is only valid if you accept the implicit underlying belief that womanhood is mental rather than physical, again forcing a gender identity onto others.

Describing a specific individual, especially a poster on here, as "cis" when they have not told you they identify as such, and may even have asked you not to, may well be reported and deleted. To women who do not believe their womanhood is simply a mental difference between themselves and those who identify as men, being called "cis women" is as offensive as being called a man is for a trans woman.

Eh?

Doesn’t ‘trans woman’ do the same job?

To women who do not believe their womanhood is simply a mental difference between themselves and those who identify as men, being called "cis women" is as offensive as being called a man is for a trans woman.

Thank you, a very, very clear explanation of why I am not 'cis' and will not be called 'cis'.

Even apart from my burgeoning stargender, of course.

It confuses people as they think we are being mean to females who are trans. It is deliberately confusing.

I’ll stick with males who wish to present as women but usually fail then. It’s a faff but one must respect If people have objected to a term.

No. That implies transwomen are a type of women. They are not. They are males who wish to present as women but usually fail.

It's too confusing. Many, if not most, of the general public still think a 'transwoman' is a woman.

crosspost with everyone.

Doesn’t ‘trans woman’ do the same job?

No.

I’d say it’s likely the number of cis women who include their pronouns in their email signature is much larger

Well yes, because most "cis women" are fully on board with all of gender identity ideology. Most women are not "cis women" though, because they don't identify as such, are they?

There seem to be some double standards here - it’s ok for you all to refer to ‘trans women’ because you don’t believe trans women are women, but it’s not ok for me to refer - generally - to non-trans women as cis, to reflect my belief that ‘cis woman’ just means ‘a woman who is not a trans woman’?

I find it hard to believe many posters on this forum don’t know who ‘trans woman’ refers to.

Oh we do. We know exactly who trans women refers to. We just don’t believe they are women

By referring to women who are not trans as cis you are implying they believe in gender identity ideology. Many do not. You are forcing a gender identity onto people. Is that not misgendering? You can believe something all you like. It does not make it true. Some people believe the earth is felt, some people believe in gender identity. It takes all sorts

Well, I believe they are cis women (though out of politeness I would t say that to them generally), in the same way you believe that that trans women are really men.

to reflect my belief that ‘cis woman’ just means ‘a woman who is not a trans woman’?

What is a "trans woman" and how are they both similar and different to "cis women"?

Because the word for a non trans woman is...sit down you aren't going to like this...woman.

That's it.

You do that. It’s your prerogative. It’s my prerogative to think you’re wrong and offensive. Awesome isn’t it

So when you refer to a trans woman as a man, or male, are you implying they don’t believe their gender is that of a woman?

Well, I believe they are cis women (though out of politeness I would t say that to them generally), in the same way you believe that that trans women are really men.

One of these beliefs is much more grounded in reality than the other one. One is a quasi-religious belief.