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.

That's your belief. Does it mean that an emotionally open man with empathy and verbal dexterity is actually a woman? Or a bloke who's emotionally constipated, totally lacking in empathy and monosyllabic, but who says he's trans, actually isn't?

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

The mental gymnastics it must take to make this make sense in your own head...

I found this explanation of the prefix cis very easily:

"Cis has traditionally been used as a prefix, the same as trans has, and comes from the latin meaning “on the same side as”, which sits opposite trans, from the latin “on the opposite side"."

So a cis woman is 'on the same side' as a woman.

And a trans woman is 'on the opposite side' to a woman.

Why can't 'cis women' simply be called women? What is the necessity to give them a prefix that makes them a subset of a wider group (in this case, women)?

Can you understand why this feels not just pointless, but dismissive to many women who are now being labelled as a subset of their own sex?

Ah right. I don't do that, or rather would only do that if it was a very critical phrasing to convey a specific point.

But what this subthread of the discussion is highlighting is that ongoing problems, misunderstandings and hurt on both sides is being directly caused by the TRA insistence on using existing sex words to mean gender.

The dominant voices that are supposed to be speaking for trans people are creating this conflict by insisting that not only must existing nouns (and yes, pronouns) that used to refer to sex now refer to gender identity, but that any new terms that naturally arise in their place, arising due to the real need we have in some contexts to be able to talk about sex, cannot simply exist as a language backfill for "that thing we used to get confused with gender", but must be stopped, stamped on, either denounced as transphobic or immediately appropriated as more words for gender.

It's not enough to have words and recognition for gender, something in this movement also requires we have no words or recognition for sex. And that is what takes it from a progressive movement for acceptance to something worrying and repressive.

One has to wonder why on the one hand they are so very clear about the need to recognise gender as being different from sex, but on the other by taking away the language around sex, not allowing any dialogue about sex to be separate from gender.

@aseriesofstillimages

The claim that ‘gender’ doesn’t exist to me seems a nonsense. If you look at all the differences between men and women in the real world which are nothing to do with biology, what do you call those aspects of who we are if not gender?

Can you name some that aren't biological and aren't gender stereotypes that aren't accurate and are often damaging e.g. women should wear dresses, women should wear make up, men shouldn't cry, men should earn more etc?

Genuinely asking as I have done before on here and nobody has answered.

If being a woman can be defined as a gender identity, what are the signifiers of that identity please?

in my view, it’s complicated. This article is pretty good at setting out the issues time.com/5795626/what-womanhood-means/?amp=true

Honestly, the only people who answer 'it's complicated', when asked what a woman is have a vested interest or are trying to 'be kind'. It's not complicated, it's got nothing to do with your empathy, or lack, or any other stereotype. You know the answer. Everyone not mentally ill or toddling knows the answer.

in my view, it’s complicated.

Could you at least explain why it's complicated? Otherwise it seems like you don't really understand your own arguments.

@aseriesofstillimages

in my view, it’s complicated.

I've read that article before and think that the author's closing remark (below) leaves me with the same question - what does it mean to 'live as a woman' if you are not biologically a woman and don't simply mean you've taken up superficial gender markers such as clothing and make up?

"After all, it’s we the living who say collectively what “woman” means, hopefully in ways that center the voices and experiences of all those who live as women, across all our other differences."

By making male bodied people including those who have gone through male puberty and experienced male privilege, part of the definition of womanhood, we place the feelings of males above the importance of accurate conversations about the lived experience of being a woman.

And isn't that a depressing thought? Men centred and prioritised in discourse about what it means to be a woman, men's voices being claimed as those of women (#nodebate etc) and in doing so taking the place of natal women who could have made valuable and accurate contributions.

This isn't a case of women (those you call cis women) being mean or nasty by asking not to be called cis and questioning why they are now being labelled as a subset of their own sex. Language is important.

I don't see anything in that article that isn't either biology or stereotypes/enforced roles. Of course, Only the delusional would deny biological differences between people, but only the uninformed can maintain that what the body means, and how it relates to social category, doesn’t vary between cultures and over time.

...yes, the second part is right - informed people know the meaning of our sexed bodies and their social categories varies with time and space. 'Gender' is not a real objective thing like sex. It's not something to be reified and reinforced.

You think that article is particularly good at setting out the issues? It's just empty verbiage from a TRA.

What do you make of the obviously not empathetic traits in sexual offending males who identify as trans? In that they are 3 times as likely as males who do not identify as trans, who themselves make up 97% of sex offenders that are imprisoned?

in my view, it’s complicated. This article is pretty good at setting out the issues time.com/5795626/what-womanhood-means/?amp=true

it doesn't actually address any of the questions that the poster asked you though, does it?

If that article is supposed to help the transactivist position it's pretty poor. The example of Marsha P Johnson - a person who as the article said was a gay man who time. She used she/her pronouns but thought of herself as a “queen,” not as a “woman,” or even a “transsexual.”. Those who retrospectively declare Johnson to be a woman are disrespectful idiots. What is a woman? Not Johnson, for sure.

Nobody has ever answered when I've asked. And it's not even a 'gotcha', I just don't understand how people can be so sure that those they disagree with are being nasty, mean, bigoted etc when they can't themselves articulate their own views on the most fundamental issues of this topic.

I'll try again in case they answer...

Can you name some that aren't biological and aren't gender stereotypes that aren't accurate and are often damaging e.g. women should wear dresses, women should wear make up, men shouldn't cry, men should earn more etc?

Genuinely asking as I have done before on here and nobody has answered.

If being a woman can be defined as a gender identity, what are the signifiers of that identity please?

From the TRA article:

Labeling others contrary to how they have labeled themselves is an ethically loaded act, but “woman” remains a useful shorthand for the entanglement of femininity and social status regardless of biology

What is "femininity" and if it refers to women and girls, why would it be divorced from our shared biology?

—not as an identity, but as the name for an imagined community that honors the female, enacts the feminine and exceeds the limitations of a sexist society.

How does "enacting the feminine" ie sex stereotypes "exceed the limitations" of a sexist society rather than exacerbate them? And how does this honour what it is to be female?

Why can’t womanhood jettison its biocentrism to expand its political horizons and include people like Marsha P. Johnson?

Because Marsha was a gay male drag queen? Not in any sense a woman.

After all, it’s we the living who say collectively what “woman” means,

I don't look to male people to tell me what women are.

hopefully in ways that center the voices and experiences of all those who live as women, across all our other differences.

The only way to live as a woman is to be born female and survive to adulthood. Stryker doesn't make the grade.

when they can't themselves articulate their own views on the most fundamental issues of this topic.

I know right. It's absolutely extraordinary.

After all, it’s we the living who say collectively what “woman” means

But apparently only a subset of living people are allowed to make this 'collective' decision. I'd stake good money that the majority of people living now find 'adult human female' to be a completely satisfactory definition. It defines what is necessary and sufficient.

I don't understand the logic that jumps from "here's some character traits we've observed as common to many, though not all, people in one sex, and observed less, or less strongly in most, but not, people of the other sex" to "the people of the other sex that have these traits must be really the first sex inside, and therefore the actual body sex is a red herring and we can ignore it".

Surely it's more logical to conclude "oh, I guess that thing we observed is not exclusive to one sex"?

In fact you could even go on to think "but it seems like quite an important factor in a person's personality, maybe we should officially recognise those people as being the same type of person" and it still doesn't lead to the conclusion that sex is irrelevant. Finding a new way people can be the same does not mean that other ways they are different go away.

It's also hugely frustrating isn't it? As it makes meaningful discussion about this impossible.

Easier just to say "look, there are some cis women being bigoted and nasty."

See also "educate yourself" followed by either a flounce or a "Google it, there's plenty of information online" when you ask for any peer reviewed sources / studies with which to educate yourself...

Is it time now to point out that the only reason that this idea of living as a woman even got off the ground is that, in order to prove that they really, really wanted sex reassignment surgery to the doctors, was that the doctors insisted that men 'lived as a woman' for a specified time period. And that meant dressing as a woman and using female utilities, and changing names and utility bills. None of the doctors ever actually asked what living as a woman actually meant for women. And in order to prove some sort of back story, they started rewriting non conforming people in the history books as 'trans'.

It is all such utter nonsense.

But then, it became apparent there were quite gender conforming males who defined themselves as trans or NB. Last I heard, the Scottish government thinks 'living as a woman' can be nothing more than having female pronouns and title on various documents. Oh yes, pronouns don't affect women....

Hm. As we know, males commit the vast majority of homicides and violent crimes and virtually all sexual assaults and rapes.

So it's a 'stereotype' based on overwhelmingly strong evidence that males present far more of a risk to females than the converse.

I suppose one could sort of equate 'absence of being murderous rapists' with being naice.

As for 'greater empathy' - any evidence of this, at all? How does one even quantify that? It's fairly straightforward to count how many women are murderers v how many males - at least, it was, until they started using 'self ID' to record crimes, of course. Oops!

Brilliant pulling down of a bollocks argument Conflictedunicorn, mind you as an argument it makes a refreshing change from swishy hair, and liking the colour pink.

aseriesofstillimages transwoman are biologically male they have to meet that criteria in order to be a transwoman. Women are not, by any measure or stretch of the imagination, biologically male therefore transwomen are not women, they are transwomen, male, men.

I think it's a giant "No True Scotsman" fallacy, which is the official term for backpedalling when people want to avoid admitting they were wrong to make a massive generalisation.

It goes like this
Person 1: No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge. They know how to respect food!

Person 2: But my cousin is Scottish and he always puts sugar on his porridge...

Person 1: ah, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.

You are so right, and 'sex reassignment surgery' it is impossible to reassign someone's sex.