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.
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions
I am embracing virtue signalling pronouns in emails
MsFogi · 21/07/2022 18:25
ErrolTheDragon · 27/07/2022 21:28
Announcing pronouns is ridiculous but scoring a point in this way isn't the way to challenge it.
Always useful to hear of other approaches, what's your recommendation?
BenCoopersSupportWren · 27/07/2022 21:39
I saw OP’s approach less as mocking and more akin to when, as a manager, you have to report on the latest CorporateBollocks in a team meeting. You know it’s bollocks, anyone with an ounce of critical thinking skill knows it’s bollocks but nevertheless, you have to put on your straightest face and update the team as though you fully endorse it. Even if someone within the team comes up to you afterwards and says “that was a load of bollocks, wasn’t it?” you resolutely stay on the party line. If you do it skilfully enough, no one would be able to say with absolute certainty whether you really do think it’s bollocks or whether you really do believe the corporate messaging.
And that’s what “preferred pronouns” amounts to, ultimately…a load of bollocks foisted on people on fairly spurious grounds (“oh it’s harmless” - no it’s not; “oh it doesn’t cost anything” - maybe not you, but others it does; “oh it’s just being kind” - there’s nothing kind about forcing people to lie; “oh it’s just how they see themselves” - good for them, but their perception is not always aligned with reality and other people aren’t compelled to be complicit in someone’s delusion). Too many people have bought into the misapprehension that being “misgendered” (correctly sexed) is a horrendous hate crime on a par with violence and domestic abuse. It simply is not. In the vast majority of cases it is not even an insult, because for most people, especially in the workplace, there is no value judgement being made about whether a colleague was born male or female. We’re repeatedly told that being trans is not a mental illness or a medical condition of any sort these days and that transpeople know they aren’t changing sex, so I’m struggling to see how any grievous psychic injury will be caused by colleagues continuing to use the pronouns which relate to someone’s sex.
I have my name instantly shortened by roughly 25% of new people I meet or who email me at work despite me using the full version, and I have it misheard and misused on the phone another 25% of the time, including being addressed by the male version on occasion. It’s mildly irritating for about 0.5 seconds each time it happens, but hey, the world continues to turn.
ErrolTheDragon · 27/07/2022 21:28
Announcing pronouns is ridiculous but scoring a point in this way isn't the way to challenge it.
Always useful to hear of other approaches, what's your recommendation?
GoodThinkingMax · 27/07/2022 18:27
Has anyone read "The End of the World is Flat" by Simon edge?
yes!!! I laughed out loud at the novel and wished that Edge’s optimistic ending could also be ours.
Tidyspy · 27/07/2022 16:48
@Kanaloa I have regular contact with a colleague in a partner organisation who actually is called Alex and doesn’t include title/pronouns or other clues to their sex or gender in any written communication. If we spoke on the phone I guess I’d know but that hasn’t happened. I can’t think of a reason why I’d need to know - why would I?
ErrolTheDragon · 26/07/2022 14:19
Bodies do not come presorted by chromosomes or genitalia alone; we could sort them by belly-button type, after all. Their sorting by sex, then, reflects human purposes and interests – those having to do with human procreation. Although these might be crucial human purposes and interests, they are still human ones. To this extent, the primary division of populations into males and females, like the socialisation that creates men and women, is a human ‘construction’
Most dogs can 'sort humans by sex' (obviously they can also sort dogs by sex for their own procreative purposes).
If the people who come up with these wordy idiocies CBA to learn some basic science, perhaps they could at least borrow Occam's razor and stop trying to make things which are really quite simple and objective into complicated incomprehensibilities.
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