This is really thought-provoking, with so many interesting points. I’m undecided on the best approach to take - which, as a teacher, is far from easy (to all those asking when one ever uses third person pronouns to refer to someone in their presence anyway, teachers have to - a lot, and with an uncomfortably attentive audience!)
I think one point that may not have yet arisen (sorry if it has), though, is that all courtesies are, by definition, a social construct and contract in themselves - and, typically (if not universally) the product of an almost intangible evolution towards a continually shifting consensus on what is / isn’t polite in different contexts. In a sense, then, using preferred pronouns isn’t unambiguously progressive, and rejecting them isn’t definitively rude, even if it feels like that ;and it dies, to me. That it does is, rather, a reflection of a growing consensus and contract. And that’s where this gets interesting. Because there clearly isn’t an established consensus yet, and contract implies a reciprocity that seems lacking in this particular context, as others highlight above.
I think this is, in part, because this particular linguistic and social shift has been relatively abrupt - and perhaps you could say somewhat artificial? - in the sense of it being quite consciously engineered by a minority movement. That in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It could be positive. But it may also come with issues. And that’s where the debate should begin and why debating it seems legitimate, as long as this is carried out respectfully and sensitively. It is, after all, ironically, respect and sensitivity that both sides are arguing for!
One logical starting point is, for me, to recognise that some of the more concrete societal changes that are parallel to, and exist in a clear, if complex, symbiosis with these linguistic shifts - for example, the accelerating movement towards gender neutral toilets as inclusive, and a collective sense that positive affirmation is advisable - are not unambiguously, definitively positive. Women ARE losing access to the single-sex facilities the Equalities Act acknowledges do benefit them. Cass DOES express concern about current straightforwardly affirmative approaches to the treatment of gender-questioning teens.
And that’s why I personally do feel a deep-seated ambivalence and discomfort using opposite-sex pronouns for students in my classes. I do it, but am giving something up myself in giving them this. This is my current compromise.
For those who wonder, I think that what I give up includes
- My absolute certainty that I’m fulfilling my duty of care to the best of my ability.
I worry that, in affirming the social transition of confused children, I may be somehow complicit in harming them by compounding diagnostic overshadowing or catalysing familial strife. A standard expectation that a medical professional condones this approach by teachers, and that a gender-questioning child changing their pronouns receives additional support, would go a long way to mitigating this for me.
In addition, I’m uncomfortably conscious that for me to, for example, call a boy “she”, is to explicitly condone, in a public forum full of malleable, naive and vulnerable adolescents for whom I’m a role model, the belief that gender supersedes sex in some or all contexts. I don’t see how this can’t contribute, however slightly, to solidifying some or all of the more concrete parallel societal shifts that remain potentially problematic? Young lesbians are being taught (literally; I queried a lesson plan about this as homophobic) that they should feel attraction to the male body; girls are learning they should accept a grown man in the changing rooms (ref. that distressing Primark video). It’s in large part through adults’ use of language and behavioural modelling that such conventions are taught and normalised: say please and thank you, it’s ok not to talk to strangers, don’t go into the bar area of the pub. Each seemingly insignificant use of a different-sex pronoun must add up up to a cumulative normalisation of values that, yes, very probably do have the potential to help some individuals - but also come with the risk of harm to groups; that are a kindness to some, but not to others. Again, this suggests a need for nuance. It’s hard, though, because the immediate responsibility to the individual, especially a child, will always feel paramount, with social change more abstract and reassuringly intangible.
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My own integrity. I’ve been asked to withhold a child’s pronouns from their parents, and this troubles me still. Someone I deeply respect equated this to not disclosing to a carer that a student has come out as gay, but I don’t think the two are wholly comparable for a number of reasons, including the ongoing uncertainty re: treating such children, the sense that (ironically, given the end of 1) above) adherence to each individual’s requested pronouns itself sometimes seems more ideologically driven than a considered and professional response to each child’s unique needs), and, lastly, the proactive nature of the, for want of a better word, deception - actively changing my pronoun use for the parents from what 500 other children and adults are used to me using in public spaces feels, quite honestly, rather sickeningly duplicitous in the moment.
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My sense of self.
It’s genuinely how I feel each time I use an opposite-sex pronoun now. It wouldn’t have been before reading widely on the current threats and quantifiable damage to women’s rights, but now I feel, as I do it, my guilty complicity in all the concrete shifts that these ostensibly courteous linguistic parallels facilitate: the rape victim forced to call her attacker “she” as per guidelines as were; the little old lady in the hospital ward instructed by nurses to perceive the male opposite as female as per some current NHS policy documents.
And last bit not least, there CAN a personal cost in addition to all of the above: the knowledge that, in using the opposite-sex pronoun, I’m certainly perceived as signalling my adherence to an ideology that denies me my own, sex-based sense of self, instead aligning the idea of man/woman - who or what I am - with socially constructed values I may not agree with. This truly is no small thing to ask of me.
So. My current preferred solution would be to use names and “they”. I hope this would go some way to respecting the deep-seating need for the trans student - for whatever reason this may exist - to be liberated from the shackles of their sex and the binary as they see it, without driving them towards a potentially problematic affirmation as research drags on. It would also liberate me - from feeling compelled to redefine myself in the eyes of others. This too, I feel, in the light of the current implications for women, is a similarly important kindness.
Sorry for the length. Another opportunity to work out my thinking in something I find, as a decidedly left-wing liberal, deeply troubling and complex. Who knows, I may feel differently tomorrow (whole new year, after all!)