Working with teens, I'm struggling with the pronoun issue in the office.

[FriendofJoanne]

I'm in a new job so probation period. Professional role, one where you'd really expect critical thinking. Quite a high proportion of the teens so far seem to identify as trans or non-binary.

I think I need to keep my head down, I will bring up the Cass review with the rest of my team once the time is right and maybe gently question how much they know; if they're aware of the lack of evidence for gender affirming care, the safeguarding concerns at Mermaids etc.

We work with really vulnerable young people, this (gender identity) I have really researched thoroughly and I do not want to be complicit in any harm. When I'm with the teens I treat them as individuals, that's no problem, in their presence I will respect their requested pronouns, and of course in written records. I have done it before in the past, but I didn't know as much then as I do now.

What I'm really struggling with is my colleagues using female pronouns for clearly male teenagers, when we are alone in the office (so far I'm only aware of boys identifying as girls and a girl identifying as non-binary) . I can't do it. I can't call a male 'she' because to me it represents being complicit in something I see as harmful.

Anyone else in this position? How do you cope?

@Hepwo

You don't know what traditional means?! If it weren't for tradition, as it applies to sex and gender (males are boys/men; females are girls/women, since you were wondering what they are), this OP would never have happened!😂

Have a great night, all!

Dunning Kruger again.

Gender critical feminists aren’t critical of gender dysphoria. We aren’t critical of the conflation of sex and gender. We’re critical of gender itself. We think it’s a negative thing. We’re critical of thinking that any behaviour or presentation or expectation should be tied to any sex. When we use the words woman and man were aren’t accidentally mixing sex and gender because woman and man refer to sex, always have done, always will. Gender is how we describe the social expectations placed on a particular sex, and whilst we acknowledge these external pressures exist, we deny any universal internal basis for them.

This is a pragmatic approach.

I do think though that services should be alert to a trans identity being a potential signifier of a distressed child and that transitioning may be a harm enhancing, rather than helpful, reaction to that inner distress.

Do you actually read what people write? Intersex is an outdated term, and I do have a person close to me with a DSD. That’s why I responded - because what you wrote was inaccurate, othering and upsetting. Do you get it now?

Moreover, DSDs have nothing to do with trans people, and many DSD organisations have asked not to be brought into this.

Fausto-Sterling’s 5 sexes thing? That was a thought experiment not an actual belief that there are five sexes.

You seem confused between sex and gender. Yes, there are gendered expectations for men and women (males and females). We were well on the path to getting rid of those until this regressive nonsense appeared where people are told they need to identify as the other sex to perform gendered activities/appearances linked with that sex. This is the message many young people are getting. When I was a teen a fair few male teens wore makeup. They knew that they could do that because makeup wasn’t just for girls and such gendered expectations were silly. Now that same male teen could think they were ‘trans’ or ‘non-binary’. The reason they might think that is because gendered expectations have been reinforced by gender identity ideology. We are going backwards. Most of these people don’t have gender dysphoria. They have a simplistic view that being a boy and liking ‘girl things’ must mean they’re not a boy 🙄 This is the complete opposite of gender non-conformity. It’s regressive, boring gender conformity.

Ah, now I think this is the root of your confusion. You’re muddling sex and gender. Females are women/girls, males are men/boys. Yes, I agree, but women, girls, men and boys are names associated with the sexes not with gender. When I say that a young female is a girl, I’m not suggesting, as you seem to be, that all females must be feminine. Somebody can be a girl and like masculine things. Great! The point is that liking masculine things doesn’t make them a boy.

I took it to mean a feminist who is "critical of" the existence of gender dysphoria.

You need to do some research @Quz . Don't expect women to do it for you (I get paid quite a lot of money to do this research - I'm not going to give you Feminism 101 for free).

For a start, your understanding of DSDs is ludicrous - pornified fantasy.

Very rarely, a baby is born with genitals which are not immediately recognisable as either male or female, for a number of reasons eg. an influx of cross-sex hormones in utero. The labia might be fused, or enlarged; the penis may be a "micro-penis", or the testes may be inverted.

Genetic testing then usually makes a straightforward observation of sex. There are some DSDs which are chromosomally more complex.

But all the women with DSDs I've heard or read speaking about this, are VERY aware of their sex, and very clear they are female & women - probably more so than the majority of us born with straightforward and clear sex/genes/chromosomes. This is necessary as the complications with their sex differences are often central to their medical care.

@Quz Man and woman are not words which refer to gender. They refer to sex. They have have referred to sex throughout history and there are words to refer to the sex of humans throughout cultures. Male/ female refers to the reproductive sex class of any living creature or parts of plants. Man and woman are the only words to refer to the sex of humans and they are vital words to communicate accurate meaning.

These are not ‘traditional’ meanings. They are the meaning. What genderists have done is seek to colonize that word with another meaning ( that they do not define which is why they can never answer the ‘what is a woman’ question) to enable them to advocate for their ideology. They have not provided a definition for their new meaning of woman or man, let alone present a case as to why their new meaning should replace sex in policy and practice. They provide no case as to why the impact of doing so on woman and girls is justified. They present no case as to what the impact is.

By arguing that if someone’s gender identity (again, genderists provide no evidenced or meaningful definition of this concept) is say, woman, then this means they should enter the sex class spaces of women, then your movement is very clearly conflating gender identity and sex.

If you weren’t both genderists and everyone else would be happy for men to present as women, but not used sex segregated spaces for women. Because they would understand that their sex is not that of a woman and so those spaces are not for them.

Here's the start of Feminism 101:

Sex = biological category: male and female/men/boys women/girls; unchangeable/immutable
Gender = culturally and historically constructed roles and stereotypes: femininity and masculinity, changeable/mutable.

Sex is a given of our animal existence as mammals.
Gender is a social system.

There is an overlap between sex and gender roles - largely because of the sexual difference between men and women in the reproduction of the species.

In the past, sex was thought to determine gender roles: this is what "biological essentialism" is. The work of feminists - for the last ooooh, 300 years at least - has been to question and unpick that tight connection between women's sexual role in reproduction and their gender roles as limited to reproduction, rather than production (of ideas, art, things, money, status etc etc etc)

Biological essentialism is NOT the action of pointing out sexual difference; it is the insistence that those sex differences are determining of people's life actions eg. arguing that because women conceive, bear, and birth children, then this is the only thing they may do.

There, I've given you that for free @Quz

Quz
Hypospadias is a condition in which the urethral opening does not exit the penis at the tip of the penis. Every child with hypospadias is a boy, not an "x". How incredibly offensive to suggest we should we register such boys as "not male or female" and neither are they ambiguous genitalia in the way you imply.

Similarly, I know of a child born with a condition where the genital area had failed to fuse (rather like a cleft lip) in utero. Sex wasn't obvious visually and medical investigations were necessary prior to registration of birth. However, again, the investigation identified a male child and he was registered as the boy he is. His genitals not forming as was intended does not make him not genetically a boy, just like if you are born without one leg doesn't make you a separate one legged category of humanity who doesn't belong in the two legged category. It makes you a two legged human where something went awry.

I have also known several Klinefelter men all of whom had male genitalia and none of whom had been identified at birth for having "ambiguous genitals", because they don't. They have male genitals.

In any case there is no "gotcha" in terms of the use of intersex conditions to justify trans kids. The two things are completely unrelated. Being intersex is not the same as being nonbinary and it's grossly offensive to say so. The vast vast majority of "trans kids" are simple XX or XY. We don't tell kids born with hypospadias that they are a third sex and not a boy because they have a minor plumbing defect, and thank God we don't.

And yes: gender critical people believe that there are two sexes, male and female.

There are in innumerable number of gender expressions (personalities).

Whatever one's gender expression, one is and remains the sex observed at birth. "Doing manly things" or "wearing manly clothes" doesn't make you a man; having a penis and XY (or XYY or XXY etc, essentially, having a y chromosome) does.

Similarly, "being girly" isn't what makes a person a woman. If you have a penis, wearing a skirt and growing your hair long doesn't magically make you a woman (ask any Scot). Having XX (or X or XXX etc) chromosomes does.

Very occasionally a person like Caster Semenya is born with genitals that appear female but they are genetically male. This is very rare, nobody's fault.

It has nothing to do with the young teen females who don't have an intersex condition but who believe that if they don't like makeup or heels or chatting about who you fancy, but prefer maths and tech, then they must be "not a girl" as that is what girls are. So they must be a boy. This is a logic error. Unfortunately the logic error has huge consequences, or it wouldn't much matter.

Gender and sex are being conflated by activists and it’s trickling down into their extensive sphere of influence (see, for example, the police sergeant who initially dealt with the latest ‘punch terfs in the face’ speech making a point of referring to the male thug as “the female”). They have moved from ‘woman’ meaning anybody who says they’re a woman, via ‘woman = adult human female’ being hate speech, to ‘identifying as female’. Any and all language that references biological reality is designated hate speech (including ‘biological reality’ and ‘biological male’), even the suggestion that males are stronger than females (which they obviously are) is a “hateful narrative”.

The aim of all these linguistic redefinitions is to silence women who want to voice concerns about the bigger, stronger, more predatory sex class identifying into their safe spaces. These are not marginal views, they are espoused by a very powerful lobby that has massive reach into organisations across the western world. Many men across the board have embraced the opportunity to stick one to the ‘feminazis’ and make women feel insecure about their boundaries. And yes, some women (perhaps acculturated to accommodating men's wishes) give blanket consent on behalf of all women.

Criticism of gender and gender ideology, and not wanting males in female safe spaces, stats, services and sports, in no way implies “being critical of anyone being trans” - this is an obvious straw person (actually, straw man may actually be more accurate!) again designed to shame and silence women. Males who identify as trans can ‘be who they feel like they are’ to their heart’s content - the criticism is of those who demand access to things segregated specifically for reasons rooted in biological sex. Many of those demands are expressed with stereotypically male aggression, and women - not the men who physically attack trans people - are the chosen target. The terfisaslur.com site is just the tip of an iceberg of misogyny (we now have male MPs, police officers and senior executives freely using this slur). Are you conflating criticism of such activists with criticism of trans people per se??

What ever your personal opinions, you respect their choices and refer to them as they request. No skin off your nose, them wanting to be called ‘She’ when it is obvious they were born ‘He’ doesn’t harm anyone. You can think in your head that it is weird, but why not just respect their choice as far as the ‘He’ or ‘She’ bit? Basically is what I do, whatever my personal opinions. Also, if you don’t and call them by the wrong gender (in their eyes) you could find yourself on the end of a disciplinary. It is different if they are aggressively pushing opinions onto you, but if they aren’t …..

No skin off your nose

Well that in depth analysis really convinced me.

So many of us here have recounted our own childhood yearning to be a boy. I wept inconsolably on the eve of my 10th birthday because double figures meant my body would change, I dreaded growing breasts and vowed I would “cut them off” when they dared to grow. I called myself “Jim” and my best friend Amanda was “Bill” and we rode around topless on our bikes because that’s what all the boys did.

No-one called us Jim or Bill or indulged us, and at puberty I LOVED my new breasts, small and perky, I’d whip up my shirt whenever I was in a locked bathroom to admire them in the mirror. Puberty is the cure for the vast majority of kids with gender dysphoria, and GIDS and Mermaids were preventing that with their unevidenced drive to transition children with multiple other mental health/social problems.

It really is a scandal.

These are children. Do you respect their choices when they want to eat chocolate for breakfast and crisps for lunch? When they want to watch tiktok instead of doing maths?
Social transition is a medical intervention. Reading this thread makes me certain that, in the office, it's vital to check for each kid, who authorised this and when was it last reviewed.
The trans kids are mostly the most vulnerable - variously deeply autistic, elective mute, self-harming, severe social anxiety, neglected, traumatised. Some have very good reasons to want to walk away from their childhood name. Each one is an individual.
Since they are so troubled, the pronouns are usually they least of my worries when working directly with them. But using sex-based pronouns to be clear who is which sex does relate to the services we provide.

They are working in an office. So while teens, they are most likely 18 plus, therefor children.

Sorry to be an arse, but It's Selective mute, not elective.
Huge difference in meaning. Elective = making a choice; Selective =of the type that only happens sometimes. Selective mutism means mutism that only happens sometimes. No implication of choice intended. The name changed 30 years ago.

I’ll try again 🤣. I meant therefore adults

I found @Quz explanation helpful in how they understood Gender Critical as took it to mean a feminist who is "critical of" the existence of gender dysphoria. Maybe you mean a feminist that is critical of the conflation of sex and gender? I would think that would be every feminist?

It made me understand how ‘gender critical’ is a confusing term. Those post exchanges also demonstrate just how confusing it is in how people use (and mis/understand) sex and gender. I’d prefer if the term gender critical was dropped in favour of ‘women’s rights advocate’ but that might lead back to an unhelpful circular argument about the meaning of the word ‘woman’.

Reading through this incredibly interesting thread reinforces just how harmful and damaging the gender ideology has been. For (mostly) everyone.

Certainly for women trying to hold to sex segregated spaces, for young confused children, teens, adults trying to figure out their identity in a world where everyone is telling them ‘be this’, for the troubled and damaged young trying to escape trauma and believing transitioning is going to magically resolve that trauma, especially and increasingly for lesbians, gay and bisexual (young) people who are now collateral damage and subject to horrific homophobia triggered by a backlash against the trans agenda with objection of entry of males into women’s sports, prisons, short lists spiralling into culture wars and even damaging in how laudable progressive aims are now subjugated, lost, and replaced by the trans agenda.

@Notamum12345577 I think you're possibly misunderstanding the issue. The OP works with children/teens (in a school or as a social worker or something) and some of them identity as transgender.

The issue is that her adult colleagues then refer to them in office discussions with other professionals (when the teens are not there) by their preferred non sex-based pronouns. While that can be just a polite gesture, it can create confusion:

• if you haven't met the young person in question yet
• if there are safeguarding concerns or other reasons where biological sex is relevant
• if you think the gender identity is a way of expressing other underlying distress

Ah ok, yes I misunderstood. I read it as she worked with teens as a few of her colleagues were teenagers 😁

I think @Quz is fairly new to these boards and I hope they stay around, because I think they have more in common than not in common with GC feminists, they just haven't been around the discussion here enough to understand the terms and the stakes involved. I think if they went to see the break it down for me thread, they'd agree with more of it than they disagreed with.

A few years ago, sex and gender were words that could be used interchangeably with no real problems. Since the advert and growth of gender studies and the exponential rise of young people believing that they are trans and being told that it's no big deal if they want to identify other than their bio sex, things are significantly different.

Commonly agreed definitions on mumsnet:

Sex - biological, binary. Sometimes a disorder of normal binary sex development happens and sex is harder to identify, though this is rare and even more vanishingly rare that a person with a DSD cent be identified as either male or female sex after some investigation. There is no third sex, and sex isn't a spectrum.

Gender = gender identity. A social construct or an identity one adopts. Most GC feminists aren't fans of the concept of gender identity for multiple reasons, the main ones of which are: 1) it's part to play in the erosion of female sex spaces and rights, and 2) it's reliance on regressive stereotypes about sex. Women have long hair and wear make-up, men wear suits and like fast cars, and so on. We are critical of the concept that an innate gender identity exists and that it is has taken precedence over sex in society in recent years. Whereas previously women could tell a man entering their changing room or toilets to leave, in modern times that man can claim to identify as a woman, abuse the actual woman in the room and get her chucked out, fired and blacklisted, because his feelings of gender identity apparently trump her sex-based rights.

The problems with gender identity and preferred pronouns taking precedence over sex fact and sex based pronouns are widespread. If the term woman as a sex descriptor is eroded in widespread society into a meaning more akin to gender identity, it becomes accessible to anybody who wants it, and the consequences disadvantage biological women.

A world in which a biological male can be a woman and go by female pronouns, is a world in which biological women's rights are surrendered. Biological men enter and win in women's categories of sports, male rapists get housed in women's prisons, and awards and grants intended for women go to men.

Meanwhile teens are sold "change your gender identity!" as a harmless solution to normal teen awkeardness and discomfort. This has led to experimental pharmacology on teens (puberty blockers), cross-sex hormones with very little acknowledgement that a previously healthy sexed body may not cope very well with that, and irreversible surgery on sex organs because sex and gender identity is still very much conflated. Meanwhile the kids end up no happier, but with a bunch of additional problems.

I use the name or 'they' even if preferred chuffing pronoun is 'she'. 'They' is a respectful compromise that basically says the sex and gender of the person we are discussing is not the sum total of who they are.
I don't mind 'they'. We used to use it in the early days of feminism to prevent unconscious bias against women when applying for funding etc.