Can we chat about reasons for not using trans name and pronouns?

[Teatimebrioche]

In a recent conversation about LGBTQ (well, just the TQ) I was asked if I'd be open to using the new name and pronouns of a trans person, theoretically speaking.

I said that I wouldn't, that it made me very uncomfortable and that I'd feel like I was lying by going along with it. That I didn't like the breaking down of reality and the female/male language and all that entails, and that it blurs boundaries.

But I ended up feeling pretty frustrated as that didn't really cover what I wanted to say and was a bit sound bitey. I just got more and more tongue tied when I tried to go into more detail. I've been trying to write down my thoughts on it since but I feel like they're all just swirling around my head and I can't isolate the thoughts well enough to formulate a proper sentence about it.

I especially feel it's detrimental to use the chosen name and pronouns for kids/teens, but again I can't articulate why even though I "know" why.

I agree with so much of what has been said on this board about it and when I listen to the likes of Helen Joyce, Kathleen Stock etc I find my head bobbing up and down in agreement.

What way would you answer if asked the same thing?

Yes it's like all my school certificates have my adopted name on them, as that was my name at the time.
Since then I've discovered my birth name and been married and changed my name. Then divorced and could have changed my name again.
But my certificates still have the name I was then. Far as I know, they cant be changed.

If you look it up online, Caitlyn's Jenner decathlete gold medal, you'll find some sources say Bruce Jenner and some say Caitlyn.
For a while it only ever said Caitlyn (I know, I've been checking) but it isnt true that Caitlyn won, Bruce did.

It's important to know the truth of who is who in order to describe our conditions, in order to track things like sexism, misogyny and homophobia.

Imagine a breaking news story:

A person entered a university building, separated ten students from the others and shot them dead.

Then more information comes out and the story becomes:

A gunman entered the university building, ordered the female students to stand against a wall and then shot them dead.

Then the story quickly changes to:

Conflicting with earlier reports, the shooter is now said to be a woman. Upon entering the building she separated the female students from the others and then shot them dead.

Then the story changes to:

Stacey-Mae Saunders, previously known as Roger Hutchins, separated ten students from the others and proceeded to shoot them dead. Seven of the victims were women and three identified as non-binary.

Objective material reality is politically salient.

PermanentTemporary - hence the linguistic dance of using names rather than pronouns. Tbh, if I use pronouns, I keep getting it wrong anyway, so it’s much better (although hard) to use the names. It can sound really clunky, but I sort of don’t mind demonstrating that their choices are making life difficult for other people.

I think you can change them. They might charge you, each exam
board has it’s own rules.

I’d wager that there are going to be rather a lot of detrans/desisted adults with their teenage opposite sex name on their GCSEs. Most exam boards currently do transgender name changes and reissued certificates for free - I hope they extend the same courtesy to detransitioners in future.

Names are completely irrelevant to me. I'll happily call anyone anything they choose because it's simply a tag to notate who is who. I find it a bit odd that so many people who claim they 'do not believe in gender' simultaneously demand that names remain strictly gendered.

The fact that we are discussing this in my view shows how bizarre the situation has become. I do not think people should be able to change their sex/gender - I view them as the one and the same, therefore the whole pronoun issue would not arise. Of course people can change their name - as people can do this for many reasons ie the don't like it etc so therefore in my view the name is what people which to be called by.

Currently use trans names and pronouns to be polite. However I'm increasingly unhappy about the forced speech/lying and probably going to move towards name ok but using their correct pronoun. I dont need to worry about an employer and I dont give a fuck about TRAs.

But it's not "simply a tag", it's a political statement.

True story: back in the 90s, a martial arts club I was part of had a 20yo student-in-residence (so fairly frequently encountered) who'd officially changed his name to "NoNukes". Never even knew his actual name, and I didn't have a strong ideological stance on it either way, but it always made me feel awkward in the extreme to use this "name." There's an element of coercion about it, forcing others to participate in your public statements.

I have a name with a few shortenings, I'm happy with my name and all but one of the shortenings which is the one that family used when I was a child. So think if my name was Elizabeth and I was happy with Liz Lizzie Beth and so on but couldn't stand Betty. So off I went to senior school at 11 and used a different shortening, I've used it for the rest of my life. My skin crawls if I use the "Betty" name. There are famous people who use it, nothing wrong with it but I don't like it and it isn't me. If someone insisted on calling me the "Betty" name I'd ask them not to, if they continued I'd cut them off. No one has the right to decide who I should be called. It is incredibly arrogant to think you can dictate to people.

Do you refuse to use married women's names if they change their surname post-marriage?

The point is, it's long been established that individuals have ownership over, and every right to choose their own names. It's not a 'political statement', it's simply someone exercising a right that has long been universally accepted.

I don't use my given christian name as I do not like it. I'm commonly known by a nickname that was used at school. As much as I prefer it, I've never got around to legally changing it, because nobody actually uses my legal name anyway and it doesn't bother me that I still use it on documents etc for obvious reasons. If I chose to legally change it, would you accuse me of 'coercing' usage of my preferred name?

Again, I can not see how you can credibly claim someone is coercing you to be complicit in their political statement, unless you concede that you do, in fact, view names as being gendered, and therefore also concede that you believe in the concept of gender.

I don't think a name matters a jot, because if Bert wants to call himself Susie, calling him Susie does not in any way alter reality. By objecting, you are reinforcing the notion of gender, not denying it.

" if Bert wants to call himself Susie, calling him Susie does not in any way alter reality. "

Except it does. Because Susie is well known to be a female name in several languages. I've not come across it as a male name.

So a male calling themselves Susie blurs the boundaries of male-female.

And it's blurring the boundaries (see also #be kind) that has damaged females' rights.

We are now in the the sorry situation of feeling we cannot object to having males in our female spaces.

Language really matters.

Except it does. Because Susie is well known to be a female name in several languages. I've not come across it as a male name

So a male calling themselves Susie blurs the boundaries of male-female

There are dozens of names, both in English and other languages, which are either considered 'gender neutral' and used by both males and females, or are predominantly associated with one sex in one language, but are associated with both or the other in another language. It's understandable that perceptions of one particular name will fit with the common usage in your neck of the woods, but that's all it is, a quirk of language.

If you insist that names are gendered, and should strictly only be used by people of the sex you personally associate the name with, how do you reconcile that when you meet a foreign person with a name that conflicts with your notion of what is a male name and what is a female name? Do you demand they change it to suit you? Do you refuse to acknowledge their name or refuse to address them by it?

If you do not, then why not? After all, you are maintaining that you would do exactly that, or at least, you'd feel coerced and uncomfortable using the exact same name for someone of your own language or from your own culture who chose to change their name to the one in question.

If you are adamant that names are gendered, and convention must be adhered to, then why not also clothing, jobs, family roles, or outwardly appearance? You can't pick and choose when gender exists and when it doesn't. A man being named 'Susie' no more 'blurs boundaries' than a man doing any other activity or presenting in any other way that is more commonly associated with the female sex, and vice-versa. They're still a man.

" There are dozens of names, both in English and other languages, which are either considered 'gender neutral' and used by both males and females, or are predominantly associated with one sex in one language, but are associated with both or the other in another language. "

Of course there are. And Susie is not one of them.

" If you are adamant that names are gendered, "

I am not in the least bit adamant.
I don't subscribe to gender ideology at all.

I just said that some names are associated with being male or female.

And it is disingenuous - for example in the UK - to give yourself a name such as Susie if you are male.

This is because the name overwhelmingly suggests being female.

And it is wrong for males to pretend that they are females.

How has a mental illness become fashionable and why are people promoting it???

You are right. ‘It ‘ is the correct singular non gendered pronoun. ‘They’ is the plural, and I can’t get the hang of using it for a single being. I might try, but I could see that I would probably revert instinctively to the grammatical rules of the language I have spoken of seventy years.

It is curious that the non binary are extremely annoyed at being ‘ITT Ed’ when surely this is the closest we can get to an appropriate term for someone/ something which does not have a ( binary) sex. But they don’t like it, so fair enough.

As for ‘she/ they’ how does this work? You are either she or they, surely ? Singular or plural. The accusative, dative and ablative cases of ‘They’ is ‘them’.

I suppose the whole pronoun confusion and illogicality mirrors the state it is attempting to vocalise.

For some identifying as transgender is a mental illness. They need support and mental health treatment in the same way as anyone with mental health problems.

For others it is a sexual fetish, autogynophelia (AGP) - they get aroused by the thought of themselves as a woman (cf those who go and masturbate all over the underwear in the M&S women’s changing rooms.)

Others still are hardcore misogynists who is it as a means of coercing, threatening, harassing and demeaning women.

How any of this has become fashionable and why anyone is promoting it is an utter fcuking disgrace.

I don't subscribe to gender ideology at all

Yet you absolutely insist on recognising gender associations in names, so you evidently do.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX
‘There are dozens of names, both in English and other languages, which are either considered 'gender neutral' and used by both males and females, or are predominantly associated with one sex in one language, but are associated with both or the other in another language.’

Leaving aside the ‘other languages’ ( because we are on an English language board) can you give some examples of these ‘gender neutral ‘ names? I can only think of a few shortenings which would be gender neutral, not ‘proper’ names.
TIA

Reminds me of Johnny Cash and A Boy Called Sue.

I'd call them by whatever name they asked me to call them (though I am not good with names so might have to ask a couple of times). I certainly wouldn't deliberately refer to them as a name they didn't ask me to call them. If it was someone I knew well and I accidentally referred to them by a previous name I would apologise profusely, and hope they'd realise it wasn't my intention to use that name.

Of course.

Just from English and off the top of my head, Charlie, Frankie, Morgan, Jamie, Taylor, Quinn, Harper, Bryce, Reece, Ash, Jessie, Flynn, Meredith. There are countless other gender neutral 'modern' names, some of which are considered shortened forms, but then, if a person is legally named 'Charlie', then Charlie is their name, not Charles or Charlotte.

If you want more traditional, there are examples like Tracy/Tracey, Lesley/Leslie, Robin/Robyn, Lindsey/Linzi/Lindsay, different spellings normally, but in essence the exact same name. There are historical examples of men named 'Shirley', 'Carol', 'Sandy', 'Evelyn', 'Stacy', and so on, none of whom were pretending to be women.

In other cultures its even more pronounced, because they often forgo the different spellings as the names are used for both sexes and nobody considers it in any way odd.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

" Yet you absolutely insist on recognising gender associations in names, so you evidently do. "

You're not getting it, are you?

Gender is nonsense. Most names are associated with a sex: male or female.

If a male in an English speaking country decides to change his name to Susie or Sally-Ann or Lulu, then he does that knowing that everyone will assume (before they meet face to face) that he is female.

So why would he do that? Why would a male try to deceive people by selecting a name that almost everyone associates with female-ness?

I'm not the one making totally contradictory statements here.

You have helpfully listed a load of names that are used for both sexes.

So why would a man deliberately try to deceive by choosing a 'female' name?