Useful academic paper "Use of preferred pronouns are ableist"

[fromorbit]

Academic Paper from professional speech therapists exploring why genderist manipulations of language for ideological reasons are discriminatory against children and adults with communication disabilities and also against immigrants using second languages.

Could be very useful for those fighting against pronoun policies:

Use of preferred pronouns are ableist against the rights and interests of children and adults with communication, cognitive, sensory, or mental health disabilities and challenges
https://www.ourrighttospeak.com/

It can provide evidence-based information for why this matters and so that others may use it when writing policies, making complaints, providing advice, developing Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) and Personal Learning Plans (PLPs) / Individual Education Plans (IEPs) and ensuring Mental Capacity Assessments (MCAs) are correctly carried out and so on​

[ArabeIIaScott]

Thanks, this looks good. I hope it will get read/shared/seen.

[donquixotedelamancha]

Worth pointing out that this is not a peer reviewed paper. It is, in effect, a very well referrenced blog post.

I agree with every word (and it was an interesting read, thanks OP) but I don't think it's going to be massively persuasive.

[MadderthanMorris]

Are use of correct grammar ableist as well?

[SilkenPilken]

Good points. My friend is very fluent in English, works in a professional job in London but still occasionally mixes up he and she because Chinese doesn’t have 2 different words. Could be bad consequences for making this mistake with the wrong person or more likely about the wrong person.

[wakeupandsmellthehoumous]

Surely it should be 'use of preferred pronouns IS ableist'.

[PermanentTemporary]

Agreed, it is an opinion piece, and anonymous (understandably) which doesn't increase its academic or professional impact.

I agree with large chunks of it strongly, though I disagree with some of it equally strongly, and I think tbh the emphasis should be far more that we just don't know yet what the effect of preferred pronoun promotion is on people with language disabilities. As time goes on, there will be more trans people with aphasia, for example- I Google scholar searched the other night about this and it's not coming up yet as being in the research, but it will do.

Overall, I agree very much that an initiative promoted in the NHS and professional bodies as largely a way for qualified staff to demonstrate their virtue to each other, has the potential to add cognitive load to communication-disabled people in a discriminatory way. In practice, colleagues who give their preferred pronouns in their email signatures would never in a million years give them verbally to a patient, unless possibly if the patient were visibly trans. Which almost makes doing so another form of discrimination.

[Switcher]

Will make no difference.

[ChokkaQuokka]

I am looking forward to the legal guidance (paging Sex Matters!) that employer pronoun guidelines must refer to the fact that many if not most languages currently in use (eg Turkish and all the Chinese family languages) do not have gendered pronouns. Guidance should then go on to say that Punishing a NESB employee for getting someone’s preferred pronouns wrong could leave the employer or complaining employee liable to a claim of racial discrimination.

[Rudderneck]

I don't love the tendency to fight this kind of bollocks by making a counter claim of some other ism.

It may be true, and in some instances it needs to be done. But even with pointing out how use of preferred pronouns might disadvantage women, for example - is that really the point? Because to me, the main point is that it's predicated on an untruth, it misunderstands grammar in a basic way, and it's fucking pointless and stupid.

I hate that there is a requirement to show that some group is disadvantaged to get out of having to be subject to stupid demands. And I don't think it's actually a healthy way to decide what is right or not. It turns every disagreement into a pissing match of people claiming to be the more oppressed.

[dimorphism]

@ChokkaQuokka

I am looking forward to the legal guidance (paging Sex Matters!) that employer pronoun guidelines must refer to the fact that many if not most languages currently in use (eg Turkish and all the Chinese family languages) do not have gendered pronouns. Guidance should then go on to say that Punishing a NESB employee for getting someone’s preferred pronouns wrong could leave the employer or complaining employee liable to a claim of racial discrimination.

That's a good point. Let's hope that claim happens soon and puts an end to all this coercive pronoun bullying.

[Cappuccinfortwo]

Preferred pronouns often seem to be championed most vehemently by those who only speak one language - English. It absolutely is not easy just to "swap" pronouns especially when you are talking in a language that "embeds" gender in different ways. I work a lot in another language and am fluent but frequently make gender mistakes. It is not fair to penalise people for not rewiring their brains!

[ChokkaQuokka]

I don't love the tendency to fight this kind of bollocks by making a counter claim of some other ism.

I don’t either, @Rudderneck and totally see what you’re saying. Even so I’m not going to let purity get in the way of effectiveness, and I’m happy to see multiple fronts of argument against these mandates.

Personally I think “pronoun mandates are racist” is likely to be more effective than “pronoun mandates are ableist”, in part because people won’t have an intuitive sense of the various disorders discussed in the position paper linked by the OP. But that’s a general HR policy perspective, while the paper was specifically addressing practice in speech therapy and related disciplines.

Pronoun mandates also hurt people who are planning to transition but haven’t yet. But you never hear that perspective in HR policies.

[WarriorN]

It isn't hugely helpful I agree; part you as many don't understand the term ableist and I've been in situations where two on opposite sides are claiming the others' stances is ableist and actually, yes both could be seen as right depending on how you view ableism.


However you can't be a speech and language expert without knowing that pronouns and a vast array of associated concepts can be extremely challenging for children and even adults with all sort of cognitive disabilities.

There are increasing numbers of children with SEND placed within mainstream settings who'd previously be best suited to MLD send settings / schools.

The the infrastructure needed to accommodate the increased number of children with severe learning difficulties isn't there. So the settings developed for children with "Moderate learning difficulties" are being used.

This means that there will be many more pupils in mainstream for whom the whole idea of flexible and plural pronouns is entirely inappropriate.

If you have horrific situations where children with SAL differences or autism are being corrected for correctly sexing someone, we really are failing the most vulnerable in society.

Not to mention the safeguarding issues around intimate care.

[stealtheatingtunnocks]

@WarriorN

It isn't hugely helpful I agree; part you as many don't understand the term ableist and I've been in situations where two on opposite sides are claiming the others' stances is ableist and actually, yes both could be seen as right depending on how you view ableism.


However you can't be a speech and language expert without knowing that pronouns and a vast array of associated concepts can be extremely challenging for children and even adults with all sort of cognitive disabilities.

There are increasing numbers of children with SEND placed within mainstream settings who'd previously be best suited to MLD send settings / schools.

The the infrastructure needed to accommodate the increased number of children with severe learning difficulties isn't there. So the settings developed for children with "Moderate learning difficulties" are being used.

This means that there will be many more pupils in mainstream for whom the whole idea of flexible and plural pronouns is entirely inappropriate.

If you have horrific situations where children with SAL differences or autism are being corrected for correctly sexing someone, we really are failing the most vulnerable in society.

Not to mention the safeguarding issues around intimate care.

This has already happened, Warrior. There is a young man in Wales who has been convicted of a hate crime after he asked a trans special Constable whether the person was a boy or a girl.

His autism and learning disability was no protection against that person’s indignation.

autism UK did nothing to help him, they collude in the nonsense. I’ll never forgive them. That young man is not a criminal, he’s disabled.

[KG74]

I'm sure this has been said before but this is not a peer-reviewed paper so be careful using it as such.

[popebishop]

I agree @Rudderneck - there are plenty of reasons why forced declaration of pronouns is problematic, regardless of whether it is or isn't ableist.