Need help to stop my organisation compelling us to use preferred pronouns!

[Appalonia]

I'm a facilitator for an international self development organisation and we have recently been given a code of conduct instructing us to use participants preferred pronouns. I'm absolutely fuming about it! I'm sure this has been done to be ' inclusive' but I really don't think it's been thought through. It's particularly galling as the whole ethos of the work of this organisation is about truth telling. They run trainings to help pp to uncover unconscious beliefs and help pp verify whether they are really true or not. So if a man stood up in a training and said ' I feel like I'm a woman', using this methodology, this belief would be verified as false.

I want to have a conversation with the head of DEI, to discuss why compelling the facilitator s to take on this belief system is potentially so damaging. There's so much great info out there, but I'm looking for an article that is clear and succinct that I can send to them to explain the issues. I think a lot of this has come from America, but I need to at least try and say why I object to this, but I need some compelling facts to do it. Can anyone please help?

Yes and we mustn't forget that subverting the rules of English isn't easy particularly for those who are disabled - demanding wrong-sex pronouns could reasonably be argued to be disablist. There's a good article by speech professionals linked upthread I think which makes this very point- "including" the transperson by requesting others to use non-standard English can be discriminatory towards (and excluding of) some disabled people and non-native English speakers.

It's hard even for people fully signed up to the belief system - in the Denise Fahmy court case there was a witness who made a big thing about someone being discussed being a non-binary 'they' and then immediately started using 'he/him' again multiple times. It was hilarious - even the people trying to force others to do it and punish them for wrongthink can't get it right.

We're back to competing needs and demands and the fact we can't centre one person's demands without it affecting others, sometimes in quite significant ways. In no other circumstance do we do this, it's so bizarre that this ideology has managed to convince people that compelling everyone else is reasonable. In general when it comes to other accommodations, we accommodate one set of people without forcing others to comply with a particular belief system. So we are welcoming of religious dress, accommodate religious holiday and traditions, but we don't expect everyone else to wear the same clothing or recognise the same holidays and traditions.

My DH works with someone who is Jewish and finishes work early on a Friday, but he isn't compelled also to do so. The Jewish colleague isn't offended if he works into the evening.

Ultimately trans demands for preferred pronouns are demanding that other people not be free - that they do not have freedom of normal expression.

If you're using the camera...

So I've finally managed to compose an email, with as many links as I could, will wait and see what the response is...

Why do you need to know someone's sex in order to talk to them? And if you can see and/or hear the person, usually their sex is obvious.

@OldCrone I've been in an email chain where various people were referred to and using "they" was getting confusing. It was helpful to have their gender as it made the whole conversation easier.
And socially it's just more polite to call people the names they prefer- not a huge hill to die on.
Of course we could get into discussions about how people can always tell etc etc

Out of the faintest curiosity, does anyone know any men who have been upset by being ordered to use pronouns

I don't know any, but need to accept I may be weird.

Email is different because obviously you can't see or hear the other people. I was replying to your earlier post about online meetings, where presumably you can hear and possibly see the other participants.

But how on earth did we manage 10+ years ago before all this pronoun stuff started? Answer: we managed, and it wasn't an issue. And I would have no problem with people who don't know me thinking I'm a man, because they would be more likely to pay attention to what I say.

You're so lovely. 💟

Was that what you were hoping for?

She was just responding to a post. I don't think she was hoping for anything other than conversation.

What were you hoping for with your response? You haven't addressed anything she said.