Using sex-based pronouns instead of their preferred gender-ID pronouns

[DuesToTheDirt]

Has anyone ever done this? What happened?

I mean for people you know in real life, not on the internet, and for adults not children.

I would love to do this, though I don't suppose I will. But I feel that by saying "she" to refer transwomen I am being forced into a lie, that I am agreeing to someone's delusion. I try to avoid using pronouns, but realistically that just results in either not talking about certain people (which is definitely one strategy!) or using really convoluted language. It's all very well being "kind" to people, but it's certainly not kind on me.

If you feel it's disrespectful then of course you shouldn't.

I don't believe in compelled speech.

You can say whatever you want.

I just don't like the large divide. I think a lot of trans people have things to offer in support of women's rights. They aren't voices that necessarily make the headlines but they are out there. I hope they also get to be heard one day.

Have you not noticed the pattern though? All the trans people who vocally support women’s rights are happy to be referred to by the pronouns of their sex. All the ones who require special gender pronouns are opposed to women’s rights.

Automatically by demanding special gender pronouns a person places themselves in opposition to women’s rights because they believe a man can be referred to as a woman and the word “woman” includes men.

I've actively stressed to a friend about her need to be able to not worry about pronouns around our friendship group and that she has her own truth which should not be invalidated or crushed by her son.

She's known for a long time I'm GC, but she still has needed the reassurance that she matters to and it's ok to make mistakes.

She's actually fairly ok about her son's transition and is very accepting.

The sole conflict point has been on pronouns with tantrums being thrown by a 22 year old man.

As I say, it's not about identity. It's about power and control.

The effect of using preferred pronouns is that it also then removes cues for others to have full information for their decision making. If someone is using preferred pronouns for a male who demands access to the female single sex facilities, it doesn’t alert a woman in that conversation that this male might be in a single sex space sometime.

If a woman hears the preferred pronouns being used for a carer or health professional, she is being given cues that the person they are seeing in front of them is female.

You can be assured that Mridul Wadhwa’s female counselling clients would be led to believe that they were wrong in thinking Wadwha is male because everyone around them uses preferred pronouns. How many of them never asked or felt they could ask?

Why does anyone think this is kind? The ramifications of this act of supposed ‘kindness’ is much wider than impacting just the one person being spoken about.

The end result is the same still. Using the wrong sex pronouns for someone when you know that the person is the opposite sex, allows male people to access female single sex provisions, ie sport, spaces, short lists, and so on. Not necessarily that particular person at that particular time, but the impact is the same. It may build up over time, or it can have an immediate effect. Or it can be used collectively such as McKinnon/Ivy successfully argued.

It really is a falsehood that it is ‘harmless’, just as it is false to say it is ‘a kindness.’ Because that kindness is just to one person and it is unkind to those who needed that knowledge, that verbal cue, to make a decision that was significant and important to them.

No one should be shamed for using correct sex pronouns. No one should be emotionally manipulated to do so.

If i’ve ever met a trans person who passes, I didn’t realise. I just want to be permitted to use the pronoun that is natural for me to use. The intellectual and emotional toll can be huge for me. I do not want to be coerced or emotionally blackmailed into calling my son "she", as that is lying to him (if he is present) or about him (if he is absent). I know full well that he is male.

The intellectual toll is in having to keep the "preferred" name and pronouns at the front of my mind all the time; this is worst for people I have known for years or decades before they decided that they aren’t what everyone knows them to be. The emotional toll is in deliberately and repeatedly lying to and about someone; this is worst for people who I care about.

Maybe I am unusual in being so bothered by the new societal expectation to lie about people’s sex. I don’t know. But I do know that I have come to the conclusion that it is utterly wrong to demand that someone lies about you constantly, for your own comfort. Eventually when you say “mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”, the mirror is going to tell the uncomfortable truth.

This seems super common in the table top gaming world.

They weren't a game designer by any chance were they? They're was some drama around an event fairly local to me when someone had 'misgendered' a (dress wearing, stubbly bearded) trans person. I don't think it was even deliberate or anything but caused a bit of a fuss. :/

There's a bigger issue even than forced language or acceptance. That's who is in charge of the language.

Underlying the arguments of all of those in favour of preferred pronouns is the idea that these words refer to gender not sex. But this isn't a given. In fact it's the question we need to be asking.

Do pronouns refer sex or gender? It's clear that trans activists would like them to refer to gender, but rather than asking for a change, they are making an assumption that this is the case. And I am not sure it is one which holds water.

Given that the idea of gender as something distinct from sex is a relatively modern construct (late 50s or early 60s and how it comes about is a whole interesting story in itself), for hundreds of years pronouns can only have been referring to sex. And that is the assumption that most people are making when they use them.

Transactivists can do what they like with their own speech. But they don't have a right to unilaterally change the meaning of words or to demand that everyone does this.

They've obviously never seen him walk.

Those hips never ever lie!

Nor do hands and feet.

I haven't, I don't think, but as a trans person I've had it happen to me and not much happened. Maybe they didn't realise. Maybe they did and they're GC and feel like they're not being true to themselves if they call me he/him/his.
Honestly I've been called a lot worse than my actual sex, the sex I was known as my entire life before coming out to my friends and family.

Oh, aside from last year. I was in hospital (mixed ward) for an operation and during recovery the nurse was talking to DW and said "She" then quickly apologised and said she didn't think and we both told her not to worry because there are so many worse things in the world and I was in there to save my life, not to force others to conform to my own beliefs. It's actually sad that a lot of people who work in the public sector are genuinely afraid of being reported for saying a word wrong.

Agreed. I think a lot of trans people have more important things on their mind than worrying about pronouns.

Thank you for being open on this board. It's nice seeing a trans person on here.

It’s nice to hear a voice of reason, yes. But can anyone explain to me why over the last five to ten years we have seen what I can only describe as a moral panic over pronouns? Why is everyone in the public sector so terrified? Is it all these diversity training courses? Social media?

Some activists also have a very intimidating way of getting the message across. I still recall the menacing Momentum video with Juno Dawson saying ‘transphobia - just skip it’; it was positively terrifying, to me at least. Or Dawson interviewing Jess Phillips.

I think a lot of trans people have more important things on their mind than worrying about pronouns.

If that were true, then this entire thing wouldn’t even be an issue.

And my read is that transmen (what with being inherently female) get it. Transwomen, on the other hand…

Yes it was a game designer...! One I haven't met in person but I've played against him online. I mentioned at a meetup that I liked his games and got a stern "you mean HER". Oopsie.

He's got a 3-letter name. It's probably the same transwoman that you're thinking of. His games are really lovely and well balanced and I seriously respect his work. But, like many on here, I just can't use wrong sex pronouns without significant mental concentration and cognitive dissonance. Maybe I'd make the effort if we met in person.

Interestingly, there was a thread on here once about whether you can tell if a man or woman is writing, based on the phrases and cadence of what they say. I did find myself wondering if I could tell if gamers are male or female, including this one, based on the tone of our in-game chat. It's an interesting one.

Avoid conversation.
Avoid pronouns.
Do not affirm.

Other religious types do not expect me to share their belief in their god.
I treat Gender the same way.

I mean you can’t be serious can you? This must be disingenuous. There is an extreme and often violent movement intent on making people conform with pronoun expectations. TRAs insisting rapists, murderers and paedophiles have their pronouns of choice respected. Every single piece of DEI advice says to “respect pronouns” often with an eerily cheery “if you don’t know, ask!” People hounded, harassed and cancelled for not being pronoun compliant. There are posters on this thread worried about the employment implications of correctly referring to someone by their sex.

If “a lot of trans people have more important things on their mind” they must be too preoccupied to notice the damage those activists who represent them are doing on their behalf. And not just specific to pronouns. Isn’t it odd how “a lot of trans people” might believe something but are strangely silent on stopping their community from pushing such extremism?

Just a reminder that that censorship extends to the FWR forum - if we call men men and use correct sexed-based pronouns for them we are deleted and possible banned from Mumsnet.

People, including myself, have had their posts deleted on this thread for speaking about the impact on women’s rights

Some people on here definitely don't like it! But good for you, must say personally I have been called a lot worse than the wrong name 😂

NC for this since I know people who lurk on here and I don't want them tracking my username but yes, it is extremely common in TTRPGs and also in the live-action scene. Actually it became such a stress trying to remember everyone's pronouns and feeling like I was submitting to something I didn't believe, that I quit both hobbies altogether. There were other factors that pushed me out of course but that's the main one that kills any desire to go back.

It's a shame as I really enjoyed it.

Yeah loads of trans people just dying to get into your toilet & prison, it's plain paranoid & scaremongering to suggest that this is what a whole group is doing. You can't possibly be serious

So why are people like Kathleen Stock hounded out of their jobs, and people like JKR, Martina N, Riley Gaines, Sharron Davies, Jenny Watson, and any other woman who puts her head above the parapet on this issue, the subject of rape and death threats, then?

What has this got to do with the movement to enforce pronouns? I never said an entire group of people were trying to get into prisons. What a strange leap.

And why does it have the be “loads of trans people”? Just one rapist in women’s prison caused huge harm. Just one athlete at a time has caused huge harm.

But again, the “lots of trans people” who aren’t bothered by anything TRAs do are strangely silent on this sort of matter, as well as pronouns. Why is that?