They / them at work

[pootlefump]

I've just written a long post and it's disappeared so in brief - how do you deal with staff who are they/them at work? I will really struggle to call a very obvious biological male 'they'. I also can't loose my job and do want to be respectful but also can't change my view on this nonsense !

I only move with the times when that is in line with my ethics. You may prefer to go with the stream no matter how that conflicts with your ethics, I don’t know.

What is this “getting it wrong”? I do not understand how anyone thinks they own the third person pronouns that other people use about them. If I refer to someone instinctively as I see them, and I have not misread physical reality, why should I “correct” myself, or apologise for that? Why does their comfort matter, but mine does not? Why do our evidently different worldviews mean that I have to bow to theirs? If I were to pray out loud in your presence, would you feel you have to say “Amen” if you don’t agree with my prayer, or if you don’t accept the concept of prayer? I do not approve of coercion.

I would not lie to my child.

@AlisonDonut

Could you please post where I said that women getting raped in jail is funny?

Thank you.

Quite. There was a time when lobotomies were considered “moving with the times”. The pioneer of lobotomies won the Nobel prize for medicine. Now we know of course that it was a terrible thing to do to people but at the time it was thought to be a progressive way of dealing with mental illness.

None of it is funny.

If I were to pray out loud in your presence, would you feel you have to say “Amen” if you don’t agree with my prayer, or if you don’t accept the concept of prayer?

Love this.

If you really know what you think, and you have the courage of your convictions, why not share here? If your beliefs have a sound, rational basis, I won’t be able to tear them apart, will I?

You’re the one who said there are no characteristics all women share, which means you don’t know what makes somebody a woman.

You’ve got something else to say, please say it, instead of this feeble “you’re going to destroy my argument with your prejudice” get out.

Because from where I’m standing, you’re the one exhibiting prejudice: anti-woman, anti-homosexual prejudice that you cannot/will not defend or explore, but which makes it impossible for you to see clearly and think rationally about this.

I can see from your taking offence here that you don't think it's funny when women are raped. So I guess you do think that protecting women is important. How do you square that with an ideology which has led to women being attacked? I genuinely can't understand how you can both care and take action which is harmful to women. Especially given the lack of evidence that TW are at risk in the men's loos in the UK.

@AlisonDonut

Again, could you please point out the post where I said that women getting raped in jail is funny?

I don’t remember writing it and I can’t seem to find it.

Help me out!

Thank you so much in advance for your assistance. I must be getting old not to remember something like that.

It’s quite a thing not to remember writing, isn’t it? I must start my memory exercises tonight!

I can see that a few of your posts have been deleted, and your memory appears to have failed you before in this thread @Belichtofalicht

I'm still here and thank you for the replies and support (in most cases). Grow up?!! Ha!

I'm going to do my best to be polite and professional as a manager to a grown man using they/them pronouns. I just don't want to have to suspend reality, fact, biology in the process!

Will I have a leg to stand on with HR (huge public sector org) if I get it wrong too many times?!

I’m not wasting any more of my time advocating for compassion towards trans people. Someone upthread said you’ve been at this for years. You won’t change your minds about anything, even though trans people face many consequences for the way they are. Men have attacked women in loos and they haven’t been trans. You don’t have to be trans to do that, sadly.

I’ve wasted enough of my time talking to a brick wall.

But I’m still puzzled as to how and when I said that men raping women in jail is funny. I would very much like to see the post where I said that.

I thought this article is very interesting and the responses on this thread are pretty textbook to its description of the ideology here.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/9/5/20840101/terfs-radical-feminists-gender-critical

Did you see where I posted that?

No, just speculating. I don't know anything and I didn't see the post referred to.

Vox is not a neutral source.

And all your sources are neutral, I suppose?

This is SO funny! Every source that says something posters don’t agree with is untrustworthy, wrong, not neutral, etc. Lololol!

Pigeon chess.

@Belichtofalicht I think you are right to leave the gender threads alone. I generally do. There is such a gulf between views and I don't think social media sites (and these threads in particular) are a good forum for finding common ground or foster understanding.

Plus, I think this is a particularly GC corner of the internet. You have to know sometimes how to pick your battles and to are in enemy terrain here!

I think weirdly it's easier to discuss these issues in "real life", speaking to each other as humans. That's why I suggested OP might find it easier to avoid the male pronouns once she has got to know the nb person... even if she still doesn't agree with preferred pronouns as a matter of principle.

(I speak as someone who does try and respect people's preferred pronouns.)

And all your sources are neutral, I suppose?

I didn't say they were. You've also refused to look at ones you thought were "dodgy".

It's a shame you are refusing to answer @Belichtofalicht because at the moment I think your stance is not pro trans, it's anti women. I'd genuinely like to hear you respond to that. I think pro trans actually would be helping people t to accept the sex they are regardless of their relationship to gender stereotypes or sexuality. That would mean no painful surgery needed, no loss of sexual function and fertility, no life limited artificial hormones etc. A path which leads to these significant interventions is in no-ones best interests especially when vulnerable people discover the limits to the rhetoric of 'changing sex' (i.e. they discover they can't and keeping up the pretense that one has is a lot of painful work and still doesn't lead to passing). It would also be a much less homophobic position (many people who trans identify nowadays are gay and struggling to accept that).

I think you are right to leave the gender threads alone.

This poster has spent 900 odd posts not "leaving the gender threads alone".

@Belichtofalicht Men have attacked women in loos and they haven’t been trans. You don’t have to be trans to do that, sadly.

Straw man. You're not very good at debating, are you?

I’m anti-woman? Yes, well, you would think that, wouldn’t you.

I suppose an attitude like that accounts for the vile lie about me that I think men raping women in prison is funny. Still waiting for my post to be shown to me.

I don’t have the time or inclination to prepare a viva.

I think you are right to leave the gender threads alone.

Where about is that happening?! You guys really do live in make believe land.

Either that or I have a full-time job in addition to being a live-in carer for an immediate relative and don’t have time or inclination to write an academic paper for the purpose of banging my head against a brick wall.