'They': being expected to remember the requirement to deny reality

[SwedishKvinnaboske]

I just hugely enjoyed, for all of its faults, another glorious Eurovision final - it's the highlight of the TV year for my family.

However, I couldn't help noticing in the TV commentary that Graham Norton - himself obviously no stranger to the 'LGBT community' - automatically used sex-based pronouns for the two 'non-binary-identifying' finalists who both make it known that they prefer to use 'they' - in English, at least (I presume that Nemo must have seen the obvious drawback in German, where the same word 'sie' is used for 'she' and for 'they', with the context sometimes only being clear from the correct use of the singular or plural form of the verb).

Once, Graham referred to Bambie Thug as 'she' (but other times used 'they'); and I counted at least three times when he referred to Nemo as 'he', in the midst of all the other uses of 'they'. This included Graham's loud exclamation at the end that "HE'S DONE IT!", which you would normally expect the BBC news afterwards to automatically replay as the defining moment when reporting on the victory. Oddly enough, this moment was notable in its absence, which seemed rather strange.

Unless I'm very much misinformed, all of the other 23 singers in the final use sex-based pronouns, in accordance with biology, and Graham never once failed to use these correct pronouns for the other 92% of performers - even if the potential effects of alcohol consumption are taken into account. Interestingly, he also never accidentally called Bambie 'he' or Nemo 'she'.

My main point in highlighting this is that being expected to refer to a single known individual as 'they' is most obviously not something that comes naturally to most of us, and thus, even if we do willingly (or feel forced to) comply, it presents a real barrier to our normal use of language, as we have to remember to stop and think every time what needs to be changed when dealing with particular people. I'm sure not one of us has ever had to stop and remember to refer to our mum as 'she' or our brother as 'he'.

It feels to me like a round on Richard Osman's House of Games - where the object is to think hard whilst playing and not to forget that every correct number in an answer first has to be doubled or every 'E' has to be changed to an 'O' or whatever. The whole idea of these games is that they're deliberately designed to catch you out if you aren't on high alert at all times. Fun for a half-hour light-hearted brain-teaser, but extremely tiresome to have to follow 24/7 in real life.

If humans being 'non-binary' - and thus 'they' - is indeed, as we are told, a perfectly natural state of affairs, why do our brains have to be temporarily re-wired and constantly on edge every single time we have to address or talk about somebody who demands to be referred to as 'they'? Why must we walk on eggshells and deliberately deny the common-sense reality in language that our brains automatically go to?

How come one person can dictate to countless others that they are not allowed to fully use the natural fluency that they have long had in their own (mutual) native language in order to validate somebody else's (minority) personal beliefs - and in so doing confirm that they must necessarily share these beliefs and are therefore not allowed to hold different ones themselves? It's widely viewed as bigotry/nastiness/phobia not to call a self-proclaimed 'NB' person 'they' - but however much you try to deny it, it simply is not ever instinctive or natural to the vast majority (if not all) of us.

What happens if multiple people in your life start changing their pronouns, especially to "neo" pronouns that can be literally anything they can imagine.
And those who have mixed pronouns like "he/they" which doesn't even make sense.

I'm not prepared to start remembering specific ways of referring to people. It's not how language works. And very rarely would you use a pronoun for someone when they are actually in your presence, so if "zer" expects me to use nonsense words to refer to them when they aren't even in the room, they can piss off.

Compelled language is the start of a very slippery slope. We are already about halfway down that slope and I have no intention of freefalling to the bottom.

Have you seen the transwoman who basically films themselves on Youtube and berates every person they come into contact with who "misgenders" them? They are very obviously male and when someone uses masculine pronouns they demand compelled speech and make complaints against (usually low paid service workers) them, and generally cause them a massive headache.
I will not be told what words to use.
And I will never play the pronoun game. Because it IS a game, and one which you can never hope to win.

Bambie Thug reminds me of the woman who invaded Kathleen Stock's speech at the Oxford Union and sat there, having glued herself to the floor, looking like an absolute plum.

I should imagine both of them are similarly annoying, as is Greta Thunberg who has always got right on my tits with her Causes.

I don't know why you think you'll get 'mauled'?

Unless you interpret disagreement as getting 'mauled'?

It's not the same thing at all.

Dates have always moved on and changed for millennia - that's their entire purpose - but they're still utterly predictable. If you gave me enough time, I could work out without a shadow of doubt what date it would be a million days from now. We will still never get to the 49th of Octembruary - as this doesn't exist in the long-standing rules that we all know very well.

Surnames - your whole name, in fact - are a specific way of identifying and centring yourself, with you as the subject. Again, that is the entire purpose of names: they are intended to be (generally) unique to you. Pronouns are meant to be a boringly mundane short-form that everybody can use for convenience without having to think for a moment - when somebody demands that you use a random different one just for them, they are deliberately taking away your natural fluency of language from you. It's no different from somebody ordering you to stop referring to the thing you sit on as a chair and to start remembering that you must call it a wardrobe every time.

One other huge difference is that, if you accidentally introduce your friend as Fiona Brown, she will most probably say in a good-natured way something like "Don't you remember? You were at my wedding three months ago - I'm Fiona Robinson now!!" What she will reliably not do is get furious at you and call you a hater for using her erstwhile name; nor will she deny nor take offence at the fact that she was indeed Fiona Brown before, and this simple fact will in no way be a source of shame or disgust for her.

Again, that is the entire purpose of names: they are intended to be (generally) unique to you.

And, on top of that, they don't have meaning. They are arbitrary signifiers, so changing your name isn't changing the meaning of anything, or changing the common language.

(Okay, they may have connotations, such as indications of sex, ancestry, etc, but those are just connotations, not concrete meanings. That's why you don't find names in the dictionary...)

You are a lone voice because you don't get it.

It's not like someone changing their name because pronouns (in English) also signify sex, and while not everyone identifies themself by gender, everyone has a sex.

So when someone uses pronouns to make a statement about their feeling of gender they are unavoidably also making a statement that imposes an identity onto everyone else, an identity which I and many other find offensive.

When Bambie Thug decides "They" is more accurate than "She", why does she do that? Because she perceives herself to be different to other women. Is that a physical difference? No. So at heart Bambie is saying "my mind is so different to other women that I'm not even a woman at all".

And to believe that, she must believe that all other women have some sort of "womanny mind" so that unlike her we are happy with the social constraints, limitations and at times straightforward abuse that society imposes on us through the construct of mental womanhood.

I find that breathtakingly arrogant and naive of Bambie and insulting and offensive to me as a woman.

Now, I'm not saying Bambie should not hold those offensive beliefs personally. I might wish she didn't but she has the right to her own thoughts. But I sure as hell don't have to play along with something deeply insulting to me just to be "polite".

The solution is, of course, to have separate language for gender and sex. Kerp the words that have until very recently been unproblematically used for sex to refer to sex and invent some new exciting words for gender. After all, gender people love finding new labels for ever more specific nuances of gender and coming up with new flags, I'm sure they can harness some of that creative energy to coming up with a handful of nouns and pronouns so man/woman/he/she/them can go back to being just based on sex.

Just a handful of new words would defang all this fear, anger and division!

“Unless you interpret disagreement as getting 'mauled'?”

I think that about sums it up.

People pointing out the logical flaws in this weak comparison will be ‘mauling’ a poster I suspect.

And no, remembering an individual’s choice of pronouns is nothing like remembering a new surname. Firstly, you can spend a very long time working or interacting with a person without knowing their surname or even their marital status. It is rarely relevant. And that person’s old identity has not been changed either. Also, if there is a group of people you are interacting with at the same time, when is it relevant to remember each person’s marital status and address it individually these days. We no longer introduce women as ‘Mrs [insert husband’s first and surname].

Secondly, the change of year is material reality that changes at a constant rate of life and cannot be changed in any way materially. It cannot go back and forth between years, it cannot be any other year. We can change the label, but then that requires a complete overhaul of every single person’s reality who uses that label. Still doesn’t change the reality. And if a year was then called a ‘minute’ it would not make a year into a ‘minute’ nor does it change the concept of time and how long a year is using the comparative point of the revolution around the sun.

The two situations are not analogous to a person who adopts a pronoun that falls outside of the established and taught parameters for clear communication. For a person who then may insist that everyone else complies to the demand to act as though they believe in that person’s philosophical belief.

A colleague left my workplace a while ago and I didn't know she was non-binary. So in a casual meeting in a corridor I said oh has Susie gone that's a pity I hear she did great work bla bla.

I got glared at and then told 'Oh yes THEY have gone to Canada' - Followed by more they/theming and exaggerated enunciation.

Eejit that I am and with the bloody hearing loss I thought she'd left for Canada with a partner and couldn't work out what the glaring was about. I only worked it out afterwards.

So I was basically pointedly being 'corrected' over 'misgendering' someone who no longer worked here and who wasn't present in the conversation. By an 'ally' I presume.

Eejit that I am and with the bloody hearing loss I thought she'd left for Canada with a partner and couldn't work out what the glaring was about. I only worked it out afterwards.

It wasn't you who were the eejit...

It's also the anger and shaming that you get for not knowing. If you'd make a mistake and discovered that the woman you'd thought was Susie all along was actually named Denise, people would laugh about it with you in a good-natured way - nobody would dream of glaring at you for being mistaken.

Bambie's birth name was Linnea Lagerqvist.

More detail on background here in this short vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=jcS3YOyODLA

It's similar to the tactics used by domestic abusers

Domestic abusers only sporadically have to resort to actual violence. Majority of the time they control their victim with the FEAR of violence if they 'do something wrong'

This keeps the victim in a state of cortisol heightened stress at all times, which over time, wears down their mental and ohysical health

In a similar way, extreme transgenderists control everyone around them by demanding that they police and contort their language for fear of losing their livelihoods and/or reputation

Thanks - it was very awkward at the time. I genuinely thought I must have done something very wrong as the Correcter was being very off with me. It felt like bullying.

Was talking to my friend who has young teenage girls about this. She tends to be supportive/ positive as one of her daughters is neurodiverse and clearly working out her sexuality, however occasionally my friend 'let's slip' a bit what she really thinks.

She says that non-binary seems to be taking over from trans as the new 'edgy' label that makes the kids cool and different but basically requires minimum commitment/ no cutting off tits/ taking damaging hormones and allows you to switch between looks and styles as you see fit (which, of course, is fine).

She commented that even her daughters had observed how a number of celebs have declared they are non-binary as a way of attracting attention/ adding difference/ generating PR/ gaining access to schemes and awards for 'underrepresented groups'.
Actor Emma Corrin was mentioned - The Crown raised her to fame from nowhere then suddenly she was the new 'They' around town being feted by Vanity Fair etc.

Back to Eurovision - if you look at Nemo's Instagram, Nemo looks much more male/camp/gay historically (especially in tagged photos). Perhaps they 'found' their non-binary-ness just in time for Eurovision?

Also, I was curious about who the girl in the pink suit was sitting next to him as the results came in - looked like a twin sister! Turns out it is his sister, Ella Mettler, but younger, and she is a stylist/photographer who has managed all his look/brand/PR etc.

I think the pink, fluffy, NB Nemo persona is definitely a careful curating of the Nemo 'brand' for Eurovision.

She says that non-binary seems to be taking over from trans as the new 'edgy' label that makes the kids cool and different but basically requires minimum commitment/ no cutting off tits/ taking damaging hormones and allows you to switch between looks and styles as you see fit (which, of course, is fine).

That sounds more like a normal, healthy teen trend to me. If 'trans' can morph into this then it'll be better all round for everyone.

Hear Hear.

Exactly. Life’s challenging enough already when you have a disability. I’ll always make an effort for someone with special needs, but not for someone who’s telling me to talk rubbish.

And as a PP says Compelled language is the start of a very slippery slope. We are already about halfway down that slope and I have no intention of freefalling to the bottom.

This numpty?

I agree. I hope kids are using this as a way to slip out of the trans cult.

Totally agree!

You’re so right. I genuinely can’t understand why this isn’t clear to all adults.

Or maybe it is clear. But it’s very much in misogynists’ interests to pretend it isn’t.

Does that numpties T-shirt say something about "dead trans kids"?

HAD to share this with you all!

Hilarious and absolutely true.

That's the one. Which got captioned on Twitter as "Bloody hell Salome, not again!"

Does that numpties T-shirt say something about "dead trans kids"?

It said "No More Dead Trans Kids".

Citation needed...

‘. Back to Eurovision - if you look at Nemo's Instagram, Nemo looks much more male/camp/gay historically (especially in tagged photos). Perhaps they 'found' their non-binary-ness just in time for Eurovision?’

November 2023 ( so six months) according to their biography.

SwedishKvinnaboske ·Thank you. I refuse to use plural pronouns for single individuals. I tend to remove those people from my life.