How to react when your child corrects you about someone's pronouns?

[Thirtyfiveandcounting]

My dd is 12 & so far has had a very sheltered life. I am extremely GC & she has never asked about trans or non binary & does not have a phone . Anyways she had a sleepover with a friend in Sun night, she came home & was talking about a particular signed, I said he's a great singer & she said very crossly "they, he's non binary".. I didn't know how to react so I just said "that's me corrected!" to which she replied "yes it is" 😭 She said the girls mother then showed them a video of this singers new music video..
I think I should be blasé & not push my opinion which might push her into rejecting me? I don't want to get this wrong.

Maybe instead you could be proud you are raising a daughter who respects other people and their choice of pronouns.

Fair comment. Sometimes the obvious needs spelling out, though. And, well, time on my hands ...

Lol, I will take that!

About as proud as I can be for my kids believing in father Xmas, tooth fairy ect..

My DS has a "non-binary" friend (female sex). When a sleepover was proposed with all boys and this girl, I said they would have to sleep in a separate room and he said I was being anti-trans. So I told him I am anti teen-pregnancy and that was the rules. I am as polite to this teen as to all my children's friends, use their preferred new name and avoid saying "she".

DS and I have had a number of very heated discussions about gender and it all got very unpleasant to the extent that I now refuse to talk with him any more about it because we go around in circles. (It would have saved a lot of hot air and anger if I had taken the "that's nice dear" approach suggested above but my biggest failing is my inability to let something go that I disagree with.)

Anyway, he knows my views - that sex is immutable and important, gender is a social construct and somewhat less important than sex, and whilst we should be kind to people, my privately held view of anyone who makes a big deal out of having a "gender identity" is that they are attention-seeking, or just the common teen-searching-for-who-they-really-are who will eventually get over themselves.

Subsequently this NB friend has caused a hell of a lot of drama in the friendship group and DS has gone much quieter about how important it is that we all go out of our way to make them feel accepted. I hope he is starting to see that perhaps the NB claim is really just a symptom of other problems that aren't solved by everyone using the right pronouns.

Or alternatively you could tell her that everybody has a sex, either male or female, and that “non binary” is a part if an ideology that you don’t subscribe to.
OP, your child didn’t “correct” you, she was unduly influenced by another parent who holds a different view than you.

@ClamFandango My DD has noticed that all of her NB friends have other MH issues and/or neurodivergence and can be quite demanding in terms of how much time and attention they expect from others.

Yes it was I laughed it off & was very blasé. I've learned the hard way a couple of years ago with some friends, I let my thoughts be known & I was shouldered out of the group, according to a recently GC convert they saw me as very "opinionated" & no longer had much in common with me. This is why I don't want to tarnish my relationship with my daughter.. Once bitten twice shy!

OP

Come on now. Aren't you the grownup here? Surely you have different responsibilities to your child than you do to your friends. Who sound a bit judgy by the way.

Except it is correct English. Singular they/their has been used grammatically for a very long time.

Yes. And it’s demonstrated every week in Sewing Bee when they judge the round where the judging is blind- “This person has chosen their fabric very wisely” “This person has really taken their time over the sleeves”.

@Whatever1964 It has but only when you don’t know the person’s sex or are talking about a hypothetical person.

eg ‘I could see a person in the far distance, they were moving slowly towards the lake’

’When a customer comes to the counter, greet them and ask what they are looking for today’

Whereas ‘This is John, they are 45 and live in Bridlington’ is rather jarring and potentially confusing for people with Speech and language difficulties.

Your DD should not be talking to you in that fashion. 'That's me corrected' is a sort of jokey rebuke. Your DD took it as an apology. Not ideal to let this pass, but under the bridge now. Next time this comes up you could say, well, everyone's non-binary (i.e. 98% of the population do not have a gender identity) but when you refer to people you use the proper pronouns if you know their SEX, so her NB friend is 'he', because sex does not change. 'They' is only properly used as a) a plural and b) of a person whose sex you do not know e.g. because they are too far away, are described in words (not seen) or have an androgenous name such as Evelyn. Once you know 'Evelyn's' sex 'they' becomes 'he'.

That's correct usage of 'they/their'. But once you know the person's sex it is incorrect to use 'they/their'.

Personally, I'm surprised this hasn't come up before. I've had this conversation with DD and she's only 9.

My general approach is that to a large extent, I'll use pronouns if requested but that to me it seems a bit pointless as ultimately, you are either a man or a woman and therefore choosing alternative pronouns doesn't make sense. I've also made the point to my DC that while it's one thing to use pronouns to be kind, I'm very conscious there's a line that starts to make me very very uncomfortable and where I will not go such as agreeing that a man wearing a dress is a woman and should therefore be allowed in my changing room etc.

But isn’t the point that someone who is non-binary may not present with an obviously gendered name or appearance, so you might not know?

@vawodoc I thought your post was interesting. Some of your examples are oxymorons (married bachelor, square circle) so it’s interesting that non-binary could also be considered an oxymoron especially in the phrase ‘non-binary human’. (Replace ‘human’ with the name of any other mammal and the same applies).

No it's not. You can dislike it, but it's not technically incorrect.

I'd never heard of GC and just had to look it up. It's quite in line with my own thinking but I just don't see a place for gender at all. I am yet to understand why we need it.

Can you say 'I'll refer to people by their sex as I find it less confusing but if you want to refer to gender that's your choice' and go into your reasons for your views?

@TimeandMotion I find it’s almost always possible to know what sex a person is. It can be more difficult from photographs (especially if there’s been some editing), but in real life, it’s usually fairly obvious.

But in the conversation that OP had the person was not present in real life.

It's not incorrect English and they haven't found yet that it causes any major difficulties for people's comprehension. It's been an acceptable pronoun for a singular person for centuries and it's now being used in more contexts than previously - that's how language works. You can dislike it but it can't be claimed to be incorrect English.

I critically analysed the op posts and situ. Assignment of non state body websites is hardly fair, I am not employed by you to evaluate research or publications.

I get paid for that task, but I assume that this response won't help you understand the distinction.

I'd never heard of GC and just had to look it up. It's quite in line with my own thinking but I just don't see a place for gender at all.

Most gender critical people don’t see a place for gender at all. We see it as collections of stereotypes that we’ve been trying to break out of for decades. Unfortunately trans and NB ideology really cements gender stereotypes. It’s incredibly regressive.

That’s true, but they were talking about a celebrity whose sex was already known to the OP.