Tinkerbell syndrome, pronoun badges and trans existence

[Alltheprettyseahorses]

Inspired by some posts in a now-full thread:

Someone in the workplace who is trans is literally existing as trans in public. Yet we are told that disagreeing with accessories like pronoun badges means we don't want transpeople to exist in public.

So - must trans necessarily involve others and is it so fragile an identity that it will disappear like Tinkerbell if not constantly affirmed by everyone around the transperson? Is not noticing the badge transphobic? As most people, including those with specific protected characteristics and including most transpeople to be honest, don't wear badges announcing their identity, does this mean they don't exist in public?

I would argue the sole purpose of pronoun badges is to involve others in the validation of a specific type of trans identity whether they consent to this or not and even if they don't understand they have been allocated as having a supporting role in someone else's main-character life. But speaking on a personal level, I have my own priorities and interests - I find it an imposition to be subjected to the macroaggression of being expected to change my natural language processes for someone who will never be part of my concerns.

(I don't normally start threads so if I don't come back I'm not shaving my hairy feet, I've probably forgotten or something)

The only way you can become a woman is to be conceived with XX chromosomes (or one of the very rare mutations connected with that), be born, because of those chromosomes, a baby human female and to grow, through time, to become an adult human female. No journey required or possible, no 'sense' required.

TWATW

But the whole illogicality is that a person with gender dysphoria apparently cannot be upset or challenged because they will literally disappear in a puff of smoke. Society is expected to pander them and their fragile mental state or fetish, but anyone with any other kind of dysmorphia or delusional identity is hopefully treated and helped to resolve their issues.
We don’t have long discussions about whether eating cake into the office should be banned because people with eating disorders might be upset.

The other point that the supporters of pronounery always miss is that man claiming female language or a woman rejecting it are not just declaring who they are (or believe themself to be), they are making a statement about who they believe every other person who is a "she" or a "he" is, (so pretty much everyone).

If I accede to cross sex pronouns I accede to the belief that the difference between men and women is in how our minds work not simply that we have different bodies.

Rejecting pronouns is not about denying someone's self image, it is about denying their attempt to redefine me.

Sex and gender are different things and so we need language that separates them no lumps them together or overwrites one with the other.

Good point @FlirtsWithRhinos . Yet another step on my road away from 'just be polite and use the words the other person prefers'. Sad really.

Pronounery is discriminatory against people whose first language is not English; people with disabilities; the elderly; people with speech impediments; people with learning disabilities and children

And why it may not be discriminatory, it's certainly cannot be enforced on people who do not believe in gender ideology.

Since the forstarter case gender critical women have an equal and opposite protected belief. So if everyone in a doctor's surgery, for instance, was wearing pronoun badges I'm wondering if one could request they also wear something like adult human female badges?

And whether that should be accommodated. Because if it isn't, it's deliberately favouring one belief over another.

Exactly.
Although I'm sure the person wearing the "adult human female" badge wouldn't last long in that surgery, for one reason or another.......

Yes. It's either no political/ideological symbols or any political/ideological symbols (as long as they are WORIADS). And I would plump for no symbols. Discreet religious symbols maybe, depending on the work context and the wider social context.

I think it's best to keep all political statements out of the workplace, especially when customer facing. So no Adult Human Female badges, no Stonewall lanyards, no Reform Party UK T shirts, no Extinction Rebellion sticker on the back of your computer. And no sodding pronoun badges.

Brilliant post. Thank you. I especially appreciate your fourth paragraph.

Hear hear

@FlirtsWithRhinos

You have articulated it perfectly.

Rejecting pronouns is not about denying someone's self image, it is about denying their attempt to redefine me.

I actually get really pissed off by women who declare themselves to be non binary. Because it is a comment on how they see women in general - they have decided that we are all like [insert stereotype here] and they want no part of it.

Well guess what? I don't want to be stereotyped and discriminated against because of my sex either!

That doesn't mean I'm not a woman ffs, because by that logic, all other women are happy to be discriminated against.

Why can so many people not grasp the astoundingly simple concept that everything we do affects others? No one exists in a vacuum. And it's not reasonable to demand that all the consideration and all the adjustments only go one way.

Edit for clarity: declaring yourself to be not part of a group has an impact on the others in that group.

Yes I agree, I find the whole concept of "non binary" offensive and self-centred. I'm not going to acknowledge it as legitimate in any way.

Same. I can see it getting really bloody farcical.

self centeredness is the legs this nonsense walks on

In circumstances at work where I've had to choose between lying and avoiding pronouns when referring to an absent third-party, I've really felt the cognitive friction. It is, for me, as difficult as the time I hired a car on holiday and drove on the right. I kept reaching for the gear stick and finding the door.

That's a good analogy!

Shaky foundations too, surely if they have courage in their convictions, being misgendered wouldn't be an issue.

If it wasn't about control, why would they care what I or any other person thinks?

I wonder if this council has any trans social workers, and if so, what happens if an elderly client with dementia or even just mild cognitive impairment gets their pronouns wrong, or openly mocks them. My elderly relative would probably have been rude or dismissive if she’d seen a she/her badge being worn by someone who was obviously male. People with those conditions lose their social inhibitions and tell it like it is.

OP has given a great example where she challenged a local authority on this.

Sorry meant to quote @Zita60

I'm a woman, but have short hair and I wear slightly baggy clothes and generally am just a bit scruffy. It's just what's comfortable for me but it means that I get misgendered a lot because someone else thinks their 'truth' is that I'm a man. Little did I know that if they think I am a man they might refuse to call me a woman because they refuse to go against their beliefs and that my existence is part of a political campaign to get people to OBEY.

To be honest, I'd just like to use toilets in peace (lets not even get into that debate). Or go to the shop and not have an awkward interaction. Or have people shout after me in the street 'is that a mum or a dad!?' when I'm walking with my infant son. Leave me alone! I didn't put a badge on to anger you.

This is bizarre to me. I'm 5'11", with short hair, and I also wear baggy clothes a fair amount. I have NEVER been misgendered, not once. Even when I also had a skinhead.

I've been misgendered from behind more times than I can be bothered to count. Usually when in a queue or similar waiting situation, or at the basins in the women's toilets. The moment I turn around or speak, they realise their misidentification and briefly apologise. And that's it. Neither they nor I are in any way harmed or distressed by the interaction.

When I do not display gender-code stereotypes and look unfeminine - tall, broad, short hair, jeans, bomber jacket, men's shoes, standing with feet apart in a stable stance - people misidentify. When they see the evidence of my female biology - my female facial features, the way I move on my wide, female hips, hear my higher-pitched female voice - there is no confusion.

And I think this is specifically what part of "she who shall not be named" was trying to say to the GP manager on the phone.
For which there was no answer apart from "I'm not having this conversation with you, I'm really not".

For clarity.
The words "dictatorial" and "authoritarian" were already used somewhere - when someone in authority has taken it upon themselves to make the rules and silence any voices of dissent, and refuse to listen to, or even acknowledge opposing views, what else IS it?

It's refusing to accede to their belief that "woman" is a concept in a man's head, a fantasy.

Yes, it's Not Like Other Girls taken to the nth degree.

Not specifically a man's head... for women as well, according to genderists the thing that makes us women is a concept in our heads that we are.

This belief that the things "women" (and "men") have in common, the things that make them "women" not "men" and vice versa (or neither), are mental not physical is bad for women especially in two directions.

Firstly because it asserts that women and men fundamentally think/feel/act/desire in ways that are so different they need to be labelled as different types of human, and secondly because it erases the cultural recognition of the differences we do experience from our sex, both our own lived experience today and the reality of women's history of oppression that brought us here.

The watershed moment for my feminist consciousness-raising was realising that it doesn't matter how little I feel like or behave like other women, the rest of world will still treat me as one.

Feeling "not like the other girls" is basically life as an autistic woman. And guess who is nearly three times more likely to be sexually assaulted during their lives compared to the baseline female population? Autistic women and girls!

Not only do my oppressors not care about my feelings, they will also weaponise the very autism that causes those feelings against me. In all the ways that matter, I am very much like the other girls:

• female, so rapeable and fuckable.
• catnip to abusers because they can smell my vulnerability to isolation tactics and similar dirty tricks a mile off.

Autistic women are women. Women who don't feel like the other girls are women. Women who really want to escape womanhood are women. Women wearing he/him pronoun badges and binders are women.