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)

Are you likely to be told you are guilty of a hate crime if you get someone's name wrong?

It's not the same thing I'm afraid.

I can’t get my head around a whole movement teaching people that their welfare relies on complete validation from everyone they may meet - this is bonkers, completely unsustainable, and just why are so many pandering to this self obsessed nonsense.

I’d far rather vulnerable people were taught to do whatever the fuck they want and learn to accept themselves and live fulfilling lives without expecting others to play along. It wasn’t like this in the 70s, 80s, 90s. When and why did this start?

I don’t believe that gender is a real thing that exists, it’s a made up ideology that expects people to conform to rigid gender stereotypes. I’m not going to call an obvious man she/her because I’m lying, and that has mental health consequences for me. If someone requires complete validation at all times they need help, not 100% validation, that’s just not a realistic expectation to have, in any situation.

What is equally true? Do you think people having 'complicated or unusual names' means that people don't know their sex?

This might be true when you see the names written down and think 'I wonder how you pronounce that' or 'I wonder if that doctor is male or female', but when you see them you can see what sex they are, so it's not the same thing at all.

If you persistently and deliberately did so, then yes, there would potentially be misconduct etc, and if it were racially aggravated, or attached to another protected characteristic, and had a crime attached, yes, you could be reported and investigated for hate crime.

Even the Forstater judgement stated it wasn’t a legal license to intentionally and consistently misgender people in the workplace.

Me too. My heart sinks when I see one of these things.

No, you’ve missed the point. Your post was about people struggling with challenging pronouns, and concluding that meant pronouns badges shouldn’t be displayed.

I’m saying names are way more challenging, and cause the same issues all the time in healthcare, with patients struggling, getting it wrong etc. the medical profession and patients seem to cope just fine with that, so pronoun badges really aren’t some disastrous distraction for patients.

@francescacontini Oh. I see it more as like having a goth appearance or wearing religious paraphernalia. Something very important to that person but largely irrelevant to me.

Not all trans people are like this.
Many just exist in the world alongside the rest of the human race.

I don’t understand the first sentence of your final paragraph. Please can you explain what you mean?

Why would you need to have a whole conversation? A simple, "I'm being dealt with thanks." Is all that's needed.

Even if you were having a third party conversation, "the other receptionist said x, y and z . . Can you help me? Or Are they still here? Can I speak to them?" Honestly don't understand informal pronouns for people you don't know. They and them have never had so much fuss for being naturally used.

The declaration stuff is daft, if you're talking to someone of course you're using you, and I.

But that is a completely different thing, isn't it? You're conflating two entirely different things.

If you persistently and deliberately do anything offensive to someone in sheer attempt to aggravate then yes, of course.

An elderly or distressed person accidentally using the wrong pronouns, or feeling uncomfortable about saying something against their own perceptions and not wishing to do this, is not being persistent or deliberate. And yet still may be faced with accusations of offending.

I would suspect, based on long experience, that a doctor with a difficult to remember or say name would also know this as an every day thing and have no problem with someone who struggled with saying that name, or find it a barrier to providing care. It would not be seen as the distress, disrespect, insult, erasure or literal violence that using the wrong pronoun can be portrayed as.

Almost all names in the UK are gendered, and people who identify as the opposite sex usually change their names, so a name badge is sufficient. Pronoun badges are just making a political point. You can tell what gender someone wishes to be regarded as by their name.

The 'it doesn't bother some people (and therefore I decree it's fine to coerce or exclude those it does') argument continues to be an entirely empty one.

Everyone is free to play pronouns if they wish; no one's trying to stop them. The right not to play must be equally respected.

I wouldn't wear a pronoun badge and tend to do an inward eye roll when I encounter one. But I think people wear them with different motivations and I don't assume they're all bad ones.

I would imagine 90% of people don't even notice someone wearing one (there's all sorts of research evidence on just how unobservant we are of our surroundings) and if they do notice it probably react with mild puzzlement.

If the GC movement really starts getting exercised about pronoun badges then it's going to look seriously nuts to most people. You can find them personally offensive or irritating, of course, but at least be aware, as campaigners in a supposedly serious political movement to effect change, that that is the reality.

People adorned with that kind of paraphernalia don’t generally expect you to make adjustments to the way you instinctively speak about them, ie what they wear doesn’t require anything on your part. A pronoun badge, on the other hand, does.

If a man I come into contact with eg at a reception is wearing a pronoun badge that says:

Shirley
She / her

then my brain is already starting to hurt at the potential mental gymnastics this man is obviously expecting everyone around him to go through.

Oh I see what you mean now.

Names can be challenging, but patients and other staff get them wrong all the time, but it doesn't matter and everyone copes with the errors.

Pronoun badges (particularly those which indicate that the person likes others to use opposite sex pronouns for them) can cause confusion. Patients and other staff don't always remember or don't even notice, so use sex-based pronouns, and that's fine.

How very dare users of a gp be distracted about their health or whats going on for them to be using their doctor. Surely they realise theyre only bit players in other people's lives!

In fact, many names in the UK are not gendered.

And the UK has significant immigrant communities bringing names from across the globe that are not at all firmly gendered in UK culture.

If I'd been intensively targeted with dozens of rape, torture and death threats every day for years on end, my home address published, my children's personal details exposed, my work obstructed, my politics misrepresented by mainstream and social media; if I'd been assaulted by raging men every couple of months; if I'd been violently mobbed by angry men to the point of fearing murder, all by 'pronoun people': I'd react strongly to a 'pronoun person' apparently requiring my compliance.

Note that KJK has not done ANY of these things herself. She suffers it; she doesn't retaliate. I'm not surprised she's jumpy - and angry about it.

Pronoun person didn’t require anything of KJK - they directed her how to lodge a complaint. That’s it.

Are you suggesting anyone who’s been threatened by people from a certain group is justified in harassing anyone else they encounter from that group? men are in big trouble, huge trouble in that case. Better not employ or house them either.

I was a child of the 70s and vulnerable people weren't taught to do whatever the fuck they wanted. They were told they were weird and left on the periphery.
If a badge helps someone see themselves more clearly then good on them.

Being stressed about your medical condition can do more than make you not see a badge.

A friend asked me about the Dr I saw at A&E after one miscarriage, couldn't remember his name, (pronoun I know), she tried (yes my friend is female and identifies as such) to describe the Dr she thought it might have been, tall, quite a strong accent, very short dark hair.

My dear, he could have been purple with yellow polka dots. I genuinely only remembered that this Dr was a man. What the hell did he know what having a miscarriage felt like was the only thought I had when he offered me cocodamol.

Still wouldn't recognise that Dr.

You're diminishing the intense, targeted nature of the attacks.

What she goes through isn't like "some men have hurt me" - though that, in itself, can elicit strong PTSD reactions to the presence of men. It's more like being a Protestant during the Inquisition or, say, a Jew in 1930s Germany. Being faced by someone in Catholic regalia or wearing Nazi insignia could easily prompt that reaction.

She could've done it more calmly ... if she were someone like me, who hasn't been so persistently, aggressively and violently targeted.

As for as I am concerned the whole concept of using non-correct pronouns is foolish and unhealthy, not just for the people being imposed upon, but the people asking for it.

It's extremely psychologically unhealthy and I think makes people even more vulnerable long term. The young people who have been taught that it is about being polite and respectful have been sold a lie, and one that is damaging.

So, it really shouldn't be happening, even apart from the imposition on others.

That being said, I am not convinced the way to address that is to attack some young fool in her workplace. The young women, and a lot of the young men, I see dragged into this stuff have been abused, and that will do nothing to help them heal or come to a more realistic perspective. If anything it's the opposite.

FWIW, I have a young person in my household who was sucked in for a time, and I refused to use either opposite sex or "their" type pronouns. But this was someone I knew and could talk to and what's more had a responsibility to. The young people who I know casually, I ignore it, I am in no position to tell them off, I don't know enough about them. I am 100% positive this is fucking them up, that doesn't mean I can address it.

All that said - I think workplaces should make it clear to staff that they can have no particular expectations that customers agree with their belief system. That is the kind of thing that may begin to give these kids a bit of clarity.

Is this honestly how you see KJK?
A wee traumatised woman?
Really?