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)

Therefore validating somebody's advocacy of it is an expectation that is going to remain unfulfilled.

Yep.

Exactly. The pronoun badges, the idea of "misgendering" - it all boils down to one word: OBEY.

'minor adjustment'

How many times do we have to say and stress the point that making other people say things they know to be untrue is not a neutral act. Nor is it a minor act.

Hannah Arendt talks about just how significant and massive it is to get people to comply and obey in this manner when they know things to not be true.

I honestly just don't get it. As a transman, I just want to live my life. I don't need every other person I come across to validate it for me.
The thought of wearing a pronoun badge makes me cringe. I get "misgendered" so many times. Yes, sometimes it can feel upsetting but I acknowledge that that's my issue, not theirs. I've come to terms with how I feel about who I am.
I don't want to run around screaming that I'm a man. I just want to order my coffee and sit quietly. Unfortunately I seem to be in the minority of trans people.
I've actually only come across genuine transphobia once. The worst bullying I've received has been from the trans community themselves, for honestly such ridiculous reasons.

I think you're missing the point.

GC: no one needs to use anyone’s pronoun in their presence in their presence, and you can use their name when referring to them to a third party, and nobody cares anyway

also GC: compelled speech and dire consequences due to seeing a pronoun badge

As a movement so proud of incisive logic I’m surprised you don’t see the inherent contradiction here.

We are individual people with different experiences and different reactions to them.

There is no movement.

Just human beings. No group, no membership rules, no annual fees, no rules, no agenda, no meetings, no newsletter.

Some of us quite old, some of us with experience of living in lots of different societies, some of us neurodiverse with a lifetime of having to adapt our behaviors and speech to the multiple different expectations of us, according to the people we are interacting with. Some of us used to paring things back to basics. Some of us who have never gone in for conforming to gender rules because we think gender is a nonsensical theory and we don't let other people's theories define our lived existence. Some of us not enthusiastic about a whole new set of rules where the base line is an expectation we prop up the egos of people more interested in performance than in doing their jobs or in just getting on with life. Some of us reacting to the new rules, all based on the fantasies of individuals, so not consistent or predictable, in different ways.

I am not a member of a movement. I just observe that 'gender' is crap.

No movement.

Do you think Drs with complicated or unusual names should hide them, or not use them?

Actually my previous GP did exactly this, and a consultant I'm currently seeing does the same. Both have complicated surnames so they're known by their first names, to make things easier for their patients, I think it's a kind thing for them to do and I appreciate anything that keeps healthcare patient centred.

Happily for everyone (well, everyone except the identifiable people picked on by KJK, and the other GP staff and patients impacted by this) people can watch KJK’s video and see for themselves.

To a non GC eye, it’s a shocking and harmful over-reaction that gets into very clearly transphobic commentary.

To your eye, it’s not.

I’m not getting in a to and fro with you over the facts, and my post said nothing about you condoning or otherwise. You are not the main character in this story.

One of our priests does this, he has an unusual, non-European, polysyllabic surname, so went with his simpler Christian name when he came to work here. Much appreciated.

I am smiling a little when I remember that Sister Cecelia spent two years in school referring to me as Emmeline, not anything like my actual name and always a mystery as to why. But I knew she meant me, she knew she meant me, so why fret?

I am on this thread. I am responding to the questions posed in the OP, specifically the 'why' of pronoun badges and the etiquette of human interaction. Why are you pulling KJK, evidently the subject of another thread, into this one? I have no idea about what happened with her (and chose not to read about her, and really don't want to have to read a re-hash), but do think the OP was interesting and can be discussed without dragging it back to one individual.

Perhaps if they were a little more secure in their fictitious identities they wouldn't insist on the rest of us ignoring reality in order to play along with their nonsense.

Yep, TOTALLY agree, people CAN watch the video, and see for themselves that you are adding salacious details that did not happen.

There WAS NO swearing at the receptionist.
It simply didn't happen.

And again, I have said so many times I'm fucking bored of it, that it was an over-reaction handled badly, but spicing up the interaction with false details seems to be par for course around here.

I'll not address your infantile last comment, grow up.

Just as I wouldn't tell someone with anorexia they need keep going with not eating, I won't affirm a mentally ill person they're something they're not.

😂😂😂

Trans activists have cried wolf so much, so hard, and so ridiculously, that actual transphobia/hate crime is going to get disbelieved.

@WinkyMcFlapFace "Showing pronouns on badges arguably makes it easier for second language English speakers, and those who struggle to remember or use pronouns. "

You're not a SLE speaker, right? I am pretty fluent (C2), but as I don't live in an English speaking country, conducting a conversation in English is a MAJOR stressor. My brain is constantly reviewing the grammar and vocabulary of what I just said, while composing the next sentence. At a party in England with many guests, I typically get brain fog after about two hours, my brain just stops processing, and I just hear gobbledigook.
And on top of that you want to require from people who may be less competent than I am, to read and follow pronoun announcements that are counter factual? Not helpful .

They would probably get better results with a name badge stating "Ms Jones" or "Jane Jones" , also because that is about interaction ( " I'd like you to call me Miz Jones , not Mister Jones" ) , not submission ("Don't you dare calling me him, when talking to your child over there in the corner ( I am watching )") .

I'll not address your infantile last comment, grow up.

It's DARVO. Some people can't help themselves. Always illuminating.

And on top of that you want to require from people who may be less competent than I am, to read and follow pronoun announcements that are counter factual? Not helpful .

Quite. I think it's clear that this poster doesn't actually care, it's just a gotcha.

Oh wow - GC people are not group-thinking clones!

GC people have a range of different experiences, opinions, and ways of dealing with situations, but what they all have in common is that sex is real, sex matters, and gender ideology is harmful crap.

Rather like women have a range of different experiences, opinions, and ways of dealing with situations, but what they all have in common is that they are all adult human females.

People will be very pleased to hear that KJK agrees with you that she shouldn't have got so angry.

So we can put this to bed right? Or will there be another 900 odd denouncements before bedtime?

😂
Saying "you aren't the main character in this story" is not DARVO. And the post that line came from was completely reasonable.

It was a bit snarky but that's not surprising given the ongoing digs from the other poster.

People are at liberty to request use of special pronouns, I am at liberty to refuse or ignore.

A badge stating wrong sex or neo-pronouns is an instruction which the pronouns-havers have no right to issue.

At work, I don't believe that employers should encourage pronoun display. The pronouns-havers should be allowed to request special pronouns on an individual basis, but not insist. They can see themselves as they like, and so can everyone else. And if pronouns are allowed, then so should any other political or religious statement as long as it is WORIADS.

Where I am the client, customer or patient, the wishes of pronouns-haver are neither here nor there.

Oh we know. She was just being "mama bear" and couldn't help having a tantrum that she livestreamed to the nation 😂

Pronoun badges centre the care giver not the patient.

They signal "my needs come first."

Whilst I recognise that these sorts of professions, like my own, can be stressful and mental health is very important, at the end of the day the people for whom we are caring for are the priority.

It's fine to ask to be treated respectfully within a drs surgery for example, but that is very different to a pronoun badge which is demanding that one participates in an ideology not everyone follows.

Religious symbols can be taken or left.