Mandated to give my ten year old's pronouns - how to respond

[Gofastboatsmojito]

I've recently had to fill in a form for my daughter's hobby, she's joining a group to rehearse and perform which builds on the standard teaching class.

As part of this I had to fill in a form which asked for her gender and her preferred pronouns. She's 10 FFS, and her school luckily don't go in for teaching gender ideology, sticking to a more factual PSHE curriculum. So she hasn't got a gender or pronouns.

I've filled the form in because I don't want her to miss out on this further opportunity, and I have no reason to believe the group, which is council run, are gender ideologues. I think they're just trying to be modern / some secondary children also do this hobby so maybe there have been requests from older children's parents.

I'd like to email my contact, who I email relatively often, expressing why this question is problematic.

How does the below sound? I'd like to add something about Cass but I'm not sure what the best point to include woukd be at very grateful for your ideas.

Preferred pronouns is a mandatory field (with only 3 choices! She/her, He/him, They/them - not very inclusive) but ethnicity has about 5 different questions where you can choose an Asian ethnicity or n/a, a Black ethnicity or n/a, a White non-European ethnicity or n/a, White European, or just opt out entirely. Its a badly designed form tbh.

Thanks

I hope you don't mind a little bit of feedback. I'm not happy being asked for my child's gender or pronouns. She doesn't have a gender or pronouns, she has a sex (female).

Asking for pronouns is akin to asking for a religion without giving the option of 'none', so I respectfully suggest you consider adding 'no preferred pronouns' or similar to the list of options, or adding an 'opt out' as you do for ethnicity

Calphurnia and running. No, I don’t ‘prefer’ that people call me she, apart from anything I’m unlikely to be there so I won’t know (it’s really rude to talk use ‘she’ when the subject is present). It doesn’t affect me at all, I know I’m a woman and if other people can’t tell that I’m a woman that’s their problem, not mine. they’d be wrong to call me ‘he’ though, and whoever they are talking to will think they are very odd.

So I could use whatever pronouns I wanted for you then? I could use he/him if you’re female? I’m female and wouldn’t be happy with someone using he/him for me but if you don’t mind that’s great for you

Sorry. That was rude of me and I apologise for that. I do also think referring to me as an idiot for having a different opinion to you was rude of you but two wrongs etc.

You could use wrong gender pronouns for me if you wanted (I'm male so she, her etc). You could also use past tense verbs for talking about events in the future, or put capital letters in the middle of every third word. People would just find you confusing to communicate with though.

But I thought you said respecting preferred pronouns made no sense. Now not doing it is confusing

No, those are my adverbs, not adverbs I'm ascribing to you.

If someone asked me for my adverbs, I'd give cleverly, angrily, and idiotically. That was the joke.

I completely understand your reaction now that I know that you thought that I was calling you those things.

Thank you.

Using wrong sex pronouns is not really about linguistics, or cognitive dissonance and I think arguments get sidetracked sometimes. Currently, it is about signalling support of an ideology.

At this point I have neither the time nor energy to keep up with the mental gymnastics of people trying to justify that 'my daughter has no gender or pronouns' isn't a confusing statement to make when trying to complain that these shouldn't be mandatory fields in a registration form.

A complaint that I agree with, btw. I just think it could be more clearly worded since there's potential for misinterpretation (as this thread has demonstrated).

Enjoy your debate 😃

My objection would be that the mandatory question and the wording of it imply all children have a gender identity as well as a sex.

I would suggest that they replace the question with something like:
'We use birth sex pronouns with all children unless we are directed otherwise, and in writing, by parents.
If you are happy for us to use birth sex pronouns with your child then please leave this section blank and go on to the next question.
''If you wish us to use pronouns other than birth sexed ones with your child then you must state them here. (Follow with free text / dropdown box / both.)
Please note that we will not direct other children to use preferred pronouns.'

The wording may need tightening up but that's the gist.

Flousime- I disagree. It doesn’t need mentioning at all. Why should anyone need to explain that they will address children in the entirely normal and grammatically correct way? In most such forms there is a space to give details of any additional needs / health issues and the person’s specific request regarding people using particular pronouns can be mentioned there or in a separate email.

I said that the whole concept of preferred pronouns is nonsensical. Not that referring to obvious men as "she" wouldn't be confusing.

I do take your point. I think the wording I suggested would answer my prime objections which are that: 1) belief in gender identity should not be a default 'setting' and 2) that children should never be forced to comply with it. But fine if you disagree!

(edited for typo)

Ah I see! I’m sorry I misunderstood you

@Gofastboatsmojito You can write what you want, but what are you hoping the response will be?

If the people behind this request are fully committed to gender ideology, they will mark you down as a TERF, and maybe even take it out on your DD in subtle ways.

On the other hand, if they are just trying to "keep up with modern times" and think it's "nice and considerate and inclusive" to ask about pronouns, they will probably be a bit disconcerted and not know how to respond. Now, maybe making people who do that uncomfortable is part of the way forward (although as a PP noted, the gender/pronouns thing seems to be on the way out anyway), but that's a choice you would be making.

It is, after all, only a hobby. Do you want to fight this war (with which, by the way, I am in broad sympathy) on this particular front? One can make a case for that (slippery slope, thin end of the wedge, etc), but one can also make a case for keeping one's powder dry, bigger fish to fry, etc. There's a veritable smorgasbord of applicable metaphors. 😉

Here's a test you could use, perhaps. If you get an unsatisfactory reply, or no reply at all, are you prepared to tell DD "Sorry, but you're not going to that club?", and explain the reasons to her? That would be a principled way to go about it.

I'm not suggesting that any particular course of action is right or wrong. But if you want to make an issue out of it, you might want to have an endgame plan in place, because DD will certainly pick up on your dislike of the place if you aren't happy with their response. (Also, statistically, it's pretty likely that 100% of the boys will be he/him and 100% of girls will be she/her anyway.🤷‍♂️)

Actually, in my institution, we are told to not ask for ‘preferred’ pronouns anymore as that is not sufficiently inclusive. Now it’s just pronouns. The goal post has shifted just ever so slightly.

If the people behind this request are fully committed to gender ideology, they will mark you down as a TERF

If the people behind this request are downing the Koolaid by the quart, they would know to make the form field optional already.

Universities are terrible for this. You'd think that Phoenix vs OU would have sharpened some minds, but no...

I speak two languages fluently, including one that has gendered nouns (not my native tongue) and can get along in three other languages, though don’t use two of them regularly.

As I said before, no, I don’t have to remember a variance in someone’s pronouns very often as it’s actually not something you encounter all that much in day-to-day life, with the probable exception being high schools where teens have made it a bit of a thing to experiment with pronouns, as teens are wont to do (experiment).

I don’t know what to tell you. It’s just not that hard and most people I talk to about pronouns don’t seem to find it that hard either. It seems to be mostly a straw man created by people who don’t like people to use pronouns other than those of their birth sex.

No, I don’t have a system to explain, just like I don’t have a system for remembering people’s names, and I didn’t have a system for remembering when some of my friends changed their surnames after marriage. I just learned over time, and self-corrected when I made mistakes. Eventually I had to stop and think a moment to remember my friends’ maiden names.

I’m sorry you struggle to learn people’s names but I’m certainly not “gifted” in this regard. Out of interest, what industry do you work in that you have to remember so many changed pronouns and how many are we talking about? I work in the communications field and counting up, there are five people that I use “alternative” pronouns for on any kind of regular basis. There may be others who I’m not thinking of right now but I don’t refer to them regularly.

So lie and pretend??

Everyone has pronouns OP.

I am trying to imagine what positive purpose it would serve for me to bloody-mindly insist on referring to my colleague’s late teen child who is transitioning by their birth sex, or insist on referring to a lovely professional contact who uses them/them pronouns as he/him when I write about them.

When I think about these people, their transgender nature is an inherent part of the overall mental picture I have of them. In that regard it doesn’t seem to me that I am “lying and pretending” by using pronouns “transgenderly”. That aligns with the fact that they are a) fairly obviously transgender at first glance and b) I know them personally so know with a certainty the way they like to be referred to.

You can call this “lying and pretending” if you like but I call it basic courtesy in regard to them being transgender rather than simply male or female (no I don’t need a lecture about how their chromosomes and probably genitals have not changed, transgender is a social role, not a biological one).

So lie and pretend for social reasons?
A social reason could be a predator's plan to access girls and ladies spaces....

Basic courtesy?
Where's the basic courtesy towards me?
I've often been dubbed "cis" despite repeatedly saying I am offended by this.

Unfortunately all this handmaidening, being #kind, favouritism all goes one way.

And what if that man is clearly making an effort to present gender markers associated with femininity, eg wearing a dress, makeup, long hair, nail polish etc. is this not a fairly obvious set of clues that this person wants to be treated as something other than their birth sex?

When I say “real effort” what I mean is a genuine intention to try to respect people’s preferred pronouns in the rare situations it arises. Most people who say “it’s too hard to remember” are also quite clear that they have no intention of using preferred pronouns if they can possibly avoid it because of their philosophical perspective. So I don’t think it’s genuinely terribly difficult for them to do, they just don’t want to even try.

They're cosplaying womanhood, womanface if you like.

At first I thought it was harmless and now I've peaked and I find it offensive.