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

On your second point, me too!
I remember being called ‘lad’ and it’s stayed with me for life.
I used to be quite tomboy.

Also agree it shouldn’t be mandatory. Those who need to use it will.

I imagined that we would explain the issue carefully for anyone who came across it. And for the most part, it would be for people who are familiar with the issue and would like to use it.

If you're not sure about levels of understanding, I think one way forward is to ask questions. Mine would go something like:

What is the purpose of asking about preferred pronouns in addition to sex?
Why is the question about preferred pronouns mandatory?
How do they intend to use information about preferred pronouns?
Will other children in the group be required to use preferred pronouns?

Yy. Biological sex is crucial for accurate stats.

As far as op's issue, sex m/f should also be unambiguous. Except in clownfish world.

@Floisme you keep responding to my comments as if we're engaging in a conversation that we're not actually having. It's not helpful and actually a bit annoying.

My responses to other posters are just that; in response to their comments so please read them in that context. @LacTak suggested an 'I do not have a gender declaration' to which I responded that not everyone will understand the intention of this, as this thread has demonstrated, and used my son's nursery as a hypothetical example. My nursery haven't actually asked me to provide them with my son's gender, so I'm not sure why you're supplying me with questions for a scenario that I haven't suggested has happened or will happen (hypothetically or otherwise). @LacTak has since said that there would be an explanation to expand on the declaration, which would be helpful.

I would just ignore it.

Whether you like it or not, this kind of thing will become increasingly more prevalent in day to day life as your kids get older and there’s nothing you can do about it. Some children at 10 do explore with their identities a little, but if your child doesn’t that doesn’t mean they are exempt from having pronouns. If she hasn’t told you otherwise, then her preferred pronouns are she/her and her gender is female - end of story. No need to turn it into a huge problem.

I agree in your email that they aren’t inclusive with only having 3 pronoun choices, but having ‘none’ as an option doesn’t really make sense either.

You absolutely can challenge it. I, and other sensible parents, have got gender ideology completely out of our secondary school and ensured that sex as a protected characteristic is correctly taught.

Using wrong-sex pronouns for children is not a neutral act, as per Cass review. I also wonder if this breaches GDPR as organisations are only supposed to gather data that is needed. I cannot see how a child's gender identity is needed in order to register for an extension to a club activity.

You could also ask how collecting this information complies with GDPR.

I should have acknowledged your post at 9.43 - it's a fast moving thread so I didn't and I apologise for that.

In my subsequent post I was following the general direction of the thread. The post was not a direct response to you and I was not 'supplying you with questions' - or at least not you personally - but just adding my thoughts to the conversation.

I hope that clarifies matters.

(Edited for clarity)

I think if you are already asked sex in the form, it could be assumed that your pronouns match this unless you (want to) state differently.

I'd be ok with the question being optional. Or even could be covered in a "anything else we should know" section.

The root problem is that we live in a world in which a woman's worth is measured by whether men want to fuck her, which means that not being "pretty" is a bad thing for girls.

If how you looked didn't matter, I doubt you'd have cared about being mistaken for a boy.

If she hasn't told you otherwise?

Where does this nonsense come from? We should be teaching children to be comfortable in their skin however they express that, not that they've somehow been born in the wrong body.

To some extent yes, until puberty hits and the sex characteristics become more pronounced.

The 'fuckability' of pre-pubescent girls should be unthinkable.

How did we all cope in the centuries before gender ideology and preferred pronouns became a thing??!! This is the same non-argument that people use to say that pronouns at work are helpful in case someone has a name that you are not familiar with.

I am sure most children would correct the mistake, and if they didn't feel confident then someone else would speak up.

It is only recently that there is assumed to be some massive mental trauma caused, or it is the most disrespectful thing anyone could do to you if you are mistakenly misgendered. It is all about compulsion and control.

It probably didn’t work though - that’s why things have changed.

But I did say it shouldn’t be mandatory - where it’s helpful to say pronouns why not?

Exactly. My dd14 who is tall with short hair was misgendered (by an American) while we were on holiday. I wouldn't be surprised if he thought short hair = male gender according to the prevailing idiocy. Or maybe he was just short-sighted.

The thing to do then is finish the sentence. "He doesn't have a gender, he has a sex."

There is no such thing as "misgendering" because "gender" is not a real thing.

But it did work, and nobody was offended.

If you had a colleague with an unfamiliar name, invariably someone who knew them would use a sex based pronoun, or you'd speak to them on the phone or meet them in person and then you'd know.

Things haven't changed because it was a problem, things have change because of lobbying and capture of governments, companies, institutes and organisations by an insidious ideology.