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

Why not just put female and she/her? You're already using gender about your daughter. The person organising this is just trying to build community and get something going for the kids. Why cause trouble? This gender pronoun thing is already going out of fashion. Just chill.

I do hope you are right about it going out of fashion. But which way to go if you don’t want to continue to feed the beast: that is the question. Do you choose to state your objections or refuse to be complicit?

That’s as silly as saying people don’t “have” a hair colour, people just use normal English terms to describe the hair colours they observe.

There’s no need to tie yourself in knots to avoid accepting that she has pronouns that she uses just because you don’t like the way others people use pronouns.

Those posters saying, "of course she has pronouns" are either blissfully unaware that a request for pronouns is a request for "preferred pronouns" and thus an indication of a belief in gender identity or are being bloody minded and awkward for the sake of it.

OP, I really liked your suggested email (apart from the slightly apologetic tone which others have pointed out) but after reading some of the replies, I'd reword it in case whoever receives your email pretends not to understand what the problem is.

Maybe something on the lines of:

"My daughter's pronouns are sex based. She has not chosen preferred pronouns, either in align with her sex recognised at birth or differing from those relating to her sex recognised at birth, as she is a child and does not have a gender identity.

The current form does not allow anyone to opt out of answering this question and is therefore discriminatory."

Those posters saying, "of course she has pronouns" are either blissfully unaware that a request for pronouns is a request for "preferred pronouns" and thus an indication of a belief in gender identity or are being bloody minded and awkward for the sake of it.

Not, it’s not that. While I accept that it’s fair for the OP to ask for the pronouns question to be made optional rather than mandatory if she strongly objects to being asked the question at all, the simple facts are that her argument that her daughter “doesn’t have pronouns” is untrue and will only result in her being seen as irrational, and that her belief that people shouldn’t get to choose their own pronouns is not shared by everyone so having a tantrum about being asked for them isn’t going to change the way the world now works.

For sure, why do they need to ask? Why are they asking about ethnicity, for that matter? There's way too much unnecessary data collection. People love that stuff, though.

"She doesn't have a gender or pronouns"

You're saying "she" so you've chosen a pronoun right there. To me, without more context, that message would come across as a bit mad. But sure, it's no trouble to add an extra option on an online form, or make it an optional question.

Great email, @Gofastboatsmojito.
It's clear and to the point.
I agree with pps about not apologising.

Ignore the posters who are trying to gaslight you about pronouns or imply that you are being unreasonable.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Aaand another (transatlantic?) nonsense answer there. Neither OP nor her daughter "use she/her", assuming that the child doesn't make a habit out of referring to herself in the third person. Asking OP to specify what pronouns others should apply to her female-sexed child is equally absurd as her veterinary practice asking for the "preferred pronouns" of her (presumably either male or female) dog. And yet it's safe to assume that even lacking such a form the vet won't refer to the dog as "it."

The OP has used a pronoun only for the specific case of talking about her daughter in the third person singular. But this is clearly not her daughter's only pronoun because in other situations the daughter might be referred to by "I", "you", "they", "my", "your", or "they" - depending on context.

So no - having "chosen a pronoun" to refer to someone in a specific situation, does not mean that that pronoun is now the one that "belongs" to that person.

I agree with you OP. The pronouns she/her are generally applied to me by others because I am female, but they are not MY pronouns.

I balk at the notion that I have to state a set of descriptive words that others must use to refer to me (as this is to me distinct from having a name). I'd prefer to leave it up to others to decide for themselves how they would like to describe me. Otherwise we're 1 step away from "I am Oz the great and terrible" imo.

Summarised opinion: no-one should be told how they HAVE to think of anyone. In that spirit, I refuse to tell you how you should think of me.

It’s so frustrating. I had to do the same for my 10 day old or I couldn’t register him at the GP. I was also asked what sex he was assigned at birth. Couldn’t skip the questions. I think your email is fine.

Yet presumably the OP is never using “he” or “zhe”” to refer to her daughter so there is indeed a preferred pronoun that relates to either sex or gender, as you like it.

My parents would have crossed out that section and forced a confrontation if I wasn't allowed the activity. But they were old school and reality-based.

So because I don't use he or zhe for my daughters, they have preferred pronouns now?
That's some idiotic bullshit.

Sometimes the wided eyed faux naïveté of our late night visitors is painful to watch so just be clear

1. until about 5 minutes ago everyone used sex based pronouns to talk about someone in the third person
2. then gender ideology arrived demanding that if someone was male or female but “identified” as the opposite sex or NB, you must must! use their preferred pronouns ie you must not correctly sex them. To not use their preferred pronouns would be literal violence
3. every form wibbling on about assigned sex and preferred pronouns entrenchs the idea that your pronouns can be whatever you feel like rather than sex based
4. men demanding to be addressed as she/her is a huge part of this fucking mess. 2 men are boxing in the women’s boxing but the reports of this refer to them as she & her
5. TLDR pronouns are sex based & everything else is bullshit

If I were asked to answer similar questions for my son I would have a similar reaction to you, and depending on the context would feel obliged to comment.

Your daughter does have a gender and pronouns though - presumably you refer to as a girl/she/her (in the same way I refer to my son as a boy/he/him). To suggest she doesn't confuses the issue IMO.

But no one "has" pronouns, we use different pronouns for different people depending on the rules of grammar and what we know about them.

The problem is if you tick the box for she/her you are complicit in the whole pronoun nonsense that is invading every aspect of our lives. I’d just leave the section blank.
^
//

Absolutely. This question only even exists to validate biology-phobes.

The alternative action is to select the "prefer not to say" option if there is one and make their data capture useless. Have some fun with it^

But it's not accurate to say she doesn't have preferred pronouns.

If you asked her if she'd rather people call her she/ him/ it, I expect she would say 'she'.

She probably would not want to be called 'him' or 'it'.

So her preferred pronouns are she/her.

No, people don’t ‘have’ pronouns.

I ‘have’ a name and a sex, in conversation I use the pronouns I and me.

Other people generally follow the rules of grammar and call me she or her (they know I’m a woman because I look like one and have a female name). But it’s up to them! I don’t care what they call me, it’s very bad manners to call someone ‘she’ rather than use their name if the person is present, (we were brought up not to do this “who’s she, the cat’s mother”) so I only rarely actually hear myself referred to as she or her - I’m not normally there when people use sex based pronouns for me, which means I don’t give a f* what they use. I don’t control grammar! They can call me him as much as they want, it doesn’t affect me and would just make them sound a bit odd.

The only time I have been referred to as ‘he’ to my knowledge was by a person with dementia, despite never having told anyone to ‘use she/her’.

OP - your email sounds great. I think these stupid questions are generally added without much thought.

I don't think a lengthy reply would achieve anything. Amongst the things you can add is a preference that a child is referred to by name, and/or to ask your child her wishes would be intrusive.

Thanks all.

My daughter does not have preferred pronouns. There are sex based pronouns which it is obvious most people would use for her because she is female, but she has not chosen these and she has not stated how she wishes others to talk about her in the third person.

Unfortunately this is a mandatory question with only three options, none of which are 'n/a' or 'opt-out', which is an option for ethnicity.

Whilst I'm of course fine to tell the governing body to use she/her for a ten year old girl, I am not fine that they are asking this loaded question without giving space for parents to choose an answer that opts out of adhering to this idea that chosen pronouns are the most important defining characteristic about a child.

Many forms ask for eg legal name and give an option for preferred name if relevant. Here I'd have thought asking for sex makes sense (so they can gather data about inclusion) then adding in 'preferred pronouns if different from sex'.

I'm reminded of a pervious thread where a librarian asked a child if he identified as a 'little boy' and got an indignant 'no' as a reply. On probing her told her that he was a 'big boy'. If you ask ridiculous questions which a lot of people do not understand then the data you collect is meaningless.

All the questions which align with reality and protected characteristics if you need, otherwise don't ask.

People who choose to declare their pronouns choose them themselves. It isn't someone else's place to say what someone's preferred pronouns are on their behalf.

Do they ask for sex in the form?