How best to answer 'What are your preferred pronouns?' in an intervew

[NancyDrawed]

I have been out of the workforce for a very long time but finally have an in-person interview later this week.

The confirmation email is signed by a name followed by (he/him/his). I need to get a job. But I am trying to get my head around what I would say if I was directly asked what my preferred pronouns are.

On principle I would like to say 'I'm not a follower of that ideology so use whichever you see fit' or something along those lines, but is that likely to mean I have no chance of getting the job?

I am clearly female, so a small part of me would want to say he/him/his just to see the reaction!

It might not even come up at all, but I'd like to be prepared.

@FlirtsWithRhinos I don't have time to respond - but I thank you for your considered response.

When a representative cross section of women is asked, they give the lie to the idea that they see MTF trans people as "women" in the same way women are.

They said:

No to self ID
No to pre op "trans women" in toilets and changing rooms
No to males in women's sports

I don't think I've ever in my life asked someone if they were a man or a woman.

In what circumstance is that ever likely to arise?

I work in HR and this question definitely would not come up in an interview where I work.

I don't use pronouns on my emails. Other people do. That's up to them. No one cares whether you do or don't. No one asks us to do it.

In my opinion asking what my pronouns are is unnecessary. I don't care what you call me when I'm not there.

And I’m afraid this is where I log off for the evening and read before I go to bed! There’s no point in engaging further when the response comes back that anything other than the GC viewpoint isn’t ‘valid’.

It's not "anything but the GC viewpoint" it's the idea that biological males cannot be described as male. It's very much scientifically evident what biological sex is.

If you are very tall you could reply "fe fi fo fum".

I am very tall (for a woman - 6'3). I'm going to try this 😂

Do you agree that there are two human sexes (or, if you subscribe to the belief that people with certain DSDs should not be ascribed to either sex, agree that the vast majority of humans fall into one of two sexes), but simply disagree with calling them "male" and "female" for some reason, or do you reject the assertion that humans even have different sexes and therefore your position is that no names for sex are needed at all?

The first I could understand, though I'd be very interested to hear on what basis the very well established names for the two human sexes need to change. The second makes no sense to me at all - after all, we don't have this sort of debate about having names for different hair colours which is a trivial human feature, but something as significant as sex does not justify a label under which we can refer to it, describe it and reason about it?

This just confirms my view that NB is a faith statement tbh. Means feck all, different for different people. I’m not subscribing to an ideology on that kind of flimsy basis.

What is gender if societal roles and personality types have nothing to do with it? What is it? Why do we need it?

It’s not that it’s not valid as such, it’s that there are clear holes in your logic.

I was responding to another poster who literally said ‘it’s simply not a valid viewpoint’. There is no point engaging further when that is the response.

@ElleWoods15 Elle, could you reply to Flirts' post a few scrolls above? I think there's definitely a point in responding to her attempt to understand where you're coming from.

The issue is that we're finding it hard to apply your application of "(in)valid" to a scientifically proven, verifiable fact. To us, it's like someone who believes the earth is flat saying that the scientific consensus that it's a globe isn't "valid".

I had a conversation with a teen last year who believed that all views were equally valid, to the extent that she wouldn't even accept my argument that she'd, surely, rather receive a doctor's informed diagnosis than my own or a friend's advice on a hypothetical health issue.

I'm sure you're not taking things to this extreme, but rather that you rationalise your opinion in one of the ways Flirts suggests. Or, perhaps, you believe that a "sex change" operation really does change an individual's sex. (I'd counter this by saying that it may change some secondary sexual characteristics, but little else and not the fundamentals of gametes, chromosomes, skeletal structure etc.) My other thought is that you may be saying you believe sex lies on a spectrum. (My response to this would be that there are, as ever, outliers and a tiny, tiny minority of individuals who may be difficult to classify without debate about what we understand by sex, but for the vast, vast majority of the species, sex is about as consistent a binary as it's possible to get in the natural world (- a popular, if somewhat clumsy and insensitive analogy: some humans may lack a limb, but humans are still bipedal).

Another thread at the moment asks why threads such as this collapse into "bun fights". I wouldn't honestly say they do - as a poster there points out, there's actually a lot of respectful, considered discussion on almost all. However, I've resisting adding to that thread (so far!) that one of the things I do think can lead to frustration and more dismissive or rude posts (and I think there are some from both sides on that very thread) is a resistance to engage or explain one's views with the justification that others' views are too unreasonable to challenge. This, to me, just doesn't hold up as a valid (hah - sorry!) argument. Seeing this is one of the things that has led me to be GC.

PS

As on re-reading I can see the potential for my last para. to be interpreted as somewhat ironic, I'd add that what I mean is to try to explain the rationale behind the perceived lack of engagement with your view of transwomen as being female, and to highlight a post that does try to engage with it (while adding my own). All as an invitation for you to engage again in turn.

Say she/her in the interview and then if don’t get the job put in a complaint to HR that they discriminated against you by making you state your gender identity when you prefer not to disclose it and/or by causing stereotype threat by reminding you of your femaleness before instead among a stereotypically “male” task.

I was responding to another poster who literally said ‘it’s simply not a valid viewpoint’. There is no point engaging further when that is the response.

If someone asserted that my viewpoint was invalid and I could demonstrate that it was valid, I'd respond by doing so.🤷‍♀️

@ErrolTheDragon you can surely see that if you try to shut other posters down by telling them that their views aren’t ‘valid’, it’s a bit disingenuous to then complain that they don’t want to engage in further debate with you.

For my own MH and sanity, I’m not going to carry on engaging when the debate ceases to be respectful. Being told my viewpoint isn’t valid crosses that red line.

How does it cross a line? What line? If you disagree, explain your position so that people can understand it and explain how it is logically valid. Why would you take that comment as somehow beyond the pale of acceptable discourse? Philosophy students would get nowhere at all if that were the case.

I didn't intend it as a shut down. More of a challenge, perhaps.
And by now we've probably lost track of which specific viewpoint we might or might not want to debate the validity of... I think it was about saying that someone born male remains male. This seems to me to be a matter entirely bounded by biological reality, the sort of issue where the term 'valid' has a straightforward logical meaning.

What's wrong with 'I'd prefer not to say'. For added authenticity look down at the floor in a furtive way.

They'll assume that you are exercising your right as a identifier of some persecuted gender or animal and will respect that so won't press you further.

The one at DD's school goes by 'teacher' and got uppity when called 'mr' by a pupil the other day

🙄

I'll tell my kid to say oi, or click their fingers. Why should anyone be polite to someone who is forcing them to deny reality.

By “uppity” (which has a word with many negative connotations l) do you mean he corrected the pupil’s error?

By “uppity” (which has a word with many negative connotations l) do you mean he corrected the pupil’s error?

He?