Pronoun policing in hobby groups

[MissScarletInTheBallroom]

I'm in a Facebook group for embroiderers. I don't do much myself (turns out it's harder than it looks!) but I like seeing other people's creations.

Anyway, the gender wars are raging.

Every so often someone posts a political pattern they've stitched, usually something to do with trans rights, and the comments are an even split between allies cheering them on and other people asking to keep the discussion related to embroidery and away from politics.

This morning someone posted a general message, not related to an embroidery they had done, calling others out for starting posts with, "Hey ladies!" or similar, saying that not everyone in the group is a woman, and signing off "from this enby".

The comments were the usual shit show that I have come to expect, with half the commenters saying, "stop ramming your special identity down our throats, we don't care" and the other half bemoaning the transphobia in the group.

But what I noticed was that several people posted to thank the person who had posted the comment and saying that they were also not women, and every single one of them was either a female person who identified as non binary, or a trans man. I did not spot one single natal male in the group.

It struck me as odd to pipe up and say, "Hey, thank you, there are men in this group too!" if the only men in the group are female.

I want to say that embroidery clearly is a very gendered activity, but weirdly it looks like more of a sexed activity, if the only people doing it are female, but identify as a range of different genders.

Anyway, that's my random thought for the day.

Some really good points @topofthetable

All of what you say makes sense, topofthetable.

Unfortunately, all this <waves hands vaguely> shit has prompted me to look at these things from the pov of abusers.

A group that attracts vulnerable people will always be attractive to an abuser. Many people are attracted to subcultures because they are damaged and acting out against dominant cultures and norms. They feel like outsiders and so are vulnerable to a group made up of soi-disant outsiders. Subcultures are going to be the perfect place for abusers to operate.

Most people find it hard to understand abusive and disordered mindsets, probably by definition.

One can't assess safeguarding using the mindset of most non-disordered people. One has to test it against the mindset of someone with nefarious intent who is looking for loopholes and lacunas and situations they can game.

Any group that sets itself up in opposition to or in tension with societal 'norms' is going to offer rich pickings for an abuser and/or predator. Any group that has the dynamic of 'queering' (literally subverting norms) is going to be irresistibly attractive to abusers and very vulnerable to abusive dynamics and power plays, because it rejects and thwarts norms and it's easy to conflate/confuse these with personal boundaries and instinctive protective responses. So you can do a bait and switch and while rejecting social norms and 'the system', concurrently call boundaries 'hang ups' and present any in group rejection as traitorous behaviour.

Then you have naturally common responses like in-group reinforcement and othering of the out-group and you have grooming set up. ('normies' etc).

I'd imagine its perfectly possible, perhaps even quite easy, for an abuser to game, groom, and gaslight a whole group like this.

Fear of what you have described keeps me out of geek spaces and has done for two decades.

I'd imagine its perfectly possible, perhaps even quite easy, for an abuser to game, groom, and gaslight a whole group like this.

I can think of three instances of this from my own life. Two of the groomers, 15 years and 200 miles apart, had CSA on their computers, one pled guilty and the other was convicted, and in both cases the subculture closed ranks to support these men. The third was "merely" a sex pest that all the women learned to shun. You could see the relief when he picked on someone new, 30 or so women all being like "I can relax for 15 minutes because he's trying it on with her". And he picked on the vulnerable women, the freshers (despite being in his forties). He never seemed to get very far because he was that odious. I look back at the lack of solidarity amongst the women in that subculture and I despair.

That's horrific, ouroboros.

The third was "merely" a sex pest that all the women learned to shun. You could see the relief when he picked on someone new, 30 or so women all being like "I can relax for 15 minutes because he's trying it on with her". And he picked on the vulnerable women, the freshers (despite being in his forties).

I really, really hate that I used to know a couple of geek men that more or less match this description.

To be fair I was answering the poster who was asking if anyone that worked with trans men thought "they were particularly nasty to women in general". I didn't post to give my experiences of how my particular workplace would deal but to answer your question..

1. i don't know as I've never seen either of them use the loo
2. you'd be in trouble and facing disciplinary procedures most likely
3. and 4 and 5 they wouldn't need to demand pronouns because of my answer to number 2

you could chance your arm but our union wouldn't protect you as they are fully on board with it all. So you'd be on your own. Any of us that are GC whisper quietly in corners with only trusted colleagues where you know you won't be overheard, your words misrepresented and reported to professional standards. And I need to pay my mortgage. So all I can do in my own quiet way is not put my pronouns on the staff directory/my emails and refer to those members of staff very carefully by their name or "they", avoiding the s/he issue.

Maybe an elf is also an MNetter ?

So no nasty coercion at all, then? /Sarcasm off

So all I can do in my own quiet way is not put my pronouns on the staff directory/my emails
abd even this small thing is quite a stand in our workplace where almost everyone puts the everywhere, generally to virtue signal. Melania Bloggs, my pronouns are her/she when that's quite obvious from the female first name. Barely anyone's entry has an ambiguous first name and they always match the gender of the Christian name.

I think Anna would get on well here

Not by the members of staff themselves but by our employer. If I "misgendered" one of them there is just as good a chance that someone else would report me for it rather than the individuals themselves as that is unfortunately very much the culture in our sector.