Darling sister and pronouns

[CheeseFromTheNorth]

I know this has cropped up many times, the sense of sadness when a close family member or friend seems to have joined the #bekind brigade.
Had a forwarded email from my sister who lives in another country, from her work address and she used pronouns in her email signature.
I don't understand it. She is all for social justice (Aboriginal rights) across the board and proclaims to be a feminist.
I won't have a conversation about this with her until I see her in person. But when I do my line will be something along the lines of "I used to respect pronouns, as I saw no harm in it. But as I read more and more about male rapists wanting to be referred to as she/her and all institutions complying with it, I realised that something is very wrong.
Who do I decide "deserves" those pronouns? The trans identifying male that's kind but doesn't pass? The male rapist because he speaks of gender dysphoria, but forces his victim to use language such as "her penis" when testifying in court?
So I've drawn and line and will refer to a man who identifies as a woman by their name".

That's all I would say, it does share my opinion and shows the time line of thinking over the years. I have been overweight for many years (not anymore) so I don't think that me raising the sports issue rings true as a reason for me to be of the anti-pronoun brigade (of course no man should be in women's sports but sports is never something I've been interested in, so it rings false for me to be passionate about it), but I HAVE been sexually assaulted many times, so this is my hill.

Keeping discussions like this light and giving food for thought is the way to go imho.

But what has been troubling me is the "why"? Why has she not looked in to this? She too is a SA survivor and it was a particularly horrendous event that has very badly scarred her.

Sorry for the long post.

It's hilarious that anyone would think that it's the women on this board who give a fuck about someone "looking feminine" enough.

Almost like such people don't have the first clue what "gender critical" (or feminist) means or refers to. Duh. Clue: it's not about "femininity". It's about females. Expecting women to be "feminine" is old-school sexism. The opposite of what being critical of "gender" (which is old fashioned stereotypes) is.

Anyway. To get back to the point of the OP, Australia is very, very pro all this stuff right now (see all the "terfs are evil bigots" type TV adverts in Victoria, for example), so I would expect to see pronoun signatures in most workplaces that consider themselves progressive. It isn't, obviously, it's forced, regressive, coercive bollocks and I avoid using them or giving them personally - but I'm not sure I would be planning to launch into a lecture at her about it. Is that likely to work? I really wouldn't think so.

I think you can probably surmise that your sis sees it as part of the progressive package and anyone criticising is some kind of Nazi. Because that's what's being sold in progressive circles over there. I'd be treading carefully, unfortunately and thinking more about what you're going to say IF it comes up.

(sorry, just going by people I know. Especially ones involved in NGOs).

Love, I am a rape victim who personally went through all the re-traumatisation of the court system to have my rapist convicted.

I can tell you categorically that I care far less about what a rapist claims to be than the fact rape conviction sits around 3%, or the fact many police officers are rapists/abusers themselves, or that men are systematically getting away with abuse and misogyny in every corner of the world. If you care about protecting women, care about getting these men off the streets. Fight for conviction rates and for women to actually be believed. Fight for more abuse, assault and rape cases to actually be taken on by the CPS. As so many police don’t even hand these cases over without a fight. Mine included, as they saw it as a waste of valuable police time. He got the jail though.

And as far as I’m concerned he can call himself what he likes from behind those lovely bars.

?

Anyone who (mildly) disagrees with part of what you posted has to be a man?

This is exactly why people find it hard to discuss this subject. Anything other than blanket agreement is met with this kind of reaction. I'm GC, but find myself wanting to draw back from the majority of people that I basically agree with, because of the often black and white attitude and confrontational approach.

I find myself criticised by both 'sides' whenever I join in a discussion on the subject.

Talking about actual rape and your biggest gripe is “SHE has SHE in her email so people know she is a SHE.” Oh yes. It’s all downhill from there!

Have you went through the court system to convict a rapist, OP? Because I’m quite sure if you had you would realise there are far bigger issues keeping rape culture alive and harming women than pronouns.

Except generally, the women on this board care way, WAY more about overarching male violence against women than we do about fucking pronouns in workplace signatures. Believe it or not, it's really not either/or.

It's perfectly fine for someone to be disappointed if you think one of your friends or relatives has bought into this misogynistic cult bullshit (which has, by the way, directly resulted in women being harmed, being bullied out of jobs etc for non compliance, because the point of it is has escalated. See Sandie Peggie and others.). Being pissed off about it doesn't mean you don't care about wider issues of male violence quite the opposite in my experience. And if you'd been on these boards for a while you'd know that. Lots of women here HAVE been actively campaigning against male violence, against low rape conviction rates. Many for YEARS. Who do you imagine we are? What is it you imagine we think? Misogyny is at all fucking levels.

It certainly doesn't mean none of the women angry about this have experienced male violence or rape ourselves. Just to point out. It's a totally false dichotomy. Like the sort of bullshit narrative I sometimes hear "if you care about street harassment you're an idiot; it means you don't care about domestic violence or rape." This is bullshit. As I say. False dichotomy.

MissDoubleU

Wrong sex pronouns are part of the issues. The thin end of the wedge that gets male people into women's facilities without being challenged and gives them the opportunity to rape and sexually assault.

I'm really glad the man who raped you was convicted.

Other rape victims do care very much that they are forced to refer to their attacker as "she" etc. Luckily this is going to get far less common since the Equal Treatment Bench Book was revised, but "respecting" an abuser's pronouns is experienced by many victims as a form of coercive control which is re-traumatising. It is part of rape culture - even in court, the woman has to do what the man wants, his validation is more important than her pain.

To be fair, I think this is pretty appalling . Not the worst aspect of convicting a rapist by any means, but a totally uncalled for and traumatic ask of a woman who's already going through great distress.

And for what? To affirm the 'identity' of a rapist. That's some fucked up priorities there.

Hey, I've no plans on giving my sis a lecture. My post was about how 1) how to figure out how to describe where I've got to and 2) why I got to it on my thinking if when there's a quiet moment to do so and if it comes up. She's pretty intelligent and we are sisters who over the years have disagree about many things and in my family we tolerate different thinking.
I have been feeling disturbed about all of this though and I was trying to work out why and asking here for some guidance.

I didn't know that about Victoria and the ads. JFC.

You called me "Love" in a previous post. Patronising, sexist talk. You're a man, we can all see it.

So bored of TRAs popping up to tell us that if we mind about the thin end of the wedge ("preferred" [demanded] pronouns) then we can't have enough brain space left to object to anything else. It's so patronising.

There are likely 100s of women lurking and reading this who will know exactly who are the men writing on this particular thread. I was getting angry at the PP saying I hadn't been through enough trauma to make my case if I hadn't been to court for it. But that is the time old story of men deciding who deserves to be listened to. It appears that rape is not enough.

They have proven my point and are have bound to peaked many more women here. "Love".. dead giveaway for a mansplainer.

Exactly!
"Point to me on the doll exactly where these evil pronouns hurt you??"
As if calling referring to a man as "she" or "her" doesn't make it impossible to complain about predatory men in women's spaces, as we've seen in Upton's attempt to control language used about him in the Fife NHS tribunal.
Because dismissing women's concerns and depriving them of the language to explain them isn't damaging to women at all. Being forced to lie about the sex of men because of their feelings isn't coercive control.
Nah, we see exactly what they're doing.

My partner’s eldest uses they/them pronouns. I use them because I’m very fond of them and want them to be happy. Easy really.

Easy thing or the right thing?

It's difficult when it is a family member but I resent the emotional blackmail of it.

Don't you see you have highlighted the problem we women are worrries about. We do not know if "they" is a male or female from this statement.
If a male, there is a problem in a court where said male has raped a woman.
If female, they cannot rape.

But you understand that you choose to do comply with this request because you want to keep that person happy.

That is your personal choice. No other person on the planet has to comply with your partner’s eldest’s philosophical belief if they don’t wish to. And your partner’s eldest is indeed making a demand on others. It is not a neutral act at all to use pronouns that don’t fit the established conventions.

So, no. It is not ‘easy really’.

I always find this helpful re pronouns

But @purplehair1 rhis person is externalising their sense of self onto others - their happiness is dependant on others complying. Complying by denying reality and being denied the language to describe that reality.

Wouldn’t it be better in the long term for that person to gain their happiness and sense of self from within, rather than by controlling others?

Easy until someone uses this to argue that sex isn't binary, or it gives rise to a situation where you can't tell someone's sex from the language used to describe them.

If we allow language to be manipulated in a way that chips away at our sense of reality, we make it much more difficult to define our rights. Should someone who's pronouns are they/they go the male or female changing rooms? Male or female prison?

In reality, being 'kind' as you describe your reaction here with no thought to the wide reaching consequences feels nice I guess, but ultimately you're just responding to the people who shout the loudest, not thinking about what's right for society at large.

The irony of all the men pretending to be women jumping on this thread to say "pronouns are harmless" is that it makes me more resolute to never give any concession.

Well done boys 👏👏👏

British people like to say that Australia is backwards, but that's maybe true in certain areas (same as UK) but any major City the people are very progressive and 'woke'. Pronouns in email signatures in work is a very common practice. Anyone who doesn't use them would stick out in the workplace and it would be very uncomfortable. I think you can relax a bit really about your sister.

Again, why are you assuming that those posters are men? Do you assume that a woman can't possibly disagree with you?

But that’s the point - there’s nothing progressive about it! Oh, it thinks it’s progressive but the reality is the complete opposite.

The misplaced desire for constant 'progression' has a lot to answer for.

There was a time when this was presented as 'progressive' too

www.spiegel.de/international/germany/past-pedophile-links-haunt-german-green-party-a-899544.html

I get angry when I read posts like this, pretending that people are concerned for "women" and "protecting women's rights". That's nonsense. All this does, is put mire pressure on women to confirm to a stereotype, and woe before anyone who doesn't meet "your" criteria. The whole tirade of "men dressing in dresses to go into toilets to attack women" is false as well. Men have ALWAYS attacked women, and have never needed to wear dresses to do so. If gender neutral bathrooms was a danger, disabled people would have been attacked in their hundreds over the years.
Reality now is that women who do not confirm to your stereotypes are being attacked, betated and hounded in public.
If we want to really address the problem, we need to reverse the gender stereotyping first