just checking - since the SC there is no such thing as misgendering on Mumsnet? Or is there??

[loveyouradvice]

Just checking we can refer to TIM as he now? I think so... The deeply admirable Helen Joyce does and I share her rationale...

Goes all the way back to the sublime Pronouns are rohypnol from a much loved mums netter...

Well that's not me.

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It is an indisputable fact that pronouns have been used for political leverage. Activists have historically used the fact that people use their preferred language to influence policy change to allow them access to female single sex provisions. This is one of the key political levers - that society views them as being the opposite sex therefore it is cruel to exclude them from provisions that suit their identity.

Two examples of trans 'spokespeople' saying that people using pronouns and changing identity documents does mean that society views them as women and that therefore they should absolutely be treated as women.

F Wallace
https://twitter.com/Isla_macy/status/1706382987682554144 at around 2 hr 5 mins

Ivy/McKinnon

https://news.sky.com/story/trans-cyclist-rachel-mckinnon-defends-her-right-to-race-in-womens-competitions-11838131
And here

https://twitter.com/Isla_macy/status/1706382987682554144

Personally don't think the narrative of "People should be able to do and be whatever they most want to be" is realistic.

We all live in a society or a culture in which certain accommodations of others have to be made, but also one in which common consent has to exist in order for social stability and functionality.

Societies and communities all have their own rules and expectations...and to a certain extent we are all compelled ot go along with them. Individuals cannot just do as they please or what most suits them personally.

I am still processing how someone can insist that using 'they' does not indicate at least a partial compliance in accepting the language demand of others. There seems to be a whole lot of denial in some posts on use of language still.

You can't just do whatever you fancy or what most appeals. I cannot be employed as an architect because i do not have the relevent qualifications...no matter how much i enjoy design and looking at buildings.

Yes

Of course. I meant within their capabilities. People should not be limited in what they can do by their gender worth the exceptions of women's spaces, women's sport and women's sport lists.
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I meant sex or gender there, not gender alone. And with not worth.

I reject the idea of 'gender' for these reasons.

One's sex is fixed and most certainly has imperatives emanating from the chromosomal hard drive - but beyond our sex we are all individualised human beings with a variety of interest, taste and preference. These individualistic tastes do not over-rule or over-ride our sex, though. We are mammals living on Planet Earth and as such are shaped by the same forces as other creatures.

Why on earth would someone be limited in what they can do by their gender identity unless it was a role requiring a person of specific sex (using an exception under the EA)?

Is there anything male people with transgender identities are limited in doing, in your opinion?

And people who regard those who value truth, reality and clear language and free speech as "unnecessarily confrontational" don't have is the right not to be seen as authoritarian and unnecessarily confrontational byt he vast majority of the UK population, a population which is majority non-woke.

I am absolutely certain that some people are MUCH MUCH better than others at identifying sex. Most men are worse than most women, I think, and some men are terrible at it.

Women 100% need to know for reasons of safety and to prevent weak, femine men impregnating them.

Men do not need to know because there is no bad consequence from thinking a woman is a man, and there is no bad consequence from thinking a weak, femine man is a woman and therefore not a threat.

I believe gender is an aspect of the grammar of some languages. Nothing less, nothing more.

In the late 1970s some log-rolling obscurantist academics started using the word to describe aspects of very culture-specific human socialisation.

Genderists are the people who then started claiming that 'gender' is a thing that all human beings have.

I don't believe that. I believe all humans have a sex, that they can present any way they like, and that gender is a silly makey-up game that has metastasised. And that people who play the game (whether they themselves were born female or male) do so because they don't really believe women are human.

Personally I find it INCREDIBLY hard to call people anything other than the name I am first introduced to me as. For example if I know someone as Stephanie, because that is their name, and that is what they told me when I met them aged 12, I find it really hard to call them "Stef" when they get older and decide they prefer that. A wrong-sex name would be much much harder.

Rather than thinking women are not human, maybe it is more to do with subliminally thinking that females have no agency or control over their lives, or that women only exist in relation to men. That male concerns are primary, and female concerns only subsidiary...not the stuff of real politics

Some years ago i made a study, and then a complaint, about a phenomena I noted when reading newspapers. When looking at photos and the by-lines that accompanied them, I noted that, for example the by-line of a photo which showed a crowd of men in, say, Syria, shouting and demonstrating....the by-line would read " Syrians protest the regime".....but when another image showed a crowd or group of women, the by-line would read " Syrian women gather in the streets".

Women were unconsciously not considered full Syrian citizens, only men were. Women only existed in relation to men; almost as common property of men " Syrian women......" not simpy "Syrians" .

The editor agreed that this indeed did seem to be the case ( in all such photos and by-lines, not just one or two) and said they'd put this right. These journalistic practices are ingrained and therefore unconscious...and they do reveal hidden prejudices.

Absolutely! I've name changed a few times in my life and different people from different times in my life refer to me in the ways they always and originally knew or were introduced to me. I'm fine with this. I do likewise with friends who have altered or slightly changed their name. It takes a concerted effort to use the new format and somehow doesn't sit right.

@Imdunfer, ‘they’ seems like a reasonable compromise for those who are trying to be diplomatic. However, when I’ve used it, I’ve found that it isn’t acceptable to most trans people (except those that identify as NB of course).
I got called a TERF several times when referring to TIMs as ‘they/them’.

It’s a bit like the ‘third spaces’ conversation. Lots of lovely liberal folk suggest this as a compromise only to find that trans people (especially transwomen) completely reject it.

After a while you realise that the other ‘side’ is completely unwilling to compromise. They want our spaces and our words, and our attempts at negotiation are seen as bigotry. So I don’t bother trying to be diplomatic anymore. 🤷🏼‍♀️

There are two reasons to refuse to compromise at all.

(1) As you say, because if one side does not want compromise it is hardly unreasonable of the other side to say "we will agree to your request - no compromise".

(2) Even if one wishes to compromise there is no compromise position whatsoever between "TW should be allowed in women's spaces" and "TW should not", men are either destroying womens spaces or they are keeping out. "I refuse to allow my language to be at all coerced" and "We demand that your language is coerced" - language is either being coerced or it is not.

And I say this as someone who has contorted my posts now for years to comply with the MN Talk Guidelines when one whiff of using the wrong pronoun meant deletion.

I have to say that I have deep, deep experience in having to use extra words and sentences to get my point across using 'they' to make sure that people understand what I mean. (And usually fail, and get then accused of writing essays)

All because I chose, and still choose, to use they to remain undeleted on MN. Because despite some posters assurances that they can perfectly understand who a sentence refers to and the correct meaning, they must be fucking mind readers or they are using prior back ground knowledge to fill in the gaps.

But it is also shows just how much effort goes into using 'they' instead of correct sex language. Even to the point of using male people and not 'man' or 'men'. I am very well experienced at using 'they' instead and it is not harmless and it is not respectful to me.

And then I read this from iamdunfer

"If you're trans female or very "gender critical" would you accept that for the sake of not causing disruption?"

Disruption? So, it is fine apparently that I spend a huge effort to use 'they' so as to fit the previous MN guidelines and to 'not cause disruption'? Good to know that the disruption to my efforts is considered acceptable collateral to ensure some other poster doesn't consider me fucking rude!

Once you see the centring of others, even though it is denied, you cannot unsee it.

I cannot count the amount of times I have been told on a thread that I have been reported for saying a male person is a 'male person'.

The compromise expected is total.

So are you saying that we can only correctly sex somene by seeing them naked? And even then not necessarily?
You are very very wrong

I literally cannot imagine navigating a world where I cannot tell anybody else’s sex.
What a mind boggling experience that must be.
Mind you, I can’t actually believe it’s happening to anyone else either.

Well quite.
Even when we were all wearing masks it wasn't hard to tell

It might be perfectly clear to you who is clearly familiar with the issues but to the casual bystander it is far less clear then ‘he’ .

Are you unaware of how control of language and a deliberate lack of clarity is how we got to the point where sporting bodies champion male boxers desires over women’s lives?

Yes that’s fine. I just find it an odd and recent phenomenon that so many people suddenly appear to be unable to tell when this is a thing that even animals can do with ease.

By your statement “*But you don't know what sex people are anyway unless you know them.” you seem to be afflicted worse than many. *