Preferred pronouns

[Nomorebullshitnotavailable]

Some of you may remember my recent thread.

As I had said in that thread, I have never hidden my views on the gender debate. There is a TiM in my company, to whom I’m as pleasant as I am to everyone else. I am careful to use no pronouns at all around him, his team or the wider company. But in my small team I do occasionally use “he”. It is not intentional but just less mentally taxing than anything else.

I have today been told by my manager, after an email exchange just between the two of us, that I “must” use she and not he because that is what this person wants. Following this, that I “did not want to face an HR issue”.

In all honesty, at first I was angry but now I’m upset. I point blank refused to use the wrong pronouns, pointed out the Maya Forstater case, the SC ruling (not directly relevant but adds weight to my views), said that this man would have no complaint about me. But ultimately have said I will not use any pronouns for this man within my team either.

I feel really upset now. Rather like I’ve been told off and made to feel like I’m petulantly digging my heels in for no reason. And the HR thing felt mildly threatening although I’m positive it wasn’t meant that way. I cannot bear being told that I must enforce a lie in order to not be in trouble (I’m autistic so my sense of injustice is strong!).

I don’t know why I’m posting this except to know I’m not insane. Plus if anyone has anything clever I can keep in my back pocket or advice about how to proceed (have I done the wrong thing?) I would be grateful to hear it.

Thank you!

Get something in writing from HR....

keep all the emails, print them out and take them home.

Do you really need to keep your job, and keep working? carry on as you are.

Do you need to keep your job, or possibly get another? simply keep quiet, and ever use pronouns. Keep using their full name if necessary. Don't rock the boat and jeopardise your future.

But if it’s not gone to HR, it’s just me being told I must use preferred pronouns, what should I ask of HR?

Yes this is somewhat my mindset. Just keep using his full name (however clunky it is) and keep hold of the correspondence on this as back up.

IDK how you feel about this but this situation could be described as a clash between two competing protected characteristics, gender reassignment and disability.
Autism counts as a disability; the effect autism has on you might include difficulty with lying and a strong sense of injustice when other people misuse rules or falsely accuse you of wrong doing.

I would reply with a barely disguised sarcasm:

'Ha ha - great joke... thank you... I assume that you are not serious in the light of the recent Supreme Court judgement that a man is a man / a woman is a woman and neither can change biological sex? Presumably you also know of the Forstater judgement which confirms that a Gender Critical view (that biology is true and immutable) is a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act - a desire to use incorrect pronouns is not protected.'

'I am sure that no-one would want the company to get into trouble with the law, so I am happy on this occasion to pretend that I didn't receive an email telling me to break the law - it goes without saying that I will always be courteous to and respect any colleague, but you need to think carefully before sending out emails like this which directly breach the Equality Act.'

etc.

I'd ask them to write down what you are being asked to do formally.

It's really not. Nobody has the power to compel your speech or to compel you to lie.

I'm Autistic. I give zero shits about other peoples opinions. It sometimes gets me into trouble..

That you also are an employee with just as much right to respect and your own integrity as any other employee. Being threatened with HR makes it seem like a punishment.

You didn’t ‘misgender’ anyone. Gender is made up, you were referring to his sex which is male.

Gender identity is pure fantasy and I won’t refer to it either. Fuck em.

Be very careful with this. We are okay here, but this can cross over into harassment territory and people have lost tribunals in the past:

BBC News - Gender-critical Swindon teacher loses employment tribunal case - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-68681038

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-49904997

Forstater clarified that GC beliefs are worthy of respect, but this doesn't always protect manifestation of beliefs.

Yes this has always been my concern and why I’ve been careful to NEVER air my views or “misgender “ (🙄) him around him or his team. I’ve been very careful to be pleasant and courteous, the same as I would with anyone (because why wouldn’t I be?). I just do not see how me using he or him in an email to my manager, which he will never see, could remotely be construed as harassment or an HR violation.

Which I said to my manager!

I agree with you regarding never using pronouns about this person in speech however don’t understand why you can’t just use his name in the email also. The facts are that in speech it’s easy to slip up but in email we can go back, check and correct. Whilst I wouldn’t use ‘she’ ever for him I would not put my job at risk over this man.

By saying He doesn't want to be called He, your manager is confirming is confirming that He is a He. Se maybe your manager should be at risk of a 'HR Issue'.

If I were him, I would be suing based on the recent SC judgement - which confirms the law that was in place at the time of his tribunal and which confirms that man = man / woman = woman etc.

As a school pupil, the student is presumably < 18 therefore could not have had a GRC, so had no protection under the EA. And quite how an employment tribunal feels qualified to judge that the pupil would come to no harm from hormones is bewildering...

ultimately, it is about truth and honesty - there is never a need to move away from politeness into harassment, but being honest and sticking to that might just about be labelled as stubborn, it certainly is not harassment.

No, Lister's case is on the move again - I think he's challenging it. I'd like to see what happens in his case as I'm not sure where I stand exactly re not using someone's preferred pronouns. Ultimately I cannot see how you can hold a belief but not express it by using correctly sexed pronouns.

It would be interesting to see if your manager can explain Why it’s an issue that you refer to this make person as ‘he’.

Maybe you could agree a compromise and refer to him as his name or X in all emails? I really can’t see an argument for compelling your speech in this way.

Sympathies OP. It’s really hard to use wrong sex pronouns, it’s just so unnatural to deny the evidence of your own senses.

I watched a webinar by wight man's solicitors last week, and someone asked a question in the Q&A about pronouns and whether they could refuse to use them.

The advice was that the judgement did not change anything to do with pronoun usage, and that people such be using preferred pronouns or a person's name.

We all agree that this pronoun stuff is nonsense, but in the workplace there is often a lot more on the line

Yes I know, I’m usually quite careful. But this was just a quick back and forth about something rather than anything I would reread and my brain tends to move faster than I type (I’ll often reread what I’ve sent and see I’ll have missed out words or put the first half of a word with the second half of the next word - I also have ADHD!!).

Lesson learned though. They cannot make me tell a lie so I will just have to redouble efforts to censor what I say.

You still cannot be compelled to lie.

Swop out to initials

Option 1

Control Freak [CF] , Molly Johnson [MY]

New employees have been appointed to the project.
CF will be in charge of Task A
MJ will be in charge of Task B

Or
Option 2

Control Freak [CF] and Molly Johnson [MY] are the new employees have been appointed to the project.
CF will be in charge of Task A
MJ will be in charge of Task B

If he has noticed and made a request to his or your manager so he is creating a HR case and you can still be accused of bullying him.

You do not want to be the test case for pronouns if you can avoid it. There was a ET which fined the business over ongoing abusive actions. There is no case law so go in low key and make him be the agressor ramping up any HR complaint trail.

But you need to create a paper trail of your own.

Firstly what is the company policy on pronouns? Is there written standards for communications?

On the managers dictat

I would email your manager with a summary if the talk

And say that you have had no issues with the employee or if you had work issues that they were resolved professionaly and made every effort to treat all staff with reapect

Noting that you do not believe that it is appropiate for a staff member to demand you comply with their personal ideology ( i would not expand on this point ) you will do your best not to comply with your managers request [and note its not company policy (if it is not)]. Going forward in order to remove any potential conflict you will swap out all prononus in your written comnunication to initials.

Your own disability means you speech pattern is by default correctly sexing the employee in question as is a male employee. However in all conversations you have already been making an ongoing effort to speak about him CF in the first person but recognised you may not always be sucessful.

And end it with a hope this resolves the issue.

I would not get into a conversation around your beliefs or that you find his demand that you use his words oppressive. Leave it to him and let him be the HR problem bullying someone with a PC which needs reasonable adjustments.

There are two things in that...

The judgement doesn't change the ability for an individual to refer to themselves as he / she / them / it / dog / cat / etc. - i.e. any individual can choose whatever pronouns they wish and the judgement does not ban that...

however, they are not able to force others to use their chosen pronouns - that is coercive because they would be forcing you to lie... in the inaccuracies of the Stonewall era of defining law it would have been argued that you must use their chosen pronouns because they are accurate / a correct reflection of who that person wishes to be - however, post SC judgement, we have clarity that the law does not allow for a biological man to become a woman - therefore you are correct if you use their birth sex pronouns - and any attempt otherwise would be coercive harassment by that person towards you... It has completely flipped the landscape back to reality and truth being valid.

Autism counts as a disability; the effect autism has on you might include difficulty with lying and a strong sense of injustice when other people misuse rules or falsely accuse you of wrong doing.

Jeez. Good advice from TheInebriati. But the world really has gone mad when unwillingness to lie and a strong sense of (genuine) injustice can be seen as disabilities.

It’s not you that’s insane, OP.

I don't think you should have to censor yourself. No, you probably wouldn't have legal protection if you danced around the office shouting, 'Sam is a he, Sam is a he', but you shouldn't need to worry about the odd slip-up in an email dashed off quickly, especially one between just you and one other person.

I'd relay what happened to HR (in writing), and ask for clarity on what HR issue you might be facing if you make a small slip-up like this in the future. I'd probably give my manager a heads-up that I was going to do so, and copy them in when I emailed HR.