She/hers everyhere on event programme i'm attending, what do I do?

[Cerialkiller]

I casually agreed to meet a relative at a local education conference later today, she is one of the speakers. she booked me in, all good. Just gone through the programme and everyone has pronouns and suddenly im gripped with uncertainty about going.

I can't make a scene as its her event but everyone will have name badges including me and it didn't even occur to me that this would come up. I work from home freelance in a pretty male dominated industry so thought I had avoided all this shit!

Any ideas how I can carefully avoid she/her pronouns without making it a big deal? Not just the badge but if it comes up in conversation. I'm really afraid I'll say something sensible out loud, acidentally that's against dogma and out myself. Whats worse it that my relative is a big TRA supported, manages to shoehorn it into most conversations. I think she suspects im at the very least not as into it as she is but this is really not the time or place to get into it.

My current plan is to go late, meet her for lunch, stay for her talk and then make an excuse to run off. If things run late then I'll have to make a dash to pick up the kids anyway. Otherwise do a lot of nodding and smiling. The name badge will deal with when I get there.

I'm now wishing I hadn't spent the last couple of days catching up on all the videos from the genspec conference as its just entrenching my principles. I don't think I can put she/her on the badge, I just can't.

I hope i'm making a bigger deal about this then it is, my stomach just dropped when I saw it. I have zero practice with this, i'm also super awkward and struggle to lie off the cuff.

What about deliberately holding a weetabix under hot milk until it gives in and disintegrates? Asking for a friend, I am a granola person myself.

Reminds me of attending (observing) a trans rights protest... after being identified as a "TERF" due to asking a Lib Dem councillor what rights trans people didn't have (he refused to answer, obviously), I ended up laughing in the face of a middle aged woman who was absolutely incandescent with rage at the idea that her relationship with a TIM (much less angry, holding his wife back, saying "it's not worth it"!) was not a lesbian one!

"You don't honestly believe that TWAW do you, I thought everyone agreed it was just a polite thing to say... OMG, you really believe it... [covers mouth to suppress guffaws]" is the sort of respect GI and the victims who claim to believe in it deserves.

The 'you want rapists in woman's prison?!' argument is just one example of the cold hard reality.

TWAW or TWAnotW. Either some rapists have every right to be in women's prisons because they are TW and TWAW, or no man is a woman, ever, in any way at all.

When I see “she/her” on social media, I assume it’s a bloke.

Real life / education I’m guessing handmaidens.

Hey Ho.

let us know how it goes

This! Hope you enjoy the conference op.

I can't make a scene as its her event but everyone will have name badges including me

Accidentally losing your badge isn't making a scene.

Just treat is as a social observation experiment.

What do all the she/hers mean in reality?
My friend is the only person that doesn't display her pronouns with her organisation. She isn't particularly gc in the sense that it's something she takes a deeper dive into rather than applying her common sense. The majority of the others are unlikely to have considered it at all.

"I'd rather just have my name on my badge please"

Just don’t wear the badge. It won’t come up in conversation. Enjoy the event x

Waiting for the update OP. I always worry about this too, although in reality probably nothing happens 😂

If they ask when you go to pick up your badge, just tell them you don't identify as someone with pronouns and just your name will be fine.