As someone in the second half of their 50s, it’s getting harder for me to deal with all the change around me - that, I think, is just part of getting older and less flexible in brain function; I’ve considered starting something a bit like this thread a couple of times, but held back, because part of what I felt I wanted to say was just the words of a grumpy old man yelling at clouds.
Most of my fears about dealing with gender identity on a daily basis, are simply unrealised - that is, I don’t really encounter any of the terrifying mistaken-gender issues that I have a tendency to fear might happen. Maybe I don’t get out much. The fear of the possible problem is way out of proportion with the actual problem.
I have, one time, encountered a person whose preferred pronouns were presented to me in a script I couldn’t even read; it wasn’t the written script of their native land or anything - the person was English, born and bred - their choice to write their pronouns in a form that was unintelligible to anyone around them, was probably an attention-seeking behaviour and deserves to be dealt with in an appropriate manner. I could, if I tried really hard, use that example as a sort of springboard into some rant, but that’s a lot of effort. CBA.
Tell me how you want to be addressed; I’ll do my best to comply; please be forgiving if I make an honest stumble. If you make it complex, expect me to stumble. And this is how most people I’ve met, who care about pronouns, seem to be happy to proceed.
It’s only ever a problem when someone is trying to make it a problem, and screw those people.
I established an assumption that you, in a generic sense, are cis for the sake of conversation. I used “we” because I’m cis and including myself in that group. How you, Saint _Cad, actually identify isn’t really any of my concern, other than finding ways to use the English language to communicate in a way that makes you feel comfortable.
You can’t “refuse to participate in gender pronouning” because it’s going to happen anyway. You can accept that people will assume, or accept neutral, or provide your input. The choice is entirely yours, of course, but people will use pronouns in reference to you, because that’s just a fact of our language.
I know of the laws you’re talking about and find them reprehensible. That said, in that situation, I’d counsel someone to use the pronouns they think are safe to use, and I’d hope that they can find resources to let them live more comfortably as their authentic self. Perhaps it means such a person has to lie, and that’s a damn shame. I’m sad about it, but, again, we do use pronouns to converse and I’ll leave it up to the individual to decide what is safe, by whatever definition of safe they need.
I don’t really know what else to say, we are going in circles here. I see this as a matter of practicality and respect in general public encounters to address people as they wish to be addressed, in that moment, and I communicate my preference too.
Unless I simply avoid talking to, or about, a subset of the population, but that’s not really practical and can be very rude as well!
“Excuse me, sir.” “I identify as a woman.” “Pardon me, miss.”
No problem.
Scenario 2
“Excuse me, sir.” “I identify as a woman.” “No, that’s too confusing for me. I called you sir and sir you must be as far as I’m concerned. My beliefs on this issue outweigh yours.”
As other posters said upthread, I think many transgender allies thought that being all militant and imposing consequences for this or that would help bolster support for the transgender cause when instead it simply creates silence and makes many people decide to just bow out and avoid the topic altogether.
Transgender, non-binary and other identifying individuals exist. Sooner or later you’re likely to encounter one in public.
If you just stay politite, avoid gendered language, and minimize interactions with such individuals, I guess that’s ok, but you’re possibly missing out on getting to know some great people. That’s your loss, but I guess it’s not actively harmful.
If you’re going to insist that they conform to a binary, insist on misgendering, insist on laws to try to make them go away …well that’s assholish and you probably deserve consequences for that behavior and people would be correct in calling you out on it.
I guess I don’t see “bowing out” as something that’s really possible. You don’t have to fully understand what other people’s lives are like, and that’s okay. Just be accepting and accommodating as best you can. “Don’t be a jerk” is a pretty good rule in life.
My local hay guy changed their name from Jason to Jae and, I’m informed by other friends, is ‘transitioning’. I wonder what their wife thinks about this but I am not going to ask because it’s none of my fucking business. But when I talk to Jae again I’ll ask them what pronouns they want me to use now.
Again, just not seeing the ‘I can’t deal with this’ problem. Confused? Ask.
I also don’t see the name tagging with preferred pronouns aggressively political, just a way to ease the awkwardness of having non-conforming pronoun preferences in a public situation where there are lots of strangers with whom you will interact. If someone isn’t out with their new pronouns, they won’t put those on their name tag.
Simply being respectful and accepting is all that’s required, and I don’t get how that’s so hard.
It appears to be exactly parallel to treating women the way you would yourself like to be treated. Or minorities. Just remember the Golden Rule.
The other thing about giving your pronouns is that you can absolutely change them if you need to / when you’re ready to. Sometimes people are closeted, to themselves or at work or to everyone, and sometimes that changes. The relentless pronoun-giving allows people a chance to come out in a quiet, easy way should they need to. And I see more and more people coming out as trans: two people that I knew personally and mistakenly presumed to be cisgender.
I also find it really odd to give third-person pronouns, which would only ever be used to talk about me when I’m not present. My pronouns are he/him, but frankly I don’t care if people refer to me as they/them or she/her or whatever. But that’s cis-privilege speaking: those who do care, sometimes care a LOT.
Militancy gets people riled up to the point that they HAVE to think and talk about it, and that creates space for more productive conversations, and for changes. I’m knowingly interacting with trans people all the time now, and five years ago I wasn’t. None of the people sprang into existence: they’re just now allowed to be themselves.
I just found the conversation. They listed their pronouns as 𐎠𐎡/𐎠𐎡𐎢 - which is old Persian Cuneiform, but it’s just the first two/first three letters of that alphabet - so this would be like someone writing AB/ABC, so like I said, attention-seeking and to be dealt with accordingly.
This is a nitpick in context of your overall point, but there’s a ton of situations where someone would use a third person pronoun when the person they’re referring to is present. Most of them around establishing ownership or possession of something.
“Is this your phone?”
“No, it’s his.”
“Who’s turn is it?”
“It’s her turn.”
This is especially true in professional environments, where one person might be required to refer to a person’s specific contributions to a group project.
“Sue was responsible for running the financials on the project, and she put together a great report. I’ll hand the meeting over to her now to go over it.”
If people like @DKW, @Dr.Strangelove and @Saint_Cad just find this all too confusing and hard then they should just give up. At this point, there no talk purpose in whining. Just refuse to conform to the society you loathe anyway .
I’ve read through this whole thread trying to understand the problem described by the OP and I’ve failed. Seems to me it comes down to this:
What’s so difficult about addressing or referring to people as they desire? If you get it wrong you say sorry, accede to their wishes and move on. I haven’t yet experienced anyone being touchy when an honest mistake has been made. Not to say that doesn’t happen, but I haven’t had that experience.
The only scenario I can imagine becoming a problem is a person intentionally creating a difficult name situation. Suppose a person said, “My name is Ralph, but please address me as ‘Supreme Omnipotent Commander of All Space and Time’.” I think I’d respond by asking if I could just shorten it to Commander. But this is also a situation I’ve never encountered or heard about.
Without seeing the context first hand, I’m about 95% certain that person was joking, and about 80% certain that they hold at least moderately anti-trans opinions. “I identify as a < something stupid > and my pronouns are < two words that aren’t pronouns >” is an extremely common right-wing joke, and this sounds a lot like a variation on it.
This is silly. It’s quite fine to acknowledge the new normal that some people require different pronouns. But it’s simply obtuse to look at a very obvious he/him cis male and pretend to be confused and helpless about picking a suitable pronoun. That’s not about figuring out someone’s proper term of address, it’s about enforcing conformity with the new ceremony of pronoun declaration.
Which again - my problem isn’t that some people want/need to declare their pronouns, it’s that they insist I (or others) must also do this. I don’t need to, I’m not going to, and I have no patience with people pretending the male archetype doesn’t exist. Obviously it does, or we wouldn’t have so many people energetically trying to transition toward or away from it.
Because you (general “you”) can cause harm that way too. Maybe some guy is effeminate and me asking drives home that he looks like a girl. Some guys would be hurt by that (or the reverse…a woman being confused with a man might be hurt too).
Also, it is not on me to ask everyone I meet their preferred pronouns.
Instead, if the pronoun thing is something you are concerned about, it is on you to tell me how you want to be referred to.
See the tag-line after my screen name here. I specified my pronouns so no one needs to ask.
Possibly because the OP is eliding the difference between “being uncertain about what pronouns to use when referring to someone whose presentation is unknown,” and “knowing what pronouns that person uses, saying that you think it’s all an act, and intentionally using the wrong ones when referring to them.”
The OP’s stated concern is trouble at work where apparently there is a semi-militant trangender individual, a lot of non-accepting cow-orkers, and a confused management just learning these complex waters even exist, much less how to navigate them.
Into that somewhat treacherous environment the OP brings some Tiktok experience of innocents purportedly railroaded into unemployment and now they’re scared.
Which is understandable as a description of where they are, but their proposed solution of all society sticking its head back in the sand is a non-starter.
Every problem is made (temporarily) easier to deal with by pretending it doesn’t exist. But that’s a useless way to run your (any your) life or our society.
Stopping watching Tiktok propaganda is another concrete step away from useless towards useful.
Well, they’re not going to tell you what the think the real solution is (hint: it’s the return to brutal oppression of transgender individuals so they disappear from the public again).
They need the Overton window to move right a bit more before they have the courage, or perhap rely on Elon to keep pushing the issue.
Good point: now that you say that, last term I introduced a T.A. to the class by their pronouns (“…and they will be…”) and also put them (the pronouns) on the syllabus along with the email. Mine too, even though mine are guessable.
They weren’t banned, just highly curtailed. As your own link states.
Rebecca Watson’s blog post illustrates the toxicity problem. A giant JUNK SCIENCE at the top and ad hominem attacks at the bottom don’t contribute to healthy discussion. Of course, if the report contains errors, those should be pointed out. And it’s just someone’s blog. But actual research scientists are on the internet too and are on the receiving end of these kinds of attacks. It puts a chill on the entire debate, filtering out all but the most militant.