Can they call you Al?
These are also things not to confuse. I’m cisgender but gay. So “queer,” yes, “trans,” no. To make it more confusing, as a gay man I have more leeway within my gender to be feminine, but when I do stereotypically feminine things, I am not changing my identity: I’m still male. Other gay men have a more fluid gender identity, and still other assigned-male-at-birth people who are sexually attracted to men identify as, and therefore are, women.
Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al.
The last Zoom call I was on, they insisted on everyone going around the table and introducing themselves, because apparently some people have weird foreign names like “Osaki” that are hard to pronounce. I told them they could read my name off the meeting invite if they were confused about who I was but I wasn’t going to participate in their little virtue-signalling ritual and I sure as hell refuse to be asked what name I prefer to go by.
But the writeup says apparently I’m the one who isn’t a “team player,” because of Woke.
I am a cishet woman who is very obviously a woman. I’m pretty routinely asked to identify myself by my pronouns. I work in the nonprofit world which, at least in my locality, has a higher than average number of people who are openly trans. I’ve had several trans coworkers. I’ve been to events where we wore name tags color coded to our gender. I also have my pronouns in my email signature.
The whole point is so that trans people don’t feel like they have to be the odd one out pointing out their pronouns. It’s othering enough being trans in this society, all it does is signal to these individuals that their gender identity will be respected without them feeling like they have to make themselves vulnerable. Well, “All it does” is an understatement because that is a lot to some people. To feel comfortable at work is something a lot of people take for granted.
Nobody’s obligated to share their pronouns but if you’re one of those lucky people who is comfortable publicly being the gender you are, it’s kinder to participate.
The horror of that must have left permanent scars!
I see how you’d say that, and I’m sure it is a factor but I want to be clear here that I’m talking about very specific types of interactions; those casual ones in coffee shops and conferences, with people you’ll interact with for short periods but won’t necessarily ever see again.
Of course gender is a deeply personal and complicated thing, as is any aspect of our identities and how we relate to our bodies, to other people, and to society. It’s something I struggle with not because I’m not comfortable in my gender but because I do live with dysmorphia and rather severe alienation from my body and I really wish that my interactions would not involve commentary on my body (and I perceive gendered terms as such). That said, I’m female, so I’ll still use female pronouns. Go figure.
But at a round table for casual acquaintances at a conference, a pronoun question is something I perceive as being more like a nickname; today,bright now, by us, how do you want us to address you? And while it’s related to deeply personal matters, that interaction itself isn’t. That’s what I meant, and I hope I’m being clear as I try to clarify it.
That’s one hell of an assumption when the whole point of declaring pronouns is that we can’t just assume that everyone is cis.
Your position seems to be that cis people should be required to share their pronouns. I disagree with that, because then not sharing your pronouns outs you as non-cis.
I don’t really want to delve too much into this, since then I’d have to go into the whole gender dysphoria that you say isn’t necessary to talk about, but it really amazes me that you think it’s okay to put people on the spot about their pronouns. If someone is uncomfortable giving pronouns, just let it go.
I established a “generic” person and context. I’ve repeatedly acknowledged that I don’t know Saint-Cad or anyone else here, so as a framework for discussion, I made assertions to put my comments in a specific context.
I’m not sure I agree with your assessment of my position, but honestly, I’m not sure how else to say what I mean. I don’t think anyone should be obligated to say anything, ever, but I also don’t see why it would be upsetting to a cis person to say this statement of fact. That’s all. And “not giving pronouns” just means I’ll use they/them, which are actually pronouns so…if that’s not what people want, I do think they should clarify.
Read into my posts as you will, I’m clearly not doing a good job and I’m not sure I want to continue trying.
…curtailing them except for “research purposes” is a ban. And its a ban that only affects trans kids. not cis kids.
The real toxicity here is using the power of the state to commission a report that was used as evidence to enact policy that effectively de-transitions trans kids. As the Watson blog post points out:
This is tone policing. People are rightly angry that the Cass Report is being heralded as groundbreaking when in reality its junk science, and it is being used to make the already terrible state of transgender youth care in the UK orders of magnitude worse.
Which “actual research scientists” are you referring too? Because the “chill on the entire debate” is, in this case, being lead by the power of the state. Both the Conservatives and Labour have indicated that they will continue with policies that will effectively ban gender affirming care to trans kids. People have the right to be angry about that.
Sorry, Betty triggers me. Could you use Veronica? 
If you really aren’t terribly interested in or sympathetic to trans issues, isn’t the easiest route to simply ascertain how someone wants to be referred to, and do your best to do so? Even if you think it silly? Or wrong? And, along the way say, “If I slip up, please believe there is no insult intended.”
And avoid talking about trans issues such as cross-dressers on Youtube at work.
If you really don’t care, the subject really is terribly easy to avoid.
By “virtue-signalling ritual”, do you mean “basic introductions”?
Yes, “Woke” is the problem here.
Is it ok to have everyone state their pronouns on introductions? Maybe I don’t want to tell everyone in the room of people I work with that information. (not me but really asking)
I feel like you’re missing a pretty significant amount of sarcasm in that post?
Are you saying that they explicitly used your name (or the name of anyone else who was present) as an example of a “hard to pronounce” name? Because I’d be a bit miffed at that myself.
But if they just said, “Let’s all say our names to help avoid mispronunciation” then yeah, you sure as hell were not being a team player, in my book. (Unless the other people attending were all WASPs named Johnson, Walker, and Smith and it was obvious they meant YOU even without saying so.)
Any name can be mispronounced, regardless of how obvious it may seem to those familiar with it. I knew a Charles when I lived in Egypt, and I’d have thought that would be a pretty straightforward name to pronounce. But it was usually pronounced Shar - Less. The Charles in question didn’t take offense.
As for me, I’ve been wearing Saucony running shoes for years, and every time I put them on I’ve wondered, “how do you suppose that brand name is pronounced?” (I heard an advert that pronounced the name out loud for the first time just yesterday - turns out I would not have guessed correctly.)
No, as an straight old white man, I am constitutionally entitled to the freedom to say or do anything I want. The rest of you should adjust your behavior accordingly so I don’t feel uncomfortable.
Oops, did I get whooshed too? Argh. I still have time to delete my post but I’m not going to. I’ll be honest about having missed the sarcasm.
I picked up on it right away. Perhaps because a round of “introduce yourself and give a little schpiel” is pretty standard in face to face and online business meetings, and if you’re in one of those, refusing to even give your own name seems pretty over-the-top.
FWIW, I read it as @CairoCarol did. A serious comment by somebody trying to be a reactionary agent provocatuer in their meeting, then coming here to brag of their fight against the unstoppable tide of evil wokeness consuming our society.
Their earlier post in the thread also seemed to me at the time to be context-free enough that it could reasonably be taken in two very different lights. That first time I took the favorable interpretation. This second time I did not.
If it was a sarcastic whoosh I got fooled too. As has been commented many times before in many threads on many topics, we now live in a world so surreal these days that nothing, nothing, is so over the top as to be self-evidently parody.