Question about diversity/inclusion language

[maize]

I identify as a historical linguist and consider the word man to be inclusive of all of humanity regardless of gender and will use it as such.

I shall henceforth use the gender specific wer when referring exclusively to males of the species, and wif to refer to females. 

The linguistically appropriate pronouns that may be used to refer to me are, dependent on case, heo and hire. 

😁

[SKL]

I think if someone demanded my pronouns in order to have a professional interaction, I'd say, "You, me, and I should work fine."

[regentrude]

10 hours ago, SKL said:

I was in a professional inclusivity training where they suggested we need to ask everyone what their pronouns are, among other things.  Also we are supposed to provide our pronouns in order to make everyone else feel safe.

Asking everyone to state their pronouns is actually no longer recommended as best practices because it puts the people on the spot who may not be ready to be out.

Providing my own pronouns,  however,  signals that I won't belittle a person who tells me theirs. 

I usually state mine on the first day and invite anyone who wishes to share theirs, or a preferred name to let me know. Sometimes students have come to me after class and shared, and they were appreciative of this way if handling it.

It's a small gesture that doesn't cost me anything but makes people feel welcome who have felt excluded. 

 

 

Edited August 2, 2023 by regentrude

[Laura Corin]

2 minutes ago, regentrude said:

Asking everyone to state their pronouns is actually no longer recommended as best practices because it puts the people on the spot who may not be ready to be out.

Providing my own pronouns,  however,  signals that I won't belittle a person who tells me theirs. 

I usually state mine on the first day and invite anyone who wishes to share theirs to let me know in private. Sometimes students have come to me after class and shared, and they were appreciative of this way if handling it.

It's a small gesture that doesn't cost me anything but makes people feel welcome who have felt excluded.

Yes.  My employer invites us to state our pronouns in our work signatures but does not require it.  Students are similarly invited but not required.  I am happy to do so.

[Danae]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

And if the pendulum doesn't swing back soon, what's next?  Apparently it's become pretty popular for young people to identify as animals.  Will HR soon be telling us we need to ask everyone what species they are in order for them to feel safe?  Will we be required to ask about all their psychological diagnoses and also put ours in our signature?  Sound too ridiculous?  5 years ago, today would have sounded too ridiculous for belief.

Ten years ago the argument was that if we allow same-sex marriage people will want to marry their dog.  I haven’t noticed a huge uptick in advocacy for inter-species marriage since Obergefell, have you?

[KSera]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

  Apparently it's become pretty popular for young people to identify as animals.  Will HR soon be telling us we need to ask everyone what species they are in order for them to feel safe?  

The identifying as an animal thing is a popular talking point that’s grossly overblown and makes me take any other arguments one is putting forward less seriously. 

50 minutes ago, maize said:

I identify as a historical linguist and consider the word man to be inclusive of all of humanity regardless of gender and will use it as such.

I shall henceforth use the gender specific wer when referring exclusively to males of the species, and wif to refer to females. 

The linguistically appropriate pronouns that may be used to refer to me are, dependent on case, heo and hire. 

😁

I went a bunny trail yesterday learning about the history of “man” as an exclamation due to the other thread and learned about all of the above and it did turn on its head the whole idea that using “man” to refer to humanity is gender exclusive. 

17 minutes ago, regentrude said:

Asking everyone to state their pronouns is actually no longer recommended as best practices because it puts the people on the spot who may not be ready to be out.

Providing my own pronouns,  however,  signals that I won't belittle a person who tells me theirs. 

I usually state mine on the first day and invite anyone who wishes to share theirs, or a preferred name to let me know. Sometimes students have come to me after class and shared, and they were appreciative of this way if handling it.

It's a small gesture that doesn't cost me anything but makes people feel welcome who have felt excluded. 

I like this approach. I have one kid who is consistently misgendered and it makes life harder for him. I very much appreciate people who make an effort and call him as he wants to be called. It makes a difference.

OTOH, I have been in some groups where the pronoun sharing expectation was ridiculously performative. One was a group where we met weekly over about a year. We occasionally had someone new join the group. We were required by the leader to introduce ourselves and give our pronouns the first time we spoke each week, plus have them listed next to our name. Never in all that time was there anyone who did not use the pronouns anyone would have instinctively used for them. To continue to need to verbally give them as part of our introduction every week felt silly. I don’t feel comfortable actually, having to give them as part of my introduction as if it’s the most salient thing about me. 

[maize]

35 minutes ago, regentrude said:

 

It's a small gesture that doesn't cost me anything but makes people feel welcome who have felt excluded.

Alternative perspective: it's a gesture that can put everyone on guard by signaling that this is a space where pronouns need to be explicitly at the forefront of peoples' minds at all times because there will be judgment for not being cautious and explicit in their application and people may be prepared to take offense should natural use of language happen to go counter to their personal preferences, even by accident.

Unintended consequences are always a reality.

I don't actually think we've done anyone a favor by, as a society, reinforcing the idea that being "misgendered" is a major trauma, such that any use of 3rd person singular pronouns (those being the only gendered pronouns in English) must be navigated like a bed of quicksand.  

Social trends (such as the stating of pronouns) are rarely thoughtfully considered and examined for potential unintended side effects. 

Linguistically,  I'm not sure how things will play out. I suspect that singular, gender-neutral "they" will continue to gain ground as a default third-person pronoun, because I don't think that continuing to expect everyone to expend extra mental effort to constantly track the pronoun preferences of everyone they encounter is sustainable. I have trouble imagining he and she disappearing entirely within a lifetime or two though, so who knows.

I'll continue to subscribe to the belief that the Englush language as a medium of communication is a collective resource, and that, consequentially, pronouns and other parts of speech cannot be owned by individuals and claiming any as "mine" is nonsensical.

Signed,

maize

Pronouns: whatever seems linguistically appropriate to the person discussing me

Edited August 2, 2023 by maize

[regentrude]

2 minutes ago, maize said:

Alternative perspective: it's a gesture that can put everyone on guard by signaling that this is a space where pronouns need to be explicitly at the forefront of peoples' minds at all times because there will be judgment for not being cautious and explicit in their application and people may be prepared to take offense should natural use of language happen to go counter to their personal preferences, even by accident.

Unintended consequences are always a reality.

I don't actually think we've done anyone a favor by, as a society, reinforcing the idea that being "misgendered" is a major trauma, such that any use of 3rd person singular pronouns (those being the only gendered pronouns in English) must be navigated like a bed of quicksand.  

Social trends (such as the stating of pronouns) are rarely thoughtfully considered and examined for potential unintended side effects. 

Linguistically,  I'm not sure how things will play out. I suspect that singular, gender-neutral "they" will continue to gain ground as a default third-person pronoun, because I don't think that continuing to expect everyone to expend extra mental effort to constantly track the pronoun preferences of everyone they encounter is sustainable. I have trouble imagining he and she disappearing entirely within a lifetime or two though, so who knows.

I'll continue to subscribe to the belief that the Englush language as a medium of communication is a collective resource, and that, cpnsequentially, pronouns and other parts of speech cannot be owned by individuals and claiming any as "mine" is nonsensical.

Signed,

maize

Pronouns: whatever seems linguistically appropriate to the person discussing me

It has not been my experience that I need to "constantly track the pronoun preferences of *everyone*". That would certainly require a lot of mental effort. Usually there are just a few people in my personal and professional life who expressed that they use pronouns that differ from what one might assume based on their presentation.

If Emily on the roster who still looks like a girl is now Eliot, I can remember that and refer to the student as "he". I imagine it is really grating to be misgendered constantly. Not being in the situation,  brushing it off as no big deal feels presumptuous.  (I know it bugs me when people don't address me by my correct name.) 

The other 399 students who don't express a pronoun preference will be just fine if I remember Eliot's preference. 

I, too, think that singular they will become more widespread. We have it easy in English, compared to other languages like Russian where grammatical gender extends to adjectives and nouns.

[SKL]

I agree that this new focus on "gender" is a step backward from all the work that's been done against harmful sex/gender stereotypes.

For decades, I've generally left the "sex/gender" question blank (when allowed), because I don't want people to react to me in ways that reflect gender stereotypes.  I've worked in male-dominated fields, which haven't changed as much as you may think.

What on earth would my sex or gender have to do with whether or not my financial analysis is reliable, or whether I'm a reputable contractor?

I understand that it might be somewhat more relevant in some fields, but even then, doesn't it tend to "other" people who don't want to share their identity info?

[SKL]

8 minutes ago, regentrude said:

I imagine it is really grating to be misgendered constantly. Not being in the situation,  brushing it off as no big deal feels presumptuous.  (I know it bugs me when people don't address me by my correct name.)

Most of the time, these are people who have lived most of their lives being called by the name / gender "assigned at birth."  Is it really reasonable to be offended by the word your folks always called you?  Or is this manufactured offense?

I mean, I too would do my best to call people by their preferred name.  But if it's someone I've known and their identity suddenly changes, it doesn't make me a bad person if I'm not on top of that.  (I'm horrible with names anyway.)  To make things more complicated, people switch back and forth and they're "out" to some but not all contacts.  Just seems like the workplace isn't generally the place to sort all that out.

[J-rap]

3 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

 No. It’s not. It’s not even a challenging spelling. In my region of the country, no one is up in arms over oh man or oh brother either. People use examples like that tho, all the time, to dismiss the VERY real issue of jerks in the workplace who insist on being dismissive toward their coworkers who have been on the receiving end AT ALL LEVELS OF AUTHORITY AND PAY. It creates major headaches for HR and they’d be foolish not to attempt to talk about it. Employees of good will take it in, think about it, and try to do better. Because…not a jerk. Others won’t.

YES.  This seems like such an easy thing to do.  Some twisted pride-thing gets in the way that is selfish.  

[maize]

I'm going to elaborate just a little bit on my thoughts on requiring explicit mental attention to pronouns at all times:

Under ordinary circumstances, most language processing in our brains runs on automatic. We've got neural networks in place that naturally and without conscious intervention take concepts and ideas and convert them to words. 99% of this is not under our explicit direction in ordinary circumstances. I don't have to stop and think "to tell my husband I am going to the store, I need to put the verb 'to go' in the first person present continuous form"--my brain just does it.

Under ordinary circumstances,  our brains throw pronouns into speech just as automatically. 

Expecting people to halt that automatic process and substitute explicit and intentional, conscious, effortful processing each and every time they use a third-person pronoun is actually imposing a pretty significant burden. This is the main reason I anticipate that singular they will become, over time,  a default third person pronoun; we will eventually need to adopt once more some linguistic pattern that allows us to converse comfortably without extra explicit effort and attention.

Validating the idea that misgendering is a significant, traumatizing thing is its own major pitfall specifically because human brains run mostly on automatic. My own brain persists in mis-labeling my children on a habitual basis, running those automatic circuits. If "John" were to somehow get the idea that every time I call him "Dave" or "Allan" or "Thomas" (not my actual children's names 🙂) I am inflicting harm on him, we would be in dire straits. The only way I could stop making these automatic slips is if I stop conversing with them in a normal and natural way. 

This is exactly what is currently happening with pronouns. Of course it's not an issue with people whose preferred pronouns match their clearly identifiable sex; our unconscious language processing circuits work just fine in those cases. And if there are one or two people in our circles who we know the pronoun preferences of and don't have to reference very often, we can make the extra mental effort occasionally. It isn't sustainable though long-term for a large number of people. 

One unintended consequence that I have seen play out is that a pronoun-sensitive, non-binary-identifying person became increasingly marginalized in a group because everyone was afraid of giving offense (this person took offense easily and became visibly upset). No-one was trying to exclude them, but people were naturally and reasonably gravitating toward spending time with and partnering for activities with people they could converse comfortably with without having to constantly be on guard and use language in an effortfull and intentional way. The preferred interaction partners included several who also identified as non-binary but weren't pricklish over pronoun use.

Expecting effortful speech from everyone around us is not reasonable. 

[Laura Corin]

1 minute ago, maize said:

I'm going to elaborate just a little bit on my thoughts on requiring explicit mental attention to pronouns at all times:

Under ordinary circumstances, most language processing in our brains runs on automatic. We've got neural networks in place that naturally and without conscious intervention take concepts and ideas and convert them to words. 99% of this is not under our explicit direction in ordinary circumstances. I don't have to stop and think "to tell my husband I am going to the store, I need to put the verb 'to go' in the first person present continuous form"--my brain just does it.

Under ordinary circumstances,  our brains throw pronouns into speech just as automatically. 

Expecting people to halt that automatic process and substitute explicit and intentional, conscious, effortful processing each and every time they use a third-person pronoun is actually imposing a pretty significant burden. This is the main reason I anticipate that singular they will become, over time,  a default third person pronoun; we will eventually need to adopt once more some linguistic pattern that allows us to converse comfortably without extra explicit effort and attention.

 

From personal experience, the brain adapts pretty fast, particularly if there is also a name change to one that reflects the chosen gender.

[vonfirmath]

Absolutely Maize. It happened last night! I called my son by my daughter's name -- then immediately changed to his. I always feel a little bad when I call my kids by the wrong name -- but it happens to BOTH of them. When we were growing up, I used to be Ra-Sarah to my dad and my sister was Sa-RAchel.  I don't catch it as fast 😞  But it has NOTHING to do with not valuing/caring for my kids.

 

[maize]

2 minutes ago, Laura Corin said:

From personal experience, the brain adapts pretty fast, particularly if there is also a name change to one that reflects the chosen gender.

Out of curiousity, do you call your sons by each other's names frequently?

Not all brains work the same, maybe yours doesn't naturally make such slips?

[maize]

4 minutes ago, vonfirmath said:

Absolutely Maize. It happened last night! I called my son by my daughter's name -- then immediately changed to his. I always feel a little bad when I call my kids by the wrong name -- but it happens to BOTH of them. When we were growing up, I used to be Ra-Sarah to my dad and my sister was Sa-RAchel.  I don't catch it as fast 😞  But it has NOTHING to do with not valuing/caring for my kids.

 

It's even worse when I am around my siblings! At our recent reunion my kids were getting called by their aunts' and uncles' names,  and my siblings were getting my kids' names. 

The worst though was my grandpa, who once slipped and called my dad (his son-in-law) by his dog's name 🤣 

[SKL]

5 minutes ago, vonfirmath said:

Absolutely Maize. It happened last night! I called my son by my daughter's name -- then immediately changed to his. I always feel a little bad when I call my kids by the wrong name -- but it happens to BOTH of them. When we were growing up, I used to be Ra-Sarah to my dad and my sister was Sa-RAchel.  I don't catch it as fast 😞  But it has NOTHING to do with not valuing/caring for my kids.

 

My dad was the same, and I am becoming him.

I put a lot of thought into my kids' names (just 2 kids and no name changes in 16 years), but I still struggle to get the names out!  Often I call my kid by another random person's name.  More often, I just say " ... whatever your name is!"  When I say hi to my kids, I use our family terms of endearment ("hi buttwad!")

I'm sure some people don't have this issue with names, and so, they may not understand how challenging it is to ask everyone to have that facility with language they have.

[regentrude]

@maize yes, sometimes it can be difficult. A very dear friend whom I met as a woman later identified as non-binary, and I had to actually work on the transition to they/them pronouns. It wasn't effortless. But I did it because it was important to them.

Otoh, I have no difficulty with the pronoun if I know about it at the beginning of the relationship and my brain hasn't learned to associate another pronoun with that person. 

 

[Ali in OR]

I think pronoun identification is a bigger deal on the west coast, and not exactly new. My first experience of it was taking my dd to college in CA five years ago. At dorm move-in, all of the residential staff stated their pronouns--this was the first time I experienced this. This has become increasingly the norm here, and very, very normal for people in my kids' generation. I teach high schoolers and it seems to be pretty common that some students transition to a different gender early in high school. Sometimes up to 10% of my class has a different name, gender, and/or pronouns than what they were called at birth. They appreciate staff trying to use the right names/pronouns even if we mess up sometimes (names are easier to switch mentally than pronouns). There is a young Educational Assistant I work with who very naturally uses the pronoun "they" for most students. I can see the generation after us not having so much difficulty with this issue. If you are trying to build a caring relationship with a person, it's not so hard to refer to them as they wish, even if you don't fully understand it all.

[regentrude]

10 minutes ago, maize said:

Out of curiousity, do you call your sons by each other's names frequently?

Not all brains work the same, maybe yours doesn't naturally make such slips?

Both dh and I call our cat by our son's name occasionally. He's a constant presence,  we love him, he needs food and attention, lol

 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

Honestly, I teach a class on diversity and inclusion for healthcare workers and talk a lot about this. If I’m unsure, I ask patients their preferred pronoun, instead of what their biological sex is(which can be important to know if healthcare settings).  It takes exactly zero effort to be kind and I’ve had patients tear up when asked.

But I also think it’s important offer grace when people might not remember the preferred name or pronoun if it isn’t what they’re used to. When I got a call from camp about my eight year old son(he’s at sleep away camp and they were letting me know he was exposed to pinkeye) yesterday, it took the whole conversation for me to figure out who “Zachariah” is.  Apparently he changed his name at camp and neglected to tell me…

[maize]

3 minutes ago, regentrude said:

Both dh and I call our cat by our son's name occasionally. He's a constant presence,  we love him, he needs food and attention, lol

 

Ah, so you get how brains can do their own thing with labels...

 

[maize]

2 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

 

But I also think it’s important offer grace when people might not remember the preferred name or pronoun if it isn’t what they’re used to. When I got a call from camp about my eight year old son(he’s at sleep away camp and they were letting me know he was exposed to pinkeye) yesterday, it took the whole conversation for me to figure out who “Zachariah” is.  Apparently he changed his name at camp and neglected to tell me…

I had a college roommate who decided to go by her middle name at school and introduced herself to us that way. There was much bafflement when her family called and asked for "Jessica"; we didn't know any Jessica in the apartment....

[Idalou]

1 hour ago, Danae said:

Ten years ago the argument was that if we allow same-sex marriage people will want to marry their dog.  I haven’t noticed a huge uptick in advocacy for inter-species marriage since Obergefell, have you?

What??? I suppose the next thing you're going to say is that there aren't cat litter boxes in a whole lot of school restrooms for the cat-kids?

Edited August 2, 2023 by Idalou

[MEmama]

14 minutes ago, maize said:

I had a college roommate who decided to go by her middle name at school and introduced herself to us that way. There was much bafflement when her family called and asked for "Jessica"; we didn't know any Jessica in the apartment....

My family refuses to call me by my preferred name, which I have used my entire adult life. It's not humorous or baffling, it's an intentional way of being disrespectful. After over 30 years, the pain is still raw when they address me using what is in essence, my dead name. I physically cringe at the sound of it.

Likewise I was misgendered both mistakenly and purposefully as a child, which left me with some deep scars. 
 

Being respectful to a person in front of you requires nothing but basic decency. 

[Laura Corin]

40 minutes ago, maize said:

Out of curiousity, do you call your sons by each other's names frequently?

Not all brains work the same, maybe yours doesn't naturally make such slips?

I did when I was at the small-kid exhaustion stage.

[maize]

8 minutes ago, MEmama said:

 

Being respectful to a person in front of you requires nothing but basic decency. 

Being respectful to the people in front of you can include not taking offense where offense is not intended, making allowance for human brains being imperfect, and respecting that the words that come out of another person's mouth are not your personal property.

Respect only works when it is extended in all directions.

Edited August 2, 2023 by maize

[maize]

1 hour ago, Laura Corin said:

I did when I was at the small-kid exhaustion stage.

Yeah I'm past that stage, don't think the lable errors are ever going to end.

Same as with my brain's weird habit of substituting homophones and near-homophones at random when typing; apparently the linguistic-unit-to-typing interface in my brain references phonics and known spellings but bypasses spelling-to-meaning coordination entirely.

Edited August 2, 2023 by maize

[Danae]

While I’m sure there are jerks out there who will jump on people for making honest mistakes, the vast majority of people can tell the difference between “I’m trying but I goofed” and “I’ll call you what I want to call you and mock you for asking me to do anything different.”

The people in the first category really don’t have to align themselves with the second. It’s a choice.

[Heartstrings]

I've been hearing complaints about the changing language since I was a little kid, hearing my parents complain about flight attendant instead of stewardess.  I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.  

As for being misgendered, I'm only hearing about that in context of trans or gay people, but boy, the people who get the MOST offended about being misgendered are not trans people.  Tell a southern mom with a bald baby girl but wearing a bow the size of a small planet that "he" looks precious and you'll see fury like you've never imagined.  Call a baby boy in a baseball outfit a "she" and see that straight bro dad lose his marbles right there in WalMart.  I dealt with that a lot when my boy child had long hair as a toddler.  He had beautiful curly blonde hair and got called a girl on the daily, no matter what he wore,  because people just talk without really thinking.  My most vivid memory of working fast food as a teenager is absently saying "yes, sir" to a rather masculine looking woman in biker gear and her getting irate with me because she was, in fact, a ma'am. I wasn't really thinking about her actual gender as much as I was just trying to be polite and get through the lunch rush.  

Edited August 2, 2023 by Heartstrings

[vonfirmath]

2 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

I've been hearing complaints about the changing language since I was a little kid, hearing my parents complain about flight attendant instead of stewardess.  I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.  

As for being misgendered, I'm only hearing about that in context of trans or gay people, but boy, the people who get the MOST offended about being misgendered are not trans people.  Tell a southern mom with a bald baby girl but wearing a bow the size of a small planet that "he" looks precious and you'll see fury like you've never imagined.  Call a baby boy in a baseball outfit a "she" and see that straight bro dad lose his marbles right there in WalMart.  I dealt with that a lot when my boy child had long hair as a toddler.  He had beautiful curly blonde hair and got called a girl on the daily, no matter what he wore.  My most vivid memory of working fast food as a teenager is absently saying "yes sir" to a rather masculine looking woman in biker gear and her getting irate with me because she was, in fact, a ma'am. I wasn't really thinking about her actual gender as much as I was just trying to be polite and get through the lunch rush.  

Enh. Didn't bother me when strangers thought my son was a girl. It really could be hard to tell sometimes.

Maybe you just remember the ones that get upset and not the ones that just -- don't?

 

Edited August 2, 2023 by vonfirmath

[Heartstrings]

Just now, vonfirmath said:

Enh. Didn't bother me when strangers though my son was a girl.

Maybe you just remember the ones that get upset and not the ones that just -- don't?

 

I'm sure that's all I remember.  My point was really that its not a trans issue to care about pronouns or being misgendered.  Its something that a lot of people care about completely separate and apart from anything to do with trans people. 

[SKL]

I agree that misgendering is nothing new, and occasional overreactions are nothing new.  What's recent is society taking the side of the overreactor, and shaming everyone who doesn't take that side.

(My kids were misgendered as tots sometimes - especially the one with short hair.  It was obviously innocent, and would make me chuckle.  One of my kids was misgendered about a year ago in an airport.  I told her it was a logical result of her choice of clothes and hair style.  She agreed.)

[Indigo Blue]

46 minutes ago, maize said:

Being respectful to the people in front of you can include not taking offense where offense is not intended, making allowance for human brains being imperfect, and respecting that the words that come out of another person's mouth are not your personal property.

Respect only works when it is extended in all directions.

I can’t like this enough. 

[kbutton]

56 minutes ago, maize said:

Yeah I'm past that stage, don't think the lable errors are ever going to end.

Same as with my brain's weird habit of substituting homophones and near-homophones at random when typing; apparently the linguistic-unit-to-typing interface in my brain referenced phonics and known spellings but bypasses spelling-to-meaning coordination entirely.

Me too, Maize! It gets worse with age, not better. My whole family starts losing their words around age 30, including my sibling that is known for being extremely precise with words, much to his great consternation. It starts with names and snowballs from there. Sometimes the wrong word/name is just lodged and the right one won't come up until the wrong one moves out of the way.

For names, we refer to it as "calling the roll" and with words we refer to it as "playing Taboo." 

[KSera]

2 hours ago, maize said:

I'm going to elaborate just a little bit on my thoughts on requiring explicit mental attention to pronouns at all times:

 

Thank you for this post. You put into more explicit words a phenomenon I have experienced as a parent who needs to pay careful attention to pronouns. What I have found, which I didn't expect, is that my brain is no longer effortless with pronouns. I frequently have this brief mental pause before using a pronoun, even with my kids who have never changed pronouns. It's odd, but I think my brain has just learned it's something I need to be really careful about, so it catches itself and does a double check to make sure it's saying the right one.

2 hours ago, Laura Corin said:

From personal experience, the brain adapts pretty fast, particularly if there is also a name change to one that reflects the chosen gender.

I have found making a he/she switch much easier to adapt to than a switch to they/them. But, I have also found that I make pronoun mistakes that I totally don't notice if I'm in the middle of a high stress conversation where my mental load is on the content of what I'm saying. Then I sometimes revert to the pronoun my brain had embedded in my brain for a couple decades and I don't even notice until it's pointed out.

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

Otoh, I have no difficulty with the pronoun if I know about it at the beginning of the relationship and my brain hasn't learned to associate another pronoun with that person.

Agree

1 hour ago, Danae said:

While I’m sure there are jerks out there who will jump on people for making honest mistakes, the vast majority of people can tell the difference between “I’m trying but I goofed” and “I’ll call you what I want to call you and mock you for asking me to do anything different.”

I don't think all the people who jump on people for honest mistakes are "jerks." Sometimes it's people trying to stand up for/protect their friends, and they do so even when someone who usually uses the correct pronoun makes a slip and uses the wrong one. And then that happens sometimes with the transgender person themself, which I don't take to make them a jerk, but they are surrounded by a narrative that says being misgendered is a violent offense against them and that there is no excuse, because it's "easy" to get it right and the only people who would ever get it wrong are those who are purposely wanting to inflict harm. I think this idea is a pretty harmful one to a transgender person, who is almost sure to have people do this inadvertently at times. Viewing that as an assault each time sets them up to walk around feeling frequently assaulted :(.

[stephanier.1765]

2 hours ago, KSera said:

The identifying as an animal thing is a popular talking point that’s grossly overblown and makes me take any other arguments one is putting forward less seriously. 

I went a bunny trail yesterday learning about the history of “man” as an exclamation due to the other thread and learned about all of the above and it did turn on its head the whole idea that using “man” to refer to humanity is gender exclusive. 

I like this approach. I have one kid who is consistently misgendered and it makes life harder for him. I very much appreciate people who make an effort and call him as he wants to be called. It makes a difference.

OTOH, I have been in some groups where the pronoun sharing expectation was ridiculously performative. One was a group where we met weekly over about a year. We occasionally had someone new join the group. We were required by the leader to introduce ourselves and give our pronouns the first time we spoke each week, plus have them listed next to our name. Never in all that time was there anyone who did not use the pronouns anyone would have instinctively used for them. To continue to need to verbally give them as part of our introduction every week felt silly. I don’t feel comfortable actually, having to give them as part of my introduction as if it’s the most salient thing about me. 

I actually just saw a car yesterday with the identity of the driver as a furry displayed on the back window.

[OH_Homeschooler]

11 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

I don't care. 

Our school is set up to support non-English speaking new arrivals and autistic children - some other school with fewer material  concerns can take on the enbies. 

I cannot stress how little time there is in my timetable to be setting up enby inclusion initiatives and pronoun circles. It's phonics all the way down. 

Try telling that to my 11 year old child. It may not matter to you, but it matters to a lot of people. 

[OH_Homeschooler]

4 hours ago, SKL said:

You can't just say a few words and change the culture. 

But you can't change the culture without changing words. 

Quote

Glad I'm near retirement age.

I imagine your coworkers are glad about that as well. 

Quote

Apparently it's become pretty popular for young people to identify as animals.

No, it really has not become popular to do this. Not at all. There are no litterboxes in school bathrooms. 

 

Quote

It’s also super weird to separate Enbies, whatever that is, from other groups of people as if there’s no overlap. 

Sneezyone-It's short for non-binary, as in NB spelled out. 

 

 

[maize]

13 minutes ago, OH_Homeschooler said:

Try telling that to my 11 year old child. It may not matter to you, but it matters to a lot of people. 

We can't each impose every one of our "matters to me" things on everyone else.  No-one could possibly shoulder the burden of every other humans concerns.

Should people trying to teach phonics pay less attention to phonics in order to shoulder this new burden? How many of other people's matters-to-me burdens should they continue to shoulder, dropping bits of phonics-teaching focus and effort for every one of these new burdens?

At some point, we have to recognize that there are reasonable approaches to the world that do not prioritize each of our individual priorities, and that it is in fact a good thing that some people are focusing, say, on teaching phonics, rather than losing that priority in an effort to meet every individual's priorities.

[OH_Homeschooler]

13 minutes ago, maize said:

We can't each impose every one of our "matters to me" things on everyone else.  No-one could possibly shoulder the burden of every other humans concerns.

Should people trying to teach phonics pay less attention to phonics in order to shoulder this new burden? How many of other people's matters-to-me burdens should they continue to shoulder, dropping bits of phonics-teaching focus and effort for every one of these new burdens?

At some point, we have to recognize that there are reasonable approaches to the world that do not prioritize each of our individual priorities, and that it is in fact a good thing that some people are focusing, say, on teaching phonics, rather than losing that priority in an effort to meet every individual's priorities.

Is it really that hard to say "them" instead of "her" or "him?"  How in the heck is this one little change an unreasonable approach? Do you realize how unempathetic and uncaring you are coming across? How is this even related to phonics? 

 

Edited August 2, 2023 by OH_Homeschooler

[SKL]

16 minutes ago, OH_Homeschooler said:

Is it really that hard to say "them" instead of "her" or "him?"  How in the heck is this one little change an unreasonable approach? Do you realize how unempathetic and uncaring you are coming across? How is this even related to phonics?

Honestly there is so much first-world privilege coming through here.

If this is my kid, I'm taking them aside and reminding them:  the entire world does not revolve around your gender.  99.99999% of the world does not care about your gender, and that's the way you should want it.

[Murphy101]

 

10 minutes ago, OH_Homeschooler said:

Is it really that hard to say "them" instead of "her" or "him?"  How in the heck is this one little change an unreasonable approach? Do you realize how unempathetic and uncaring you are coming across?

I’m not who this is addressed to but ….

In this specific scenario, I’m very done with the entire movement that seems hellbent on obliterating that the female sex actually exists.  That “equality” always seems to actually mean either females should be like males (and the worst of males at that) or just erase sex entirely.  And no, I do not have much empathy or caring for that perspective.

 

[OH_Homeschooler]

Just now, SKL said:

Honestly there is so much first-world privilege coming through here.

If this is my kid, I'm taking them aside and reminding them:  the entire world does not revolve around your gender.  99.99999% of the world does not care about your gender, and that's the way you should want it.

You are so, so misguided on this. My child was sexually abused, and I am sure this is where some of the gender dysphoria is coming from. It IS in fact very traumatizing for them to be called a girl. You should stop talking so much and try to learn something. 

[maize]

12 minutes ago, OH_Homeschooler said:

Is it really that hard to say "them" instead of "her" or "him?"  How in the heck is this one little change an unreasonable approach? Do you realize how unempathetic and uncaring you are coming across? How is this even related to phonics? 

 

It relates to phonics because your post quoted a post explaining that basic teaching of things like phonics necessarily take priority over a focus on chosen pronouns in the circumstances the poster you quoted works in.

It's actually really important that some people are dedicating their time and energy to teaching phonics to kids who desperately need phonics. Saying to that person "but you're not prioritizing X that matters to my kid" using frankly dismissive language (try telling that to...) comes across as entitled and rude.

Every extra burden is an extra burden, and human brains don't have expandable RAM slots. We have what we have and can only partition it so many ways.

So yeah, someone teaching phonics to immigrant kids can very reasonably say "I'm tapped put with the very important and needed efforts I am already making" and we can empathize and understand that we don't need to try to heap more straws on that camel's back. We can say "but it's just a straw" but isn't that the point of the proverb? Those straws add up.

I don't actually believe I am either unempathetic or uncaring to acknowledge that reality.

[OH_Homeschooler]

1 minute ago, Murphy101 said:

 

I’m not who this is addressed to but ….

In this specific scenario, I’m very done with the entire movement that seems hellbent on obliterating that the female sex actually exists.  That “equality” always seems to actually mean either females should be like males (and the worst of males at that) or just erase sex entirely.  And no, I do not have much empathy or caring for that perspective.

 

First of all, this was in direct response to a post that was included in my response. Not that hard to figure out.

But besides that, what the heck are you talking about? I'm a proud woman, my daughter is a proud woman. My non-binary child respects that other people can be male, female, or something in-between. No one is saying we need to erase sex.

But there ARE people who exist that do not identify with either sex. What you really seem to want is to erase those "inconvenient" people.  

[maize]

Just now, OH_Homeschooler said:

 

But besides that, what the heck are you talking about? I'm a proud woman, my daughter is a proud woman. My non-binary child respects that other people can be male, female, or something in-between. No one is saying we need to erase sex.

But there ARE people who exist that do not identify with either sex. What you really seem to want is to erase those "inconvenient" people.  

You're conflating sex and gender here. Sex is a biological reality, not a thing one identifies with. 

[OH_Homeschooler]

2 minutes ago, maize said:

It relates to phonics because your post quoted a post explaining that basic teaching of things like phonics necessarily take priority over a focus on chosen pronouns in the circumstances the poster you quoted works in.

It's actually really important that some people are dedicating their time and energy to teaching phonics to kids who desperately need phonics. Saying to that person "but you're not prioritizing X that matters to my kid" using frankly dismissive language (try telling that to...) comes across as entitled and rude.

Every extra burden is an extra burden, and human brains don't have expandable RAM slots. We have what we have and can only partition it so many ways.

So yeah, someone teaching phonics to immigrant kids can very reasonably say "I'm tapped put with the very important and needed efforts I am already making" and we can empathize and understand that we don't need to try to heap more straws on that camel's back. We can say "but it's just a straw" but isn't that the point of the proverb? Those straws add up.

I don't actually believe I am either unempathetic or uncaring to acknowledge that reality.

I actually have my PhD in Social-Cognitive Psychology. Humans have an amazing capacity to adapt. Sounds like you're just not willing to. 

5% of kids feel they don't fit in with either gender. That's not insignificant. It's not just my one little precious child I'm talking about here. 

[OH_Homeschooler]

1 minute ago, maize said:

You're conflating sex and gender here. Sex is a biological reality, not a thing one identifies with. 

OK? I identify as a woman and I am proud of my boobs that are a part of my female physiology. Does that make you feel better? 

[SKL]

3 minutes ago, OH_Homeschooler said:

You are so, so misguided on this. My child was sexually abused, and I am sure this is where some of the gender dysphoria is coming from. It IS in fact very traumatizing for them to be called a girl. You should stop talking so much and try to learn something. 

I'm sorry that happened to your child.  It does happen to a disturbing percentage of children around the world (including myself and a certain % of my family).  Each of them deals with it in various ways, and as far as I know, none of these ways are codified into how classroom time is allocated.

Personally I don't believe that a change in pronouns does anything to heal child sexual abuse.

My kids are among the population of kids who are adoptees in single parent families.  Imagine all the times that the language of the classroom was awkward for them.  But nobody's accusing the teachers of being uncaring just because they don't think of every possible permutation of family life when they speak.