M&S diversity officers give staff pronoun badges……. a step too far?

What a storm in a M&S teapot!
If some people want to have their preferred pronouns on their badge there's always a Sharpie pen.

Calistemon

trisher

Staff asked for these badges. They are not being forced to use them they can choose to use them. The only people opposing this are those who want to impose their ideas and beliefs on other people. In an effort to do this they use all sorts of irrelevant examples. It really just proves they don't want choice they just want to impose their own ideas.

M&S has C78,000 staff members - have they canvassed them all asking for their views on this?
Did they hold a referendum and act upon a majority vote?
Or did they take up the suggestion of one employee who requested this, as reported?

It really just proves they don't want choice they just want to impose their own ideas.
Are they therefore imposing the views of a minority on the majority of their staff and, as a consequence, on their customers?

Noone has to have their pronoun on their badges. Some people have asked for it. It's called choice. No one iis imposing their ideas on anyone. You can choose not to do it.
One employee asked for it and the option has been made available. If the other 77999 choose not to do it they can do so.
Basically things will evolve as the employees make their choices.

Thats how it begins.

Whatever all the other arguments, I repeat . M & S are giving staff the option of having pronouns in their badges. It is not obligatory.

One question is not a grilling. A simpke one. You didnt answer.

Know i must ponder: why would that be?

Doodledog I don't understand why having separate secure facilities and changing rooms that are essentially unisex wouldn't help some women feel safe... Yes I accept that they feel the way they do without needing to be able to understand their reasons

Chewbacca

^The only people opposing this are those who want to impose their ideas and beliefs on other^ people

Oh the irony!

Which ideas and beliefs are these, please?

trisher

Staff asked for these badges. They are not being forced to use them they can choose to use them. The only people opposing this are those who want to impose their ideas and beliefs on other people. In an effort to do this they use all sorts of irrelevant examples. It really just proves they don't want choice they just want to impose their own ideas.

M&S has C78,000 staff members - have they canvassed them all asking for their views on this?
Did they hold a referendum and act upon a majority vote?
Or did they take up the suggestion of one employee who requested this, as reported?

It really just proves they don't want choice they just want to impose their own ideas.
Are they therefore imposing the views of a minority on the majority of their staff and, as a consequence, on their customers?

GrannyMacawell

You didnt answer my question. You gave me waffle.

Either explain what you mean

Accept that there is no answer good enough for you anyway as your views are firm

Or ask yourself what you are trying to achieve by grilling me

For a trans person, correcting others comes with a fear. Fear that they will not be accepted or be subject to outright hostility. These badges not only help them feel safer but allies are wearing them too, which means that the chances of being challenged on their gender is reduced.

I can't understand why wearing a badge that is, effectively, challenging someone's perceptions is going to make a transperson in a public-facing role any safer.

If someone would be hostile to a member of staff because of a mismatch between the customer's perception of the staff member's gender and the gender with with which they identified, the customer would, presumably still be objectionable and unpleasant if the staff member had on a badge that declared them to be of an apparently 'mismatched' gender. If, on the other hand, there were no badge, the chances of the customer stopping to think about the matter are probably slim to none.

As has been said upthread, most people really don't care who sells them their knickers or their Dine In For Two food. Wearing gender badges seems more like a challenge to bigots than a gesture of solidarity, and it is transpeople who are likely to suffer.

M&S would do better to have a zero-tolerance policy towards anyone who is rude to their staff, and leave people to make their own decisions about self-declaration of gender.

The only people opposing this are those who want to impose their ideas and beliefs on other people

Oh the irony!

And if gender critical staff asked to wear adult human female what would happen. I dont understand all the ramifications of the forstater ruling but I think those asking for that would have a case.

You didnt answer my question. You gave me waffle.

Staff asked for these badges. They are not being forced to use them they can choose to use them. The only people opposing this are those who want to impose their ideas and beliefs on other people. In an effort to do this they use all sorts of irrelevant examples. It really just proves they don't want choice they just want to impose their own ideas.

Galaxy

I am not sure anyone has said anyone is bad. And of course many trans people are gender critical and would chose a different type of badge.

Yes they can, choice is definitely given here

I am not sure anyone has said anyone is bad. And of course many trans people are gender critical and would chose a different type of badge.

Chewbacca

^These badges not only help them feel safer^

Sorry, but I think that's a load of cobblers. If, for example, an assistant has a beard, an Adam's apple and a deep voice and is wearing a name badge "My name is Bill - female" I cannot, for one second believe that that will make him one iota safer. In fact, I would imagine that he would have put himself at serious risk of being targeted.

Is that based on a real life experience?

I'm guessing not.

I do wonder what the point is of even asking me questions when my answers are never good enough.

They are answers though even if unliked and they are reasons given by trans people and their allies.

Who aren't "bad" for wanting change

PaperMonster

Here it is:

sex-matters.org/posts/updates/pronouns/

I suggest reading the link posted by PaperMonster early on this thread and again on this page. Some people including transgender, may not want to state their pronouns for various reasons and cannot be made to do so.

GrannyMacawell

Waffle

Really helpful in trying to have a positive discussion.

So there are lots of reasons why and they are all positive

Not for natal women they're not.

These badges not only help them feel safer

Sorry, but I think that's a load of cobblers. If, for example, an assistant has a beard, an Adam's apple and a deep voice and is wearing a name badge "My name is Bill - female" I cannot, for one second believe that that will make him one iota safer. In fact, I would imagine that he would have put himself at serious risk of being targeted.

Waffle

GrannyMacawell

You dont want people to know you are a woman ? Violetsky

Oh no, when you have to explain your own joke it isn't funny.

I answered questions earlier... No response? I feel I might have been unheard without one

VioletSky

I prefer people don't observe my sex but each to their own

But it's not each to their own, is it? Not when people are expected to declare their pronouns at the request of an employer, and when a refusal to do so is taken as evidence of transphobia.

I have no problem with anyone conducting their private lives as they wish, and if they wish to 'present as' a different sex from the one they were born with, that's up to them. But this is not about that, is it? It is about making a statement. About making the private public, and dragging the public into what in most circumstances is a private matter.

I can't imagine why an employer would think that staff would want to let the general public know about their private lives. Apart from it seeming rather self-indulgent to think that anyone cares, there is the risk that someone might prefer to keep that side of their lives private and have no wish to declare anything to outsiders. Why should an employer take it upon themselves to 'out' members of staff in this way? Is it even legal for them to do so?

The thing is, pronouns are becoming meaningless anyway. If 'she' can refer to anyone who identifies as a woman, when nobody who claims to be an ally can even say what a women is, there is little point in insisting on them when it alienates so many people who would otherwise be supportive.

You dont want people to know you are a woman ? Violetsky