Neopronouns

I've said I'm okay with using 'they' for everyone, not just for a select few.
Either we use pronouns related to sex or we don't.

Yes we're back to toilets, which are not unimportant, also back to hospital wards, prisons, sports.

Patronising as well as bullying.

'Just do what you're told and you won't get hurt.'

Glorianny

OK so you refuse to use Bobby's chosen pronoun, don't correct the questioner and keep quiet -for whatever reason.

Bobby then introduces you as a biased woman who won't use their chosen pronoun and who doesn't recognise non-binary identities. They ask the group to be kind to you, to try and help you through your difficulties but to explain to you whenever they can how important it is to acknowledge others.
They get a round of applause. You get a lot of dirty looks and people coming up to you all day wanting to explain non-binary to you
So was it worth it? When just saying "they" would have meant it was all over in the few minutes you were speaking?

You go to a work meeting, and are asked to do a remarkably dated icebreaker involving introducing other people and choosing what to say about them on their behalf.

Rather than make a fuss you go along with it and find you are asked to introduce Bobby, who is big in the Stop the Lizards Society. This has absolutely nothing to do with your work, which is in the IT department of a local council, but you mention this without comment or implication in your introduction, as Bobby was keen that you do so, and you have the sense to know that getting others to decide what to reveal about colleagues is intrusive, which is why nobody has done it since 1997, so have asked for suggestions that would be non-threatening.

Bobby then introduces you as an ignorant woman who doesn't understand that society is under threat, but asks the group to 'be kind' and help you to understand that you really need to go along with their take on the world, as it is very important that their views are recognised. You assume that HR will support you as this is ridiculous, but then remember that Alex, the HR manager, has been off with stress for months, and Pat, the trendy young temp, is nodding along with Bobby's remarks.

Bobby gets a round of applause, although many colleagues are looking very uncomfortable about joining in, and you start to feel nervous. You get a lot of dirty looks, and people come up to you all day, hassling you about your beliefs and forcing their views down your throat, particularly when in the earshot of Pat, who is making notes. You decide to skip the networking session at the end of the meeting and book a taxi back to the office, asking the driver to meet you at the back door.

Was it worth it? Just agreeing that lizards are colonising the earth would have saved you all that discomfort, not to mention the taxi fare and the cost of getting your own coffee. In the taxi you look up a recruitment agency on your phone, and are dismayed to find that their website proudly displays a badge from the Stop The Lizards Society's partnership scheme. . .

I'm outraged Doodledog that you are minimising the very real threat from Lizards.

Glorianny

Ok so then it's opened up to questions (I knew you'd try to avoid using they) You are asked "Where does she surf?" Bobby has made it very clear to you that their non-binary status is important. Do you correct or ignore the mistake?

Firstly you didn't expressly state that Bobby has made it very clear to you that their non-binary status is important. So okay, I then introduce Bobby as this is Bobby who has 3 dogs, loves to surf and reads detective novels, and identifies as non-binary and wants you to use they/them pronouns if you need to use a third party pronoun
As for the "Where does she surf?", I'd consider that rude, Bobby is here, ask Bobby, I have no idea. This line of questioning immediately made me think of does he take sugar?

No the bullies, encouraged by Bobby's incitement (the lead bully) wouldn't be trying to "help" their victim, they'd be doing what bullies enjoy, being nasty, and gang nastiness is so much safer than doing it as an individual. What if the situation was that a transwoman in the group had people coming up all through the day to explain that women and girls feel threatened by their presence in female only spaces such as toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards etc You'd approve of these people trying to kindly help and educate the transwoman?

Doodledog

Sorry - that was to FN. I wasn't laughing at the scenario you describe, Rosie.

Doodledog

Doodledog

Sorry - that was to FN. I wasn't laughing at the scenario you describe, Rosie.

You're OK, I guessed that.

Oh dear now non-binary people are a threat to society!
Who knew??? I must take care not to meet any more of them.
Maybe they will take over the world!!!
Maybe they will stop children identifying and classifying people by gender norms.
Maybe you won't be able to tell who is a boy by what they are wearing!
Maybe boys will wear make up and jewellery but we won't know they are boys.
Maybe girls will wear trousers and shirts and look like boys. Maybe the gender norms which restrict our society will be overwhelmed by non-binary people.
But hang on!!! isn't that what some people want? A society where people are treated equally? A society where gender isn't an issue. Ah well back to the drawing board

Who said any of that?

a society where everyone is equal but some are more equal than others springs to mind.

No response to me then Glorianny? Thought not, sauce for the goose never equates to sauce for the gander with you does it?

I have just read about 6 people describing what being non binary means to them looking for greater insight. Whilst being very passionate about being non binary and the freedom it gives them to be themselves I cannot understand how this is any different to anyone living their own lives and behaving in the way they want to be. The words they use all seem to be the same without actually meaning anything specific.

I don’t understand any of it. Not saying it’s wrong just I can’t get my head round it.

I think the issue might be that before we can understand non-binary we'd have to accept that men and women behave and 'feel' in entirely different ways, so that 'being' a woman is one thing and 'being' a man is something else. Not everyone accepts this. I don't. I think that the idea of 'gendered' behaviour is old-fashioned and was dying out until recently, when it was hijacked by the trans lobby, which taught people that they could be 'in the wrong body', or 'feel like' one sex or the other.

Someone who doesn't 'feel like' they think a woman would feel (whatever that is), but also doesn't 'feel like' a man, could struggle with that, and (particularly if they are Autistic and need to have a label) declare themselves non-binary. IMO most people are non-binary, if being binary means women wearing lipstick whilst baking cakes in heels and a pinny, and men tinkering with cars between watching football and working to be breadwinner.

What I'd like to know (amongst other things) is how if I, as a woman, don't know what being a woman feels like (I just live as myself), how can a man have the first idea, any more than I can have the first idea what it feels like to be a man?

Like you Doodledog I live like me. I wouldn’t be able to describe how I feel as a woman I just am one but I suppose I can understand some things that only females experience like giving birth or hysterectomy or the dreaded menopause.

Glorianny seems to live in a narrow world, peopled by aggressive non-binary people who would insist on things that would make others uncomfortable.
Hesheit obviously finds it acceptable that it’s OK for anyone except those she approves of to be put in her invented scenarios and made to feel uncomfortable.
Does trisher go into these invented groups and announce that hesheit’s whatever sex hesheit’s decided to be today?

I could quite enjoy inventing these situations.
e.g. We have to work in threes so,
Bobby (dressed as a man, open shirted and flashing his six pack) asks me to refer to him as they because he’s non binary (doesn’t relate to either sex).
My partner in the other side, also called Bobby but quite definitely female, also dressed as a man (open-shirted and flashing her two and six pack) has also asked to be referred to as they.
I stand up and announce that Bobby and Bobby are non binary and hope you will refer to them both as they.
They thank me very much for my kind introduction and I leave them to get on with the meeting. I can imagine that no-one at the meeting will have the slightest difficulty in referring to the Bobbys as they.
They will probably be referred to quite a lot in any conversations.

This had gotten very bizarre

Doodle

Like you Doodledog I live like me. I wouldn’t be able to describe how I feel as a woman I just am one but I suppose I can understand some things that only females experience like giving birth or hysterectomy or the dreaded menopause.

Oh yes. We have the female experience, and know what that feels like, but just as we can't know what the male experience is like, men can't 'feel like' us. I think that for most people, most of the time we just feel like people. I'm not consciously aware that I'm a woman all the time - it's just a part of who I am - but without being a woman, nobody can know that they 'feel like' one, so I don't know how people can know that they aren't either male or female.

As Galaxy says, opting out of being female might seem like a good plan, for all the reasons she gives; but why the need to insist that everyone knows about it? As we've all said, in a meeting people are referred to by name, not pronoun, so insisting that we all declare one can only be to force attendees to comply with trans ideology.

Was anyone else brought up to believe that calling people by a pronoun in their presence was rude? I would have been in trouble if I'd referred to someone as 'she' when they were there. 'She is the cat's mother' was always the retort. The rule didn't seem to apply to men, though - I'm not sure why.

VioletSky

This had gotten very bizarre

Dystopian fantasy.

Gagajo

Feminism has withered and died here

VioletSky

Gagajo

Feminism has withered and died here.

True feminism is alive and kicking here.
The dystopian versions of feminism preferred by some, is using violence and hatred of females to promote itself.
Some so-called feminists, often with derivative names, support that hatred, or pretend it isn’t happening. On here it’s quite clear who belongs to which group.
As a feminist I support females and decry the violence against them, perpetrated and supported by the other group.
And you?

VioletSky

Gagajo

Feminism has withered and died here

It started to shrivel when women were told that their sex literally counts for nothing, and is what men tell them it is.

That's about as dystopian as it gets, and sadly it's no fantasy. Not for the women, anyway. Arguably, for autogynephile men it is, of course; but that can of worms has finally been opened in the mainstream media by Nick Timothy in the Telegraph.

The article is here:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/22/britain-becoming-sick-trans-debate-facts-can-cure/

I suspect it will be behind a paywall, so the relevant bit is: . . . . nobody stops to ask how many such men are moved to act in these ways through their own sexual desire. Autogynephilia, the feeling of sexual arousal some men feel as they pretend to be women, is according to some researchers behind many or even most cases of gender dysphoria among those born as men. It is legitimate to ask whether non-consenting women ought to be participants in such sexual fantasies.

(Nick Timothy was joint Chief of Staff under Teresa May)

True feminism is alive and kicking here yes it is Mollgo and a good job too.

Even JK Rowling would think GC feminists have gone too woowoo on this thread

Well, the story of Bobby and his bullying gender-neutral mates was a bit odd, I agree. The rest of us were just joining in.