Preferred pronoun badges at the Halifax bank.

Oh for heavens sakes!!!

StarDreamer

What about Sam and Steve?

Do you mean people with unisex names?

What about them? As with those who have very clearly gendered names (eg Gemma) you can call them Sam or Steve whether addressing them directly or referring to them in conversation with others. In 99% of cases it's not an issue, as it's perfectly obvious whether they are male or female in any case.

If not, and if they are not present during a conversation with others which refers to them, why does it matter if you get their pronoun 'wrong'? They will never know. If that possibility still troubles you, you could use the asexual/plural 'they', but then you risk bothering people like LizzieDrip.

Whatever you do is going to irritate someone.

hollysteers

“If anyone referred to me as a lady, I’d be having a word with them”
Touchy aren’t we? Ridiculous ?

I'll be touchy if I like, you keep calling people lady if you like and they can all have a wry smile at the silly old woman who thinks she's being polite.

FarNorth

^And the person he was answering was called Warren.^
Why is that relevant volver?

You suggested that Andy M was responding to someone asking about closing their account. That wasn't so.

Why do you assume that Andy and Warren should both be called 'he' although they haven't told you?

Well pardon me for not being perfect.

Doodledog wrote Do you mean people with unisex names?

Not quite. I was thinking of two women I have known, each of whom liked to be known as Sam, I know for certain that at least one was definitely Samantha. I feel that Samantha is such a beautiful name, but she was Sam, so I addressed her as Sam. Alas.

But is it Sam-antha or Sa-mantha?

I also met a woman known as Steve.

volver

hollysteers

“If anyone referred to me as a lady, I’d be having a word with them”
Touchy aren’t we? Ridiculous ?

I'll be touchy if I like, you keep calling people lady if you like and they can all have a wry smile at the silly old woman who thinks she's being polite.

What if a man does so?

Is he regarded as polite or as a silly old fool?

By you or by all women or just by those in the wry smiling clique?

I think SamANtha is the most common way to stress the name.

There are, of course, many names that could refer to someone of either sex, and many more that come from cultures other than our (individual) own, so won't immediately signify one sex or the other. This may be awkward when addressing someone in writing, but when the person is standing in front of us it is, in the vast majority of cases, blatantly obvious whether they are male or female, so other than as a sop to Stonewall, this is a bit of a pointless exercise, IMO.

Well pardon me for not being perfect.

You are pardoned volver but please do explain why you think Warren's name is relevant.
Your mention of it is the whole content of a previous post so you must have hoped to convey something by it.

StarDreamer

volver

hollysteers

“If anyone referred to me as a lady, I’d be having a word with them”
Touchy aren’t we? Ridiculous ?

I'll be touchy if I like, you keep calling people lady if you like and they can all have a wry smile at the silly old woman who thinks she's being polite.

What if a man does so?

Is he regarded as polite or as a silly old fool?

By you or by all women or just by those in the wry smiling clique?

The men I know wouldn't dream of calling anybody a lady in the situations described above. Especially the ones I worked with who had managed to get themselves unaided into the 21st Century way of thinking.

There were quite a few of us smiling wryly, I recall - mainly the ones who had had to put up with the ingrained sexist mindsets of men and women who though they were being nice to the little woman by referring to her as a lady.

Stormystar

It’s a Bank not a mouthpiece for Marxist ideology. What if a someone cannot read or has eyesight issues and misgenders a person because what their senses tells them is a man is now a transgender woman. they will be terrified they may be reported for a hate crime. Be thrown out of the bank. It’s an illogical insidious form of thought /speech control.

Rubbish. They can't do that.
I'm short sighted and have astigmatism. Can only wear glasses when sitting down.
If a bloke comes to help me and he looks like a bloke, walks like a bloke and talks like a bloke I will refer to him as He.
Because that's what I'm seeing.
If a dog was in the Halifax wearing a fairy costume, you would still recognise it as a dog wouldn't you?
A costume can't change who you really are and they shouldn't be bullying the public into pretending otherwise.

Should read a costume and a badge

FarNorth

^Well pardon me for not being perfect.^

You are pardoned volver but please do explain why you think Warren's name is relevant.
Your mention of it is the whole content of a previous post so you must have hoped to convey something by it.

Because he is a real, unique person and it wasn't a directive from Andy M telling everybody to close their accounts if they are not happy. Which is what the Mail and GBNews etc are portraying it as.

And if Warren doesn't want to close his account, is he just stirring it?

StarDreamer I get the impression that volver's 'wry smile' might be verging on a sneer.
Not polite.

If someone is trying to be polite, I wouldn't dream of having a 'wry smile', whatever it was that they actually said.

I have no objection to being called a lady.
It really is one of the least of my problems.

I find it charmingly quaint, just as I do the term 'gentleman'.

volver I think it's reasonable to suppose that Andy's response to others would be the same as to Warren i.e. If you don't like it take your account elsewhere.

And if Warren doesn't want to close his account, is he just stirring it?

Warren was making a comment, in public, to a public announcement from Halifax.
Warren, and anyone else, is entitled to do that regardless of whether they are customers of Halifax and regardless of whether they are instantly going to follow Andy's instruction.

Back in the 1960s when I worked in a bank, male staff were paid at a higher rate than females although they did the same job. Females also lost pension and bonus rights from the day they married as they were then classed as temporary staff.

If I still worked in the Bank, I would be very tempted to change my gender to male to qualify for these extra benefits.

Excellent point.
I wonder what banks would have thought of that idea.

I think this comes under the legal concept that publishing something makes the published item a Matter of Public Interest and that one can publicly comment on a Matter of Public Interest.

I think that this is what is sometimes referred to as "opening the door", in the sense that if someone publishes something about themself that is usually regarded as a private matter, then the person has no grounds for objection if someone else publishes a comment about it, because the first person has made the topic a Matter of Public Interest.

I am not a lawyer or legal expert though, so I might not have got that exactly right.

Instead of being she/he/they, wouldn’t it be easier if we were all it instead?

Granny23

Back in the 1960s when I worked in a bank, male staff were paid at a higher rate than females although they did the same job. Females also lost pension and bonus rights from the day they married as they were then classed as temporary staff.

If I still worked in the Bank, I would be very tempted to change my gender to male to qualify for these extra benefits.

That was in the days when a married woman's income was deemed to be her husband's income, such as sending a cheque for a tax rebate for her work to him.

I remember something about that changimg, around 1990, probably not just a coincidence that it happened within a year of what I saw on television.

I was watching on television the Conservative Party Conference.

Up on the platform, not chairing the meeting, was the then Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, accompanied by various senior Conservatives.

There was a matter of adopting the annual report, typically just a formality, but a lady from some local Conservative Association had asked to speak on the motion and she was called forward.

Well, she started on about before you you see our leader, the iron lady et cetera et cetera, Mrs Thatcher looked a bit embarrassed at all the praise. Then the punchline "But at the end of the year her earnings have to be put on her husband's tax return".

Yes.

As I say, it was changed.

Honeysuckleberries

Instead of being she/he/they, wouldn’t it be easier if we were all it instead?

But that would not distinguish people from rocks.

Maybe use human

I was talking to the cashier and human said to ask you.

An unkind dismissive attitude towards the 16% of people in the UK who are considered functionally illiterate, one in five according to the National Literacy Trust. And the 2 million living with varying sight loss. Our senses are different from our instincts.

Lady or woman? I would much prefer to be referred to as the former. Perhaps I should wear a badge with LADY on it.

Good point Granny33 so as the Halifax reportedly hourly pay for women is 40.2% lower than for men. I’m wondering are all those transgenders who identify as women receiving the lower wage ?

Honeysuckleberries

Instead of being she/he/they, wouldn’t it be easier if we were all it instead?

Indeed, Honey, feminists in the long-ago did suggest having one pronoun for everyone - 'co' is the one I remember being mentioned.
Of course no-one took any notice of them.

Some people nowadays seem really keen to fit themselves into boxes and put labels on themselves.
I read, recently, that even in languages which have not had sex-related pronouns these are now being introduced - to aid with 'validation' I guess.