My preferred technique whenever people ask my pronouns is to say “whatever makes you comfortable.”
This unbalances the person asking and I’ve almost always been told some variation of “this is to make you comfortable.”
This leaves several options for response.
“Having to state my pronouns makes me uncomfortable,” is one but I like “You can’t make me uncomfortable with the wrong pronouns.”
If I choose to I can elaborate, “My identity is mine. You being mistaken about it, which we both know is unlikely, isn’t going to change or harm what we both know I am. It would not offend me. So, please use whatever pronouns make you comfortable.”
I adopted (Human) as my preferred pronoun on LinkedIn. I have around 1200 connections I’ve curated over about 13 years in the banking, finance and professional services fields.
Not sure how well that is going over yet, but good thing I’m not currently looking for a new job.
I was reading a tweet earlier today about women being more woke because they like to nurture others. I saw a response to it that said, "so, women (smart ones who realize this) need to be the ones to defuse the woke ones. use the real version of powerful feminine leadership energy and flip the script on the herd based ones. They will listen to genuine women with palatable stories"
I responded with the stuff I said on Disaffected Podcast: children miswant to trans because they don't know what they actually want is to feel better emotionally, and cosmetic surgery can cause people to have higher suicidal ideation. I care for people, and that is where what I am saying comes from. I don't want children to be hurt (just like many of the women pushing trans ideology who incorrectly IMHO believe children will commit suicide if they don't trans).
In general, both sets of women want to protect children (supply your own not alls). We just have opposite ideas of how to do that.
So I share my reasons for wanting to protect children that goes against the woke reasons.
And you, in your own way, do this too. I shared your article here on twitter with the bit about PTSD being triggered. I would feel very uncomfortable sharing my pronouns with others even if I didn't have any sexual trauma, because that's just unnecessary personal information being spotlighted. It's the spotlight that's incredibly creepy and a bit abusive to require that of someone. You have given an excellent reason to not require this ritual.
Great suggestions. I particularly like the trolling instructions.
These are the responses I've used when encountering a pronoun ritual. They work for me because they suit my personality and I have little fear (that's not a criticism at anyone who has more fear):
1. "I do not participate in pronoun rituals. My name is Josh."
2. Q: "What are your pronouns?"
A: "The conventional ones that you have already assumed, and that everyone knows."
I have a toddler and I get nauseous thinking about the pronoun-rituals to come. I am pretty sure I’ll snap and rant so I should really spend some time working on my scripts.
I don't think I could keep a straight face while directly trolling by continually flipping the pronoun badge over randomly while someone is talking to me, but it might be fun to make people use "she / her" with my 6'5" linebacker built, foot long grey-bearded self. Maybe while wearing a shirt that says "Feel Free To Call Me Out On This Bullshit".
A doctor rushes to the side of a patient who has just collapsed on the way to the toilets in the emergency wing. He checks for signs of life—pulse, circulation, breathing. He has never seen the patient before. How serious, he wonders, could this be? The doctor calls out: “Does anyone know anything about her?” The senior nurse, who has just come over, looks shocked.
“Him!” she practically shouts at the doctor. “You refer to that patient as him!”
And the doctor thinks to himself: “So I’m supposed to check the patient’s pronouns before I check his pulse.”
My knowledge of Turkish (or Nigerian or ...) first names is not good enough that I can necessarily tell if someone is male or female by the name. I know they can't always tell mine because I've seen them refer to me (Francis, male) as "her" or "she" in emails to others. Note that I failed to get all worked up about being mispronouned, neither did the Turkish lady I ended up calling "he" in another similar situation.
Saying “my pronouns are personal” is my tongue-in-cheek response that says absolutely nothing (what they’ve asked me for are known as _personal pronouns_, after all), and it also says everything (“F.U. and this question”).
My preferred technique whenever people ask my pronouns is to say “whatever makes you comfortable.”
This unbalances the person asking and I’ve almost always been told some variation of “this is to make you comfortable.”
This leaves several options for response.
“Having to state my pronouns makes me uncomfortable,” is one but I like “You can’t make me uncomfortable with the wrong pronouns.”
If I choose to I can elaborate, “My identity is mine. You being mistaken about it, which we both know is unlikely, isn’t going to change or harm what we both know I am. It would not offend me. So, please use whatever pronouns make you comfortable.”
I adopted (Human) as my preferred pronoun on LinkedIn. I have around 1200 connections I’ve curated over about 13 years in the banking, finance and professional services fields.
Not sure how well that is going over yet, but good thing I’m not currently looking for a new job.
I was reading a tweet earlier today about women being more woke because they like to nurture others. I saw a response to it that said, "so, women (smart ones who realize this) need to be the ones to defuse the woke ones. use the real version of powerful feminine leadership energy and flip the script on the herd based ones. They will listen to genuine women with palatable stories"
I responded with the stuff I said on Disaffected Podcast: children miswant to trans because they don't know what they actually want is to feel better emotionally, and cosmetic surgery can cause people to have higher suicidal ideation. I care for people, and that is where what I am saying comes from. I don't want children to be hurt (just like many of the women pushing trans ideology who incorrectly IMHO believe children will commit suicide if they don't trans).
In general, both sets of women want to protect children (supply your own not alls). We just have opposite ideas of how to do that.
So I share my reasons for wanting to protect children that goes against the woke reasons.
And you, in your own way, do this too. I shared your article here on twitter with the bit about PTSD being triggered. I would feel very uncomfortable sharing my pronouns with others even if I didn't have any sexual trauma, because that's just unnecessary personal information being spotlighted. It's the spotlight that's incredibly creepy and a bit abusive to require that of someone. You have given an excellent reason to not require this ritual.
Great suggestions. I particularly like the trolling instructions.
These are the responses I've used when encountering a pronoun ritual. They work for me because they suit my personality and I have little fear (that's not a criticism at anyone who has more fear):
1. "I do not participate in pronoun rituals. My name is Josh."
2. Q: "What are your pronouns?"
A: "The conventional ones that you have already assumed, and that everyone knows."
If I'm ever asked, I'm going to say my pronouns are "Bossman/Master." I'm a white male, so I'm sure it'll go over real well.
I think my honest answer will be “Being coerced makes me very uncomfortable.”
As a white guy retired from the military, my troll response is “Call me ‘Sir’.”
Both tactics are great especially the second one for women who identify as what they are.
I have a toddler and I get nauseous thinking about the pronoun-rituals to come. I am pretty sure I’ll snap and rant so I should really spend some time working on my scripts.
I don't think I could keep a straight face while directly trolling by continually flipping the pronoun badge over randomly while someone is talking to me, but it might be fun to make people use "she / her" with my 6'5" linebacker built, foot long grey-bearded self. Maybe while wearing a shirt that says "Feel Free To Call Me Out On This Bullshit".
On the pronoun front - this seems relevant:
https://compactmag.com/article/the-thing-that-swallowed-britain
quote:
A doctor rushes to the side of a patient who has just collapsed on the way to the toilets in the emergency wing. He checks for signs of life—pulse, circulation, breathing. He has never seen the patient before. How serious, he wonders, could this be? The doctor calls out: “Does anyone know anything about her?” The senior nurse, who has just come over, looks shocked.
“Him!” she practically shouts at the doctor. “You refer to that patient as him!”
And the doctor thinks to himself: “So I’m supposed to check the patient’s pronouns before I check his pulse.”
As I wrote here - https://tomknighton.substack.com/p/this-is-why-the-pronoun-thing-is/comment/13370241 - as a comment on another substack on the same basic topic, the only time I see the pronoun thing being remotely useful is in email communications with people in foreign parts.
My knowledge of Turkish (or Nigerian or ...) first names is not good enough that I can necessarily tell if someone is male or female by the name. I know they can't always tell mine because I've seen them refer to me (Francis, male) as "her" or "she" in emails to others. Note that I failed to get all worked up about being mispronouned, neither did the Turkish lady I ended up calling "he" in another similar situation.
Saying “my pronouns are personal” is my tongue-in-cheek response that says absolutely nothing (what they’ve asked me for are known as _personal pronouns_, after all), and it also says everything (“F.U. and this question”).