October 18, 2023 - 7:00am
Today marks International Pronouns Day. The hashtag is #PronounsDay and according to pronouns.org, we can “transform society to celebrate people’s multiple, intersecting identities.” This self-identified authority on personal pronouns goes on to suggest that:
This madness needs to stop. I say that as a trans person, but one who has chosen not to also identify as marginalised. If society is being transformed by these dubious initiatives, it does not help anyone who wants to get on with their lives — not as a multiple, intersecting identity, but as a human being.
We should ignore such ‘days’. But when universities, schools and other public bodies get on board, we risk leaving the floor open to ideologues. Liverpool John Moores University, for example, is promoting pronoun badges in a joint campaign with its student union on “getting it right.” This nonsense has become so embedded in some DEI policies that it’s hard to question it.
But we need to go further and challenge the practice. Pronouns are words we use to describe other people. Rather like adjectives. While the subject may be able to influence the choice of word by how they present themselves, they have no right to control the speech of others.
That, however, is exactly what has been happening when people expect others to use their choice of pronoun. It’s authoritarian, and — I would argue — unkind. Those who wear pronoun badges pressure others into joining them, which includes trans people who would rather just get on with their lives in peace. If were I still in the closet, it would be excruciating. What pronouns would I declare? Unless I was ready to come out to the world, there and then, declaring my pronouns would have exacerbated my dysphoria.
Perhaps the most insidious impact is on children. While schools in the UK are still waiting for government guidance on how to handle transgender issues, lesson plans for Pronouns Day are one click away. LGBT Youth Scotland’s resources for teachers would fill a 50- to 55- minute PSHE lesson. Their International Pronouns Day PowerPoint suggests that using pronouns based on appearance “sends a potentially harmful message that people must look a certain way in order be a specific gender”.
As tempting as it may be, we cannot entirely dismiss Pronouns Day when children may be deceived into thinking that it is kind to deny the reality of biological sex. Science cannot be fooled even if people can be, and we have a duty to call out pernicious ideologies, especially those that are being promoted to children. Pronouns Day? I shan’t be celebrating.
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SubscribeI identify as royalty so from here on out you must all refer to me as Your Majesty. Failure to do so harms me and so if you do not comply you will be reported for misgendering and risk two years in prison. #lovenothate people
I identify as a donkey. My pronouns are He/Haw
I identify as a cowboy coder.
My pronouns are Yee!/Hah!
Not Foo/Bar?
For me, when I’m finished it’s Fubar.
I recently put “Her Serene Highness”/“Madam la Comtesse” on a job application, where this damned nonsense was a mandatory’ question.
Haven’t had an interview!
Lol
And there’s the rub… won’t be long before failure to comply will exclude you from all jobs.
Thank you Debbie, your voice is always clear and concise on this issue and gives others the clarity and courage needed to actually reject these proposals, as opposed to just ignoring them.
So many people exist happily without fussing over pronouns, they would be shocked to experience their requirements and use as in such institutional environments.
Keep pointing out this madness! Your voice is calm and reliable.
Who on earth genuinely thinks this is even vaguely ok? Well done Debbie, We all know this loony period is going to come to an unhappy end it’s just a question of when and the sooner the better. I feel for genuine trans people as the longer all this goes on the worse it will be when we finally through this period of insanity. There will be a backlash I’m sure .. and who will suffer the most? It will undo years of tacit acceptance. The underlying viciousness and stupidity of people is astonishing.
Pronouns? How important is it for schools to teach correct grammar?
The school my children attended struggled with the difference between mandatory and voluntary, for example, if you don’t pay the voluntary payment for the school trip, your child won’t be allowed to go (I could always afford it, it was the principle that got up my nose) So not very in my experience.
I’ll also add that not all children are conned into the activist lie and encouraging children to come out at school with these silly initiatives is opening them up to a world of bullying.
Debbie describes this pronoun nonsense as “authoritarian” and “unkind”. Those are both completely reasonable. But above all it reeks of egocentric narcissism.
One can speculate at how this came about: child centric parenting and education , the attention from advertisers flogging their wares to moneyed up teens, the celebration and social cachet of victimhood, the importation of pop psychology in to the culture, encouraging everyone to analyse themselves to find out who they really are.
Whatever it is, it has created a generation of egocentric narcissists whose lack of emotional resilience has turned them in to neurotic authoritarians who insist that the world be changed to suit them.
As with everything else afflicting the country and society, one waits expectantly. but with decreasing hope, for the disappeared adults to come back to restore order and sense.
Is it just coincidence that the only other person (I know of) who used a plural pronoun to describe herself was Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom and Ireland, Empress of India. Some people are just too special for the singular.
More on this from the Grammarist.
https://grammarist.com/usage/royal-we/
“The British monarch Henry II is credited with using the royal “we” first, referring to his connection with God, and the fact that he and God were acting in concert.”
Victoria was simply following royal usage. she was too pre-occupied mourning the loss of her beloved Albert to be concerned with acting in concert with God.
“Science cannot be fooled even if people can be, and we have a duty to call out pernicious ideologies”.
People are not fooled. They never were and never will be. Using people’s preferred pronouns is a little white lie that most are prepared to tell for the sake of another’s dearly held illusion.
Science is colluding with fools (and worse) in embracing pernicious ideologies. How else do we explain the capitulation of medics to those ideologies?
‘Science’ is starting the 21st Century doing a good impression of being an entirely unreliable witness.
The second-person pronoun in English is “you” and is not gendered. “You” is used to address another directly. When talking about someone in their presence to a third person, it is polite to use their name. But when someone insists that others use a particular pronoun or made up word in their absence, they try to compel you to speak as they command. Compelled speech is alarmingly attractive to some people. Do you wish to be commanded in this way?
Excellent point. I normally can’t be bothered to intellectually engage with this nonsense, but thanks for doing the work. I’ll use this next time I encounter this crap.
Perhaps we need to practise actively ignoring it – as we would ignore “flat earth day” say, by laughing and pointing out to our kids that some people believe some funny things.
“While the subject may be able to influence the choice of word by how they present themselves, they have no right to control the speech of others.”
Exactly. We might as well celebrate International Narcissists Day.
Thanks for this.
When you’re a narcissist, every day is International Narcissists Day.
Exactly.
A strange idea that a multi use variable like a pronoun should do stand in for the complexity of an individual identity. Surely that is what personal names are for.
If I’m a man, then being a “he” is a significant part of my identity – but it’s not exhaustive. And no matter how much we multiply pronouns, it never will be. Nor do people who do not know me closely need to have the details of my identity presented to them. They just need a simple way to refer to me, especially if they do not know my name.
Good god!
At my daughter’s previous school, the kids immediately latched on to this pronoun craze as a fantastic new bullying opportunity. There was one girl who changed her pronouns daily, and devised a whole new set of ‘vegetable’ pronouns, just to keep people on their toes. Anyone using the ‘wrong’ ones would be ostracised by her and her horrible clique.
What a bunch of mean girls/artichokes they really were.
The non-binary TikTok crew who have little to do with transsexuals. The children of a Harry Potter and Peter Jackson (LoR) childhood they may be, but today they can only be described as little digital narcissists enamoured with a cyborg future where they can be transformed into their own computer-game avatars.
Sing it loud! Calloo, callay!
It’s International Pronouns Day!
No TERFs allowed,
And every fag
And every slag
Need not be cowed
But wave a silly little flag
To show they’re proud
That every he
(And she as well)
Can be a she
Or go to Hell.
Where men are sent (they are to blame)
And “He” begins the dreadful name.
My eyes glaze
And heart grows colder
At another date
To celebrate.
I’ll have you learn
My main concern
Is simply running out of Days
As I get older.
HM (he, him)
If someone is clearly a woman, or clearly presenting as one: I’ll use she. Ditto for man and he. If they are deliberately being ambiguous I’ll be understandably unsure, so will ask.
If they expect me to use made up pronouns, that’s just expecting too much. Honestly, if I found it easy to remember long tables of pronouns, then I probably would. But I don’t. And I assume that’s why we don’t have them.
You said “If they are deliberately being ambiguous I’ll be understandably unsure, so will ask.”
I’m tired of it. No asking required, I’ll just call it an it.
After all their are three genders for a reason.
Instead of prescribing the pronouns you should use to describe me, I would advise that you improvize, live by your wits, sharpen your observational skills, enjoy the frisson of spontaneity.
In fairness, if you hadn’t mention it I wouldn’t have known about it.
Because someone at pronouns.nonsense decide something should happen, it won’t necessarily do, unless you can bring some serious examples, that is.
I knew somebody who wasn’t sure which pronouns to have.
They discussed it amongst themselves and eventually the individual settled on ‘they/them/theirs’
Them is a narcissistic moron.
I specified my pronouns a couple of years ago on my blog:-
https://amoebadick.blogspot.com/2021/10/my-pronouns.html
Ms. Hayton is here to save us with practical reason. Godspeed…
Wittgenstein on the impossibilty of private languages seems relevant here.
Why only a day, when Black History gets a whole month?