My workplace, if it's internal you tend to get context, as @Doublethink has said. Plus about 50-60% of people put pronouns in their email sig. It's the external stuff that gets tricky.
I used to process paperwork where we often only had name and phone number for some of those present. Most European names we could guess gender as most of the team had that background. Something like Sam, Pat, or Lesley, which could be either gender, note on file that "they have been rung and a message left". The difficult ones were the names from various parts of Asia and Africa where most of us were not familiar with the naming patterns. Default for those whilst trying to make contact was 'they', despite the team being 90% female.
This seems to be a different situation than the one DT was originally talking about though - if all you've got is a name in an email and you can't infer gender from the name then really what your asking after is really nothing more complicated than whether the person presents socially as male or female (or as something else).
I think it gets messier if people are asking after pronouns when an individual is standing right in front of them and unambigously presenting as male or as female. Then the question threatens to become more along the lines as "do you identify the same way as you're presenting?" - which may not be a conversation everyone wants to have in all contexts.
There’s also the land girls of WW1 (my great grandmother was one of them) who paved the way for their WW2 counterparts. But they were viewed with extreme suspicion, and unlike WW2, if you weren’t a farmer’s daughter you basically weren’t getting in.
The worst time was had by the WW1 Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (I did my postgrad work on them) where there was a simultaneous desperate need for their labour, and an assumption on the part of both the military and civil society that the members must all be prostitutes, or lesbians (or lesbian prostitutes) basically.
Actually the solution to this problem which has been handed down to me through family generations is to call everyone you don't know (or can't remember the name of) the same name. Pete or Bob or Buddy.
I guess it originated in the mine or factory or army regiment.
This would, of course, not be a problem if I could actually remember names.
I know that I'm cross-threading here, but TICTH the people at the EHRC who put together the consultation text and questions for their consultation on their Code of Practice - the version of the trans-exclusion protocols that they are planning to lay before Parliament.
Two of the questions in particular are degrading and humiliating for transgender people to answer because they depend on saying that trans women are not women, and another one assumes that every transgender person is identifiable at a glance.
Also in chapter 2 of the consultation code of practice, the EHRC has updated the description of the protected characteristic of sexual orientation (to add the word "woman" after the word "lesbian"):
2.4.1 Sexual orientation is a protected characteristic (s.12(1)). It means a person’s sexual orientation towards:
persons of the same sex (the person is a lesbian woman or a gay man)
persons of the opposite sex (the person is heterosexual)
persons of either sex (the person is bisexual)
But taken with the EHRC's redefinition of "sex", this section now appears to implicitly redefine the sexual orientation of trans people who aren't bisexual, and potentially anyone who is in a (sexual) relationship with a non-bisexual trans person, whether or not they're aware of the other person's sex recorded at birth, or the ruling, or the EHRC's guidance.
Note that the context for the consultation are proposed changes to the code of practice for services, public functions and associations.
Also in chapter 2 of the consultation code of practice, the EHRC has updated the description of the protected characteristic of sexual orientation (to add the word "woman" after the word "lesbian"):
2.4.1 Sexual orientation is a protected characteristic (s.12(1)). It means a person’s sexual orientation towards:
persons of the same sex (the person is a lesbian woman or a gay man)
persons of the opposite sex (the person is heterosexual)
persons of either sex (the person is bisexual)
But taken with the EHRC's redefinition of "sex", this section now appears to implicitly redefine the sexual orientation of trans people who aren't bisexual, and potentially anyone who is in a (sexual) relationship with a non-bisexual trans person, whether or not they're aware of the other person's sex recorded at birth, or the ruling, or the EHRC's guidance.
Note that the context for the consultation are proposed changes to the code of practice for services, public functions and associations.
Which seems to be excluding couples who are both trans. Unless I'm missing something.
In other news, [redacted for legal risk - la vie en rouge,
Epiphanies host pro tem ].
@Basketactortale I'm afraid I've redacted your post above because the person you referred to is known to be litigious, even against very small web outlets. Unfortunately we don't allow any mention of this individual at all because we don't have the funds to risk a lawsuit (even if what you posted eventually turned out to be fine).
Ah, I hadn't thought of that. For the record I didn't say anything negative and only quoted from their website. But fair enough if even that's a legal risk.
I have completed my consultation response and written an open letter to my MP (emailed to him and posted on my blog) about the the ruling and the EHRC's interim guidance and consultation on their Code of Practice.
Less than a minute after I emailed it to him, a good friend came online to say that this morning, her 6-year old had been thrown out of the Ladies and told to go in the Gents at soft play (at soft play!!!) by someone who was in there and reckoned the child was a boy. The child in question was then immediately thrown out of the Gents by someone who decided the child was a girl. The child is 6, and small for their age.
My friend found her child crying on the floor between the two sets of toilets.
What's disturbing is living in a world where people are actively encouraged to address their fears by scapegoating other groups of people.
What's worse than weird is that we (in the UK) live in a country where the organisation that enforces and upholds anti-harassment and anti-discrimination legislation appears willing to codify this scapegoating behaviour. In this scenario, a child being ejected from toilets for the way they look is just collateral damage. (Asking myself whether this would have happened if the EHRC hadn't rushed out an update focussing on access to toilets and changing rooms.)
The underlying issue is not one that can be addressed solely by creating, interpreting and enforcing laws (although this can always make it worse).
What I find weird is that we allow it - the theory of moral panics isn't new and the history of scapegoating goes back over a thousand years at least.
We know how all this works and yet we allow newspapers to run entire campaigns of scapegoating minorities and political parties refuse to kick out those involved in promoting these campaigns until they're powerful enough to seize the agenda.
It seems to me to be a form of conservativism that wants to turn the clock back to some imagined golden age by purging all the people who (to them) are glaring reminders that we don't live in their rosy-tinted ideal world of yesteryear where everyone was white, straight, cis etc ( like @Doublethink was saying about changing notions of gender)
I wonder also if there's an element of magical thinking - back when house prices were low and wages high and there were lots of good jobs- and a wrong/ magical way of responding to that would be that if we could just make our society look like society in the nostalgic picture ' when white men were in charge and everyone knew their place' all the remembered prosperity would come back.
Analysing what went wrong and where living standards started to get damaged and why requires thinking and studying - and that's work that a lot of voters won't or can't do - so they vote for 'the past' but in ways which are easily manipulated by rich unscrupulous people who want to exploit society and who reckon by manipulating these mistaken beliefs they can get away with it and continue to loot, often at the expense of the very people who were scammed into voting for them.
Analysing what went wrong and where living standards started to get damaged and why requires thinking and studying
Which are precisely the kinds of complex ideas that travel poorly on short-form social media.
Whereas conservatism can lean heavily on euphemism and cliche ("Everybody knows .." "These days .." as opposed to "In the old days .." etc) which travel relatively well.
Yeah, we should go with -> they chose to cut your services so the wealthy could pay less tax, now they expect you to believe it is anybody else’s fault. Don’t buy it. Nobody’s pronouns set the NHS budget, a bloke on a small boat didn’t decide to prevent councils building houses.
It's always worth working on arguments and highlighting material interests, but structurally social media will always favour the shorter and cruder argument (so the right will just post memes or pictures of people who look slightly unconventional).
One aspect that is particularly noxious about this is the laissez-faire way that other people are spoken about. As if actually the things they say they should have as right are impossible to give and they just have to accept reality.
The other day I was having a quiet coffee in a shop. At the next table were a group of loud women and unfortunately I couldn't help overhearing the conversation.
"Someone I know is a teacher in a primary school," said the one to her friend. "A child in her class self-identifies as a carrot.."
The EHRC is now at the point where they are telling the country that being trans is no different than being a human carrot.
One aspect that is particularly noxious about this is the laissez-faire way that other people are spoken about. As if actually the things they say they should have as right are impossible to give and they just have to accept reality.
The other day I was having a quiet coffee in a shop. At the next table were a group of loud women and unfortunately I couldn't help overhearing the conversation.
"Someone I know is a teacher in a primary school," said the one to her friend. "A child in her class self-identifies as a carrot.."
The EHRC is now at the point where they are telling the country that being trans is no different than being a human carrot.
I'll file the carrot identifying child along with other "bullshit that never happened" as well.
Right now I'm in despair. I want - no, I need - the same rights as everyone else.
The commissioner says that "other people have rights too", and whilst this is true, and there do exist places where people's rights conflict and you have to choose which rights are more important, these are not the majority of cases.
Nobody's rights are infringed by a trans person using the bathroom that corresponds to their gender. Nobody's rights are infringed when they are asked to address a trans person by the name they have chosen. The religious right likes to claim that it is an infringement of their religious rights to force them to use male pronouns for a trans man. This claim is nonsense.
Millions of people around the world have names that mean something along the lines of "God is Great", "God is Merciful", and various other statements about God. It does not infringe your religious rights to call one of those people by their name. You are not being asked to agree with the sentiment embedded in their name.
The same goes when someone is asked to call a trans woman "Katie", and refer to her as "she". That's her name. Referring to her as "she" is not a statement that you agree that she's a woman - you're just using the labels that she has indicated apply to her. This does not infringe your rights.
I was looking at what you need to do to get a gender recognition certificate, it includes - live as your new gender for two years. How the fuck are you supposed to do that without self-ID ?
I was looking at what you need to do to get a gender recognition certificate, it includes - live as your new gender for two years. How the fuck are you supposed to do that without self-ID ?
"Live as your new gender - but use the other gender's bogs"?
Of some note is that she previously came out against the changes to the GRA proposed under Theresa May (which were similar to the ones the SNP tried to pass in Scotland):
If you look at the Guardian article now, you'll see that the title has changed significantly, to "EHRC commissioner calls for ‘period of correction’ on trans rights after legal ruling". Also note that, as an EHRC commissioner, Akua Reindorf KC is one of the people responsible for drawing up the new statutory code of practice.
“Unfortunately, young people and trans people have been lied to over many years about what their rights are. It’s like Naomi said – I just can’t say it in a more diplomatic way than that. They have been lied to, and there has to be a period of correction, because other people have rights.”
...
“The fact is that, until now, trans people without GRCs were being grievously misled about their legal rights,” she said. “The correction of self-ID policies and practices will inevitably feel like a loss of rights for trans people. This unfortunate position is overwhelmingly a product of the misinformation which was systematically disseminated over a long period by lobby groups and activists.”
This does not sound very diplomatic. To me it sounds more like: "don't blame the EHRC, blame all the lobby groups and activists - they're the ones who lied to you."
And it doesn't seem like appropriate behaviour from a commissioner of a public authority speaking at a public event, regardless of whether it was in a personal capacity. The Public Sector Equality Duty - section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 starts with:
(1) A public authority must, in the exercise of its functions, have due regard to the need to—
(a) eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under this Act;
(b) advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it;
(c) foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.
I have completed my consultation response and written an open letter to my MP (emailed to him and posted on my blog) about the the ruling and the EHRC's interim guidance and consultation on their Code of Practice.
Less than a minute after I emailed it to him, a good friend came online to say that this morning, her 6-year old had been thrown out of the Ladies and told to go in the Gents at soft play (at soft play!!!) by someone who was in there and reckoned the child was a boy. The child in question was then immediately thrown out of the Gents by someone who decided the child was a girl. The child is 6, and small for their age.
My friend found her child crying on the floor between the two sets of toilets.
Who TF are the self appointed toilet police?
Fwiw my 9 year daughter (femme presenting) often prefers to go to male loo if I am accompanying her because she feels safe with one of her grownups.
If kids are going to get the gestapo treatment now, I'm not surprised.
Comments
This seems to be a different situation than the one DT was originally talking about though - if all you've got is a name in an email and you can't infer gender from the name then really what your asking after is really nothing more complicated than whether the person presents socially as male or female (or as something else).
I think it gets messier if people are asking after pronouns when an individual is standing right in front of them and unambigously presenting as male or as female. Then the question threatens to become more along the lines as "do you identify the same way as you're presenting?" - which may not be a conversation everyone wants to have in all contexts.
The worst time was had by the WW1 Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (I did my postgrad work on them) where there was a simultaneous desperate need for their labour, and an assumption on the part of both the military and civil society that the members must all be prostitutes, or lesbians (or lesbian prostitutes) basically.
But then I have a terrible memory for names so fairly often stumble.
I guess it originated in the mine or factory or army regiment.
This would, of course, not be a problem if I could actually remember names.
Two of the questions in particular are degrading and humiliating for transgender people to answer because they depend on saying that trans women are not women, and another one assumes that every transgender person is identifiable at a glance.
But taken with the EHRC's redefinition of "sex", this section now appears to implicitly redefine the sexual orientation of trans people who aren't bisexual, and potentially anyone who is in a (sexual) relationship with a non-bisexual trans person, whether or not they're aware of the other person's sex recorded at birth, or the ruling, or the EHRC's guidance.
Note that the context for the consultation are proposed changes to the code of practice for services, public functions and associations.
Which seems to be excluding couples who are both trans. Unless I'm missing something.
In other news, [redacted for legal risk - la vie en rouge,
Epiphanies host pro tem ].
@Basketactortale I'm afraid I've redacted your post above because the person you referred to is known to be litigious, even against very small web outlets. Unfortunately we don't allow any mention of this individual at all because we don't have the funds to risk a lawsuit (even if what you posted eventually turned out to be fine).
Hostly beret off
la vie en rouge, temporary Epiphanies host
What a weird world we live in.
Less than a minute after I emailed it to him, a good friend came online to say that this morning, her 6-year old had been thrown out of the Ladies and told to go in the Gents at soft play (at soft play!!!) by someone who was in there and reckoned the child was a boy. The child in question was then immediately thrown out of the Gents by someone who decided the child was a girl. The child is 6, and small for their age.
My friend found her child crying on the floor between the two sets of toilets.
What's worse than weird is that we (in the UK) live in a country where the organisation that enforces and upholds anti-harassment and anti-discrimination legislation appears willing to codify this scapegoating behaviour. In this scenario, a child being ejected from toilets for the way they look is just collateral damage. (Asking myself whether this would have happened if the EHRC hadn't rushed out an update focussing on access to toilets and changing rooms.)
The underlying issue is not one that can be addressed solely by creating, interpreting and enforcing laws (although this can always make it worse).
We know how all this works and yet we allow newspapers to run entire campaigns of scapegoating minorities and political parties refuse to kick out those involved in promoting these campaigns until they're powerful enough to seize the agenda.
It seems to me to be a form of conservativism that wants to turn the clock back to some imagined golden age by purging all the people who (to them) are glaring reminders that we don't live in their rosy-tinted ideal world of yesteryear where everyone was white, straight, cis etc ( like @Doublethink was saying about changing notions of gender)
I wonder also if there's an element of magical thinking - back when house prices were low and wages high and there were lots of good jobs- and a wrong/ magical way of responding to that would be that if we could just make our society look like society in the nostalgic picture ' when white men were in charge and everyone knew their place' all the remembered prosperity would come back.
Analysing what went wrong and where living standards started to get damaged and why requires thinking and studying - and that's work that a lot of voters won't or can't do - so they vote for 'the past' but in ways which are easily manipulated by rich unscrupulous people who want to exploit society and who reckon by manipulating these mistaken beliefs they can get away with it and continue to loot, often at the expense of the very people who were scammed into voting for them.
Which are precisely the kinds of complex ideas that travel poorly on short-form social media.
Whereas conservatism can lean heavily on euphemism and cliche ("Everybody knows .." "These days .." as opposed to "In the old days .." etc) which travel relatively well.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/06/ehrc-commissioner-calls-for-trans-people-to-accept-reduced-rights-after-years-of-lies
The other day I was having a quiet coffee in a shop. At the next table were a group of loud women and unfortunately I couldn't help overhearing the conversation.
"Someone I know is a teacher in a primary school," said the one to her friend. "A child in her class self-identifies as a carrot.."
The EHRC is now at the point where they are telling the country that being trans is no different than being a human carrot.
I'll file the carrot identifying child along with other "bullshit that never happened" as well.
I agree. Of all the things that didn't happen, that didn't happen the most.
Right now I'm in despair. I want - no, I need - the same rights as everyone else.
You deserve the same rights as everyone else. The whole idea that some groups are more worthy and others such just suck it up is nonsense.
The commissioner says that "other people have rights too", and whilst this is true, and there do exist places where people's rights conflict and you have to choose which rights are more important, these are not the majority of cases.
Nobody's rights are infringed by a trans person using the bathroom that corresponds to their gender. Nobody's rights are infringed when they are asked to address a trans person by the name they have chosen. The religious right likes to claim that it is an infringement of their religious rights to force them to use male pronouns for a trans man. This claim is nonsense.
Millions of people around the world have names that mean something along the lines of "God is Great", "God is Merciful", and various other statements about God. It does not infringe your religious rights to call one of those people by their name. You are not being asked to agree with the sentiment embedded in their name.
The same goes when someone is asked to call a trans woman "Katie", and refer to her as "she". That's her name. Referring to her as "she" is not a statement that you agree that she's a woman - you're just using the labels that she has indicated apply to her. This does not infringe your rights.
I was looking at what you need to do to get a gender recognition certificate, it includes - live as your new gender for two years. How the fuck are you supposed to do that without self-ID ?
"Live as your new gender - but use the other gender's bogs"?
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-preferred-candidate-for-chair-of-equality-and-human-rights-commission
Of some note is that she previously came out against the changes to the GRA proposed under Theresa May (which were similar to the ones the SNP tried to pass in Scotland):
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/14/observer-letters-theresa-may-siren-words-fool-no-one
It's possible she also contributed to Allison Bailey's legal costs:
https://bsky.app/profile/jessothomson.co.uk/post/3lquqr66xic2r
And it doesn't seem like appropriate behaviour from a commissioner of a public authority speaking at a public event, regardless of whether it was in a personal capacity. The Public Sector Equality Duty - section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 starts with:
Who TF are the self appointed toilet police?
Fwiw my 9 year daughter (femme presenting) often prefers to go to male loo if I am accompanying her because she feels safe with one of her grownups.
If kids are going to get the gestapo treatment now, I'm not surprised.