At Ask A Manager recently, there was a question about what to do when an older employee has said out loud tin his outside voice that he would refuse to use the pronouns of trans and nonbinary coworkers because he believes homosexuals are going to hell and that falls under the same “umbrella of sin” (a term the letter writer (LW) used that is funny as fuck). The LW seemed to be concerned about the religious aspect, but Alison was very clear that this is discrimination (at the moment. We’ll see in a year or two) under federal law so the employee can feel however he wants about it, but he cannot treat the hypothetical trans or nonbinary worker any differently.
As I’ve said several times, this is a very progressive commentariat in general. Still. The number of people who suggested just using the trans/nonbinary employees name repeatedly as if it were a clever solution was discouraging. I said that for me, someone who is currently agender, I want people to use my name and my name only. But for people wha have pronouns, it’s rules-lawyering around respecting them. Use their damn pronouns.
Alison finally had to put a blue sticky at the top (that’s when she makes a note about something that she thinks is important and wants everyone to see) to tell people to quit suggesting that ‘solution’ because it’s not tenable. I mean, if he decided not to call anyone by pronouns and was consistent about it, then perhaps. But just using the name of the trans/nonbinary person instead of pronouns would be treating that person differently–which is distriminatory.
Here’s the thing. I am not a strict Constitutionalist, and I do not approve of the waivers that religion gets within the Constitution. Let me be clear. You want to practice your religion? Fine, great, and groovy. But your religion ends where my rights begin.
Here’s the thing. I think people should be allowed to practice their religion until it means impeding on people who don’t believe in the same thing. It’s interesting because one of the ‘read another post’ links on AAM was about a person who joined The Satanic Temple because she got very involved in patient advocay and came across TST.