> I have a right to do this because those pronouns address me.
Actually they don't address you. They refer to you. A term of address is "you". Pronouns are terms of reference.
This is one of the things that people misunderstand about pronouns like him/her. If I'm talking about someone, I get to choose how to do it. I can refer to someone as a fool, as "that tall blonde girl", or as "the guy with the huge beard from the grocery store". None of these people get to police my speech about them.
Things are somewhat different if I am referring to someone and am in their presence. In that case I would just use the person's first or last name. But some people are now taking issue with talking around preferred pronouns by using a person's name. For me, that is a bridge too far.
> If I'm talking about someone, I get to choose how to do it. I can refer to someone as a fool, as "that tall blonde girl", or as "the guy with the huge beard from the grocery store". None of these people get to police my speech about them.
I was curious about the legal situation w.r.t. forcing use of preferred pronouns. Apparently the U.S. government currently cannot do that [0], but Ireland is the opposite [1].
I'm unclear what the current situation is regarding employer-enforced pronoun usage, particularly in at-will-employment states. IIUC (and that's a big "if"), it's a messy legal topic because of competing protected classes.
You missed the point, which is that these pronouns are explicitly never used when speaking to you. They are not used for addressing you. They are in reference to you, so they will only occur when other people are speaking to one other.
True. I have in mind situations in which I am physically there. I should have said, "If you don't want to refer to someone properly, then don't refer to them at all."
Actually they don't address you. They refer to you. A term of address is "you". Pronouns are terms of reference.
This is one of the things that people misunderstand about pronouns like him/her. If I'm talking about someone, I get to choose how to do it. I can refer to someone as a fool, as "that tall blonde girl", or as "the guy with the huge beard from the grocery store". None of these people get to police my speech about them.
Things are somewhat different if I am referring to someone and am in their presence. In that case I would just use the person's first or last name. But some people are now taking issue with talking around preferred pronouns by using a person's name. For me, that is a bridge too far.