"Ladies and gentlemen"

[Bantamzen]

Its been said already, but quite honestly getting upset over pronouns in the context of a world that could easily tip over into WWIII just seems, well somewhat trivial. Everyone should have the right to be who they want to be, so long of course that this doesn't impede someone else's right to be who they want to be. But nobody has the right to expect the world to bend over backwards and do backflips every time they get slightly offended by not using their preferred pronoun. Frankly it is starting to feel like society is descending into (even more) self pity, megalomania and narcissism.

We are little more than neurotic apes, living on ball of molten rock hurtling through space around a giant nuclear reactor, in an area filled billions of other reactors, plus giant rocks and waves of radiation, any of which at any moment could wipe life on this planet out of existence. Better still these apes not content with all the danger around them, choose to build guns and bombs, even ones that could do almost as much extinction level damage whist throwing bullets and bombs at each other with impunity. Furthermore this species threatens each other because of arbitrary lines in the sand, or whose deity is the shiniest. Its like two fleas arguing over who owns the dog.

Yet here we are with wars starting and others in the oven ready-baked, but its pronouns that upset some the most. Its been said by some that our species coming down from the tress was a big mistake, but I'm firmly in the "should have stayed in the water" camp, because with every passing year I understand humans and society less.

 

[spyinthesky]

I really don’t see who is not included. Everyone is one or the other or aspiring to be one or the other.
As for the use of Boys and Girls the same applies in a children’s environment such as school or a pantomime.

 

[birchesgreen]

I really don’t see who is not included. Everyone is one or the other or aspiring to be one or the other.
As for the use of Boys and Girls the same applies in a children’s environment such as school or a pantomime.

Well some do not identity as either (i don't really myself) but i don't let such minor issues worry me.

 

[jon81uk]

Why would ladies and gentlemen bother you if you was gender fluid, either term could apply on a given day.

I really don’t see who is not included. Everyone is one or the other or aspiring to be one or the other.

Non-binary people.

 

[Magdalia]

I really don’t see who is not included. Everyone is one or the other or aspiring to be one or the other.

That's simply not correct.

The 2021 census included a question on gender identity. In England and Wales about 262k people said that the gender that they identified with was not the same as the sex they were assigned at birth.

Of those, only 48k people identified as trans men and 48k as trans women, less than half of the total. 30k identified as non-binary, 16k wrote in another gender identity, and 118k did not describe their gender identity. (The numbers don't quite add up because of rounding differences.)

All of the 30k that identified as non-binary and the 16k that wrote in another gender identity, plus some of the the 118k did not describe their gender identity, are not included in "ladies and gentlemen" because they are neither one or the other.

Furthermore, the census shows that these people are predominantly young, and predominantly located in big cities and university cities, so probably more likely than the general population to use the train.

Together, they are at least 1 in 1000 of the population as a whole. That means that in a train carrying 1000 people there is at least a 50/50 chance that at least one passenger will not be a lady or a gentleman.

The full ONS News Release is here.

Gender identity, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

The gender identity of usual residents aged 16 years and over in England and Wales, Census 2021 data.

www.ons.gov.uk

• The census question on gender identity was a voluntary question asked of those aged 16 years and over. The question asked “Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?”.
• Overall, 45.7 million (94.0% of the population aged 16 years and over) answered the question.
• In total, 45.4 million (93.5%) answered “Yes” and 262,000 (0.5%) answered “No”.
• The remaining 2.9 million (6.0%) did not answer the question.

 

[birchesgreen]

Non-binary people.

I was referring to the given definition of gender fluid earlier.

 

[jon81uk]

I was referring to the given definition of gender fluid earlier.

Some gender-fluid people will identify as non-binary on a given day. Some will also vent when presenting as male or female prefer they/them pronouns and non-gendered language.

Not everyone of course, even within a group people are different. But in the context of this discussion on gendered language it’s far easier to just avoid gendered terms such as ladies and gentlemen altogether.

I’ve recently found some people still use s/he when writing, when they or you works better anyway. There was no need for the gendered term.

 

[alxndr]

Just because there's war and suffering in the world doesn't mean that we can't make a small effort to get in the habit of using language that doesn't make some people feel excluded. There's not a limited amount of "nice" to get shared around, and it costs nothing.

All the phrase really serves is an indicator that people should switch their attention to the announcement and give them a moment to do so. It may as well (and, in my opinion, should) be one that doesn't alienate people. The vast majority of people won't even notice if an announcement is preceeded by "good afternoon/dear passengers/etc" instead of "ladies and gentlemen" but for some using the latter is an uncomfortable reminder that the world does not recognise or include them.

 

[westv]

That's simply not correct.

The 2021 census included a question on gender identity. In England and Wales about 262k people said that the gender that they identified with was not the same as the sex they were assigned at birth.

Of those, only 48k people identified as trans men and 48k as trans women, less than half of the total. 30k identified as non-binary, 16k wrote in another gender identity, and 118k did not describe their gender identity. (The numbers don't quite add up because of rounding differences.)

All of the 30k that identified as non-binary and the 16k that wrote in another gender identity, plus some of the the 118k did not describe their gender identity, are not included in "ladies and gentlemen" because they are neither one or the other.

Furthermore, the census shows that these people are predominantly young, and predominantly located in big cities and university cities, so probably more likely than the general population to use the train.

Together, they are at least 1 in 1000 of the population as a whole. That means that in a train carrying 1000 people there is at least a 50/50 chance that at least one passenger will not be a lady or a gentleman.

The full ONS News Release is here.

Gender identity, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

The gender identity of usual residents aged 16 years and over in England and Wales, Census 2021 data.

www.ons.gov.uk

You can't assume that all of the 118k didn't consider themselves male or female. Some/many/most may have just not bothered to answer the voluntary question.

 

[jon81uk]

You can't assume that all of the 118k didn't consider themselves male or female. Some/many/most may have just not bothered to answer the voluntary question.

But they still answered the previous voluntary question stating they don’t identify with the gender assigned at birth.

 

[Magdalia]

You can't assume that all of the 118k didn't consider themselves male or female. Some/many/most may have just not bothered to answer the voluntary question.

And I'm not! I did say "plus some of the 118k". If the 118k was split in the same proportion as those who gave an answer, that would still be about 38k more people.

 

[Bantamzen]

Just because there's war and suffering in the world doesn't mean that we can't make a small effort to get in the habit of using language that doesn't make some people feel excluded. There's not a limited amount of "nice" to get shared around, and it costs nothing.

All the phrase really serves is an indicator that people should switch their attention to the announcement and give them a moment to do so. It may as well (and, in my opinion, should) be one that doesn't alienate people. The vast majority of people won't even notice if an announcement is preceeded by "good afternoon/dear passengers/etc" instead of "ladies and gentlemen" but for some using the latter is an uncomfortable reminder that the world does not recognise or include them.

My point is there are far bigger problems for humanity to worry about than labels we assign ourselves.

 

[spyinthesky]

You can't assume that all of the 118k didn't consider themselves male or female. Some/many/most may have just not bothered to answer the voluntary question.

Nor does it change my opinion.
I really don’t mind who or what people think they are or what they want to be.

 

[birchesgreen]

The problem with "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls..." is that it reminds me of Dr Dealgood in Mad Max 3.

 

[dangie]

As the quote says:
’You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time’

Maybe should be worded to:
’We must please some of the people all of the time, we can please most of the people some of the time’.

 

[spyinthesky]

And I'm not! I did say "plus some of the 118k". If the 118k was split in the same proportion as those who gave an answer, that would still be about 38k

So with statistics the average person has no Gender.

 

[bleeder4]

In England and Wales about 262k people said that the gender that they identified with was not the same as the sex they were assigned at birth.

Of those, only 48k people identified as trans men and 48k as trans women, less than half of the total. 30k identified as non-binary, 16k wrote in another gender identity, and 118k did not describe their gender identity. (The numbers don't quite add up because of rounding differences.)

All of the 30k that identified as non-binary and the 16k that wrote in another gender identity, plus some of the the 118k did not describe their gender identity, are not included in "ladies and gentlemen" because they are neither one or the other.

I'm 41 years old, but those three lines make no sense to me at all. I genuinely do not understand the terms you are using or the concepts you are describing. It's mad that the stuff I learned in Biology at school, and sat exams on, just 20 odd years ago, is now consigned to the dustbin. Sometimes I really don't understand the world I now find myself living in.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm 41 years old, but those three lines make no sense to me at all. I genuinely do not understand the terms you are using or the concepts you are describing. It's mad that the stuff I learned in Biology at school, and sat exams on, just 20 odd years ago, is now consigned to the dustbin. Sometimes I really don't understand the world I now find myself living in.

It's not (or shouldn't be) consigned to the dustbin. I'd be pretty sure that what you learned in biology at school was and still is completely correct (assuming you weren't following some very weird syllabus). The problem is that some people, motivated by the very noble aim of wanting everyone to be able to follow the lifestyle they want without prejudice, have started confusing physical reality with what people want - and that's entered popular culture to an extent that in many circles it's now seen as bad to state what is actually completely factually correct

 

[jon81uk]

I'm 41 years old, but those three lines make no sense to me at all. I genuinely do not understand the terms you are using or the concepts you are describing. It's mad that the stuff I learned in Biology at school, and sat exams on, just 20 odd years ago, is now consigned to the dustbin. Sometimes I really don't understand the world I now find myself living in.

The stuff you learnt in biology is about sex, it is still relevant. We are discussing gender identity not biological sex.
Also your age isn't relevant, I'm 43 and understand that some people identify different to others, its about being open to learning and being able to empathise with others.

In terms of school education, its the relationships and sex education type stuff that will have changed and that varied wildly by school anyway.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I’ve recently found some people still use s/he when writing, when they or you works better anyway. There was no need for the gendered term.

I still use s/he and am very happy to do so. I disagree that 'they' works better: The problem with 'they' is that it's completely ambiguous as to whether it's singular or plural. Example: I few months ago I spent some time with a friend whose 12 year old daughter has decided to start using 'they' pronouns, and where my friend has completely gone along with that. We had several conversations in which I was getting confused thinking my friend was talking about a number of unspecified children, when it turned out that she was talking only about her daughter and referring to her as 'they'.

I would go as far as to say that someone who chooses to label themselves as 'they/them' and expects others to follow that is actually being downright inconsiderate to other people, with the confusion and ambiguity that person is likely subjecting other people to. I have no problem with someone who chooses to identify with the opposite gender and therefore asks to be referred to as whichever of 'she' or 'he' that person prefers - provided it is a polite request, not an insistence.

 

[dk1]

I still start most on train announcements with "ladies and gentlemen" and always will. Only other option I would consider is "ladies gentlemen boys girls and everything In between" just as Sara Cox does weekday afternoons on Radio 2.

 

[43096]

I still use s/he and am very happy to do so. I disagree that 'they' works better: The problem with 'they' is that it's completely ambiguous as to whether it's singular or plural. Example: I few months ago I spent some time with a friend whose 12 year old daughter has decided to start using 'they' pronouns, and where my friend has completely gone along with that. We had several conversations in which I was getting confused thinking my friend was talking about a number of unspecified children, when it turned out that she was talking only about her daughter and referring to her as 'they'.

I would go as far as to say that someone who chooses to label themselves as 'they/them' and expects others to follow that is actually being downright inconsiderate to other people, with the confusion and ambiguity that person is likely subjecting other people to. I have no problem with someone who chooses to identify with the opposite gender and therefore asks to be referred to as whichever of 'she' or 'he' that person prefers - provided it is a polite request, not an insistence.

I did see a cartoon a while back with someone saying “I identify as someone who uses the wrong pronouns.” Not sure how those who get in a twist about it would cope with that claim, mind you!

 

[Magdalia]

I'm 41 years old, but those three lines make no sense to me at all. I genuinely do not understand the terms you are using or the concepts you are describing. It's mad that the stuff I learned in Biology at school, and sat exams on, just 20 odd years ago, is now consigned to the dustbin. Sometimes I really don't understand the world I now find myself living in.

School science always simplifies things that are actually more complicated, and scientific knowledge, particularly in the field of genetics, has advanced rapidly since you were at school.

What you learned at school isn't consigned to the dustbin: it applies for most people but not for everyone. Much more is known about what are now called Differences in Sexual Development. You probably learned that females have XX chromosomes, and males XY chromosomes, but they probably didn't teach you that some people are born with extra chromosomes. If someone has XXY, does the XX make them female or does the XY make them male? Then there are differences in hormone production or sensitivity that can result in some people having a mix of physical characteristics, some male and some female. It is still the case that very little is known about the science that drives how people perceive their gender identity, but that doesn't mean that it isn't real.

Much of scientific advance comes from observing the world as it really is, then trying to explain it. Scientific advance doesn't come by observing the world and trying to fit it with existing theory, even when the empirical evidence is to the contrary. Hopefully they taught you that at school.

 

[trainophile]

Its been said already, but quite honestly getting upset over pronouns in the context of a world that could easily tip over into WWIII just seems, well somewhat trivial. Everyone should have the right to be who they want to be, so long of course that this doesn't impede someone else's right to be who they want to be. But nobody has the right to expect the world to bend over backwards and do backflips every time they get slightly offended by not using their preferred pronoun. Frankly it is starting to feel like society is descending into (even more) self pity, megalomania and narcissism.

We are little more than neurotic apes, living on ball of molten rock hurtling through space around a giant nuclear reactor, in an area filled billions of other reactors, plus giant rocks and waves of radiation, any of which at any moment could wipe life on this planet out of existence. Better still these apes not content with all the danger around them, choose to build guns and bombs, even ones that could do almost as much extinction level damage whist throwing bullets and bombs at each other with impunity. Furthermore this species threatens each other because of arbitrary lines in the sand, or whose deity is the shiniest. Its like two fleas arguing over who owns the dog.

Yet here we are with wars starting and others in the oven ready-baked, but its pronouns that upset some the most. Its been said by some that our species coming down from the tress was a big mistake, but I'm firmly in the "should have stayed in the water" camp, because with every passing year I understand humans and society less.

Brilliantly put. Thank you. Let’s keep all this in proportion.

 

[Essan]

"Ladies and gentlemen" is simply a polite, colloquial, term for "everyone".

 

[CharlieSpotted]

I'm 41 years old, but those three lines make no sense to me at all. I genuinely do not understand the terms you are using or the concepts you are describing. It's mad that the stuff I learned in Biology at school, and sat exams on, just 20 odd years ago, is now consigned to the dustbin. Sometimes I really don't understand the world I now find myself living in.

I'm 41 years old too, and I understand the terms and the concepts just fine. I didn't stop learning when I sat my exams - I make an effort to understand the world I live in. And, it can be challenging, and I sometimes make mistakes, but when it comes to gender issues it really isn't that hard to be inclusive and (and this is the point) kind...

 

[dk1]

"Ladies and gentlemen" is simply a polite, colloquial, term for "everyone".

Precisely. Nobody thought anything of it until recently.

 

[jon81uk]

I still use s/he and am very happy to do so. I disagree that 'they' works better: The problem with 'they' is that it's completely ambiguous as to whether it's singular or plural. Example: I few months ago I spent some time with a friend whose 12 year old daughter has decided to start using 'they' pronouns, and where my friend has completely gone along with that. We had several conversations in which I was getting confused thinking my friend was talking about a number of unspecified children, when it turned out that she was talking only about her daughter and referring to her as 'they'.

I would go as far as to say that someone who chooses to label themselves as 'they/them' and expects others to follow that is actually being downright inconsiderate to other people, with the confusion and ambiguity that person is likely subjecting other people to. I have no problem with someone who chooses to identify with the opposite gender and therefore asks to be referred to as whichever of 'she' or 'he' that person prefers - provided it is a polite request, not an insistence.

I did say that they or you worked better instead of s/he. In the context of the documents I was reviewing it is aimed at an international audience who may be confused by s/he, therefore you worked better in many cases and where it didn't, they is fine. Instead of "s/he will have experience in...." we used "you will have experience in...". If they was used it didn't matter if it looked plural.

In terms of your second paragraph I would say that the person being inconsiderate is the person who is not listening to someones request.

 

[AlterEgo]

I still use s/he and am very happy to do so. I disagree that 'they' works better: The problem with 'they' is that it's completely ambiguous as to whether it's singular or plural. Example: I few months ago I spent some time with a friend whose 12 year old daughter has decided to start using 'they' pronouns, and where my friend has completely gone along with that. We had several conversations in which I was getting confused thinking my friend was talking about a number of unspecified children, when it turned out that she was talking only about her daughter and referring to her as 'they'.

I would go as far as to say that someone who chooses to label themselves as 'they/them' and expects others to follow that is actually being downright inconsiderate to other people, with the confusion and ambiguity that person is likely subjecting other people to. I have no problem with someone who chooses to identify with the opposite gender and therefore asks to be referred to as whichever of 'she' or 'he' that person prefers - provided it is a polite request, not an insistence.

"They" is very rarely ambiguous because it is almost always contextual. It's been used as a pronoun for unknown or ambiguous gendered subjects for a very long time!

1) "I have forgotten my ticket and will go and see a ticket clerk before I travel to get it sorted - I hope they're helpful!"
2) "Why do they always fine me when I can't present my railcard on the train?"
3) "I saw Jamie earlier as I heard they were upset - they were fine, but I've seen them have better days"

"They" is a fixture of the language and you may as well start getting cross and uptight about the people who use "they" in the second example because it's not entirely clear who "they" are unless you have the context either.

A hill for fools to die on, in my view.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

Ladies and gentlemen sounds polite and welcoming to me, attention everyone etc, just reinforces the atmosphere that the railway sees us as livestock.