I was selected for jury duty and have to go get selected first. On the email it had the clerk’s name and then the he/him/ thing at the end.
I will not go along with this crap.
Trying to figure out what I should say as I can’t lie.
“Your name?”
“Hank Smith”
“Preferred pronouns?”
“My name is Hank Smith.”
“Yes, but what are your preferred pronouns?”
“When referring to me in the third person I prefer Mr. Smith.”
“But - I need your preferred pronouns.”
“Please let the judge know that I am not comfortable with answering that question.” (I am supposed to say that if I don’t want to answer a question.)
I would LIKE to say “If the court is this messed up and stupid that it can’t figure out what pronoun to use for me, how can I as a juror think that the defendant is going to get a proper judgement!?”
Any other suggestions on how to answer this in a respectful manner?
I am Hank Smith, my chromosomes are one x and one y.
My pronouns follow accordingly.
Good thing they aren’t asking me because I would say..”for today, my preferred pronoun is Alien”.... with a completely straight face...
because all this nonsense makes me feel like an alien in a world I dont recognize
Tell them you identify as Michael Jackson and your pronouns are He/Hee.
I can not tell you how irritated I got while reading your post. I admit, I would not be respectful in any way if someone was pressing me to answer that question.
If they continued to ask me after I have politely said I did not want to answer, I would leave civility behind.
When I got out of the service back in the late 70s, I got called for jury duty every three years like clock work. It was not so much that I did not want to serve, it was that nobody else I knew ever about called for jury duty, but I got called every three years. After about 15 years of this, and multiple letters to the state wide commissioner of juries, when I got called again I was really pissed.
I made myself a real pain, and I suppose I should not have because they were just doing their jobs, but I made it clear that I was angry about being there.
When the jury selection process came up, it involved a case of two brothers who had been arrested by the state police with unlicensed guns. When they asked the question “does anyone here thing that they can not be impartial?” My hand shot up.
They made may go up in front of all these people to talk to the judge and both the prosecuting and defense attorneys. When the judge asked me why, I said that I did not trust the police, and thought that they could have planted the weapons.
The defense attorney was looking at me stroking his chin, and I could see he was trying to figure out a way to get me on the jury. When the judge told me that he could simply call me back on another day, I told him that it was fine, I could be in partial that day and the seated on the jury.
They ended up not picking me, and as soon as I got home I wrote a blisteringly nasty letter (by my standards) to the state wide commissioner of juries.
I have never been picked for another jury after that. Funny thing is, I wouldn’t have any problem now, but back then, I felt unfairly burdened.