Hello,

You may recall that I was emailing with someone from Deed Poll about there not being any gender-neutral titles accepted by the IPS or Deed Poll, and the conclusion we came to was that no one knows how to get one accepted. This was their last email back to me:

Trying not to have a title is problematic since the usage of titles has an important role in our society in that they allow people who do not know each other to feel comfortable when initially speaking or writing.

If we use yourself as an example (assuming your name is Lotte Lodge), if someone you do not know writes to you, they will probably feel uncomfortable addressing you as Dear Lotte, which sounds too personal and familiar for initial contact. They most certainly will feel uncomfortable addressing you as Dear Lodge, which sounds rude and like a teacher addressing a child. They will however, feel very comfortable addressing you as say Ms Lodge. So, even if you do not give others a title for yourself, they will still use one when addressing or writing to you.

All the social etiquette rules we have in our society have come about by a desire to make people feel comfortable when they interact with each other. They are all about thinking of others and not of oneself.

I totally get what he’s saying. So since settling on Misc/Msc, here’s my response:

Thanks very much for your response, I found it really helpful. I understand that social etiquette is very much about helping people to feel comfortable.

The reason I dislike people using Ms for me, though, is that I am not a woman. If I were a man I’d be happy with Mr, but I’m not a man either! So both of these titles make me uncomfortable, even though it makes things more comfortable for people speaking to me. And if etiquette is for me to make others feel comfortable, then it’s also there for others to help me to feel comfortable, and in using Ms they’re not achieving that.

The solution seems to be to create a new title, because there are many genderless individuals out there who identify as “genderqueer” and don’t feel comfortable with either title. Perhaps one day a title will be accepted by everyone and it’ll be possible to change it officially by Deed Poll, etc.

My proposed title is Msc/Misc, pronounced Misk. It’s short for Miscellaneous, which comes from the Latin meaning “mixed”; this describes a lot of genderqueer individuals quite well. It also begins with M and is short, so it fits the current common title convention.

It could also be used in situations where the gender of someone is unclear. For example, someone emails you using Mr Surname, but their reply isn’t signed with a title, just Sam Jones. Sam could be either male or female, or neither or both. So in this situation, it might be acceptable to use Msc Jones until you’re corrected by Sam. That way, you’re acknowledging the formality without making assumptions about their gender.

Obviously, I signed it all formally and so on.

Some people have said to me that if I worked out what my title and reasoning were and they liked it, they’d also email Deed Poll and the IPS about titles and either say that they were going to use Misc, or that they support its official use. So, this is it.

If you want to support the adoption of Misc, please email

helpdesk AT deedpoll DOT org DOT uk

and 

Newport AT ips DOT gsi DOT gov DOT uk

You might want to consider including some of the stuff I put in the email above, but please wiggle it about if you have something else you’d like to say. If you want a form letter, please let me know and I’ll write one up. (ETA: I wrote one up. Click here.)

Thanks very much!