Should the titles of Mr & Mrs be scrapped?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail....tml?ito=feeds-newsxml

Once again it seems that some wish to remove the words Mr & Mrs from official forms and paperwork in case they offend the transgender community.

[Sqad]

AOG.....just go to Brighton for a day and that will explain all......;-)

[ChuckFickens]

LOL.... so once again a vague suggestion by a couple of people on an advisory panel has been changed into "plans to" by the papers!

[nannybooby]

beaurocracy gone mad ....brain gone missing , er sorry unmarried personing ! lol

[douglas9401]

Unmarried nannybooby? It's off to the re-education camp for you! We'll have no truck with such outdated ideas. :)

[jno]

I have never used either title, so I am unbothered.

[boxtops]

I'm with jno, I rarely use my title - but if people are in stable relationships but not married, the woman can't call herself Mrs anyway. Mr & Mrs only indicates marriage, not everyone does it.

[factor-fiction]

If the idea spreads I wonder whether pupils in schools would have to drop the Mr, Mrs or Miss when speaking to or referring to teachers

[Sqad]

boxy

\\\ Mr & Mrs only indicates marriage, not everyone does it.\\\

Does it?

[boxtops]

How do you view it then, sqad? I wouldn't call myself Mrs if I hadn't been through a formal ceremony to marry myself to a bloke.

[jake-the-peg]

I think Sqad is rightly pointing out that distiction only applies to women

I was Mr before I was married!

[joggerjayne]

Well, there was some council woman explaining it on the radio this morning .. and she was a Tory!

It sounds like they're actually going to do it.

I'm not sure we actually have all that many transgenders.

[AB Editor]

It's interesting actually. What purpose do the titles serve these days?

It could be argued that a formal gender identifier would be MORE useful as the world is more anonymous and less face-to-face?

Would it be a problem if a letter was addressed to Anothe Git, rather than Mr. Git?

And outside of letters, where are these titles used?

[Sqad]

boxy...well, for a male, he starts to be called Mr around the age of 21 years depending upon his occupation.

I have been Mr all my life, (nothing to do with my profession) but only been married for a part of that time (although it feels like a lifetime. For me, Mr denotes gender....not marital status.

For women..........never figured that out ;-)

[AB Editor]

Maybe a chap should only become a Mr. when he gets married? That might be a useful identifier?

[boxtops]

Since we can no longer use the expression Christian names, as not everyone is baptised or a Christian, I don't see why this matters. I don't expect people to call me Mrs anything

[factor-fiction]

On the job application forms I fill in for local authority posts there is an equal opportunities monitoring sheet which asks about ethnicity (about 30 options), sexuality (several options) and gender (usually 3 options- Male/female/transgender)

[joggerjayne]

This move is not to do with married women changing their title, or boys and men having different titles.

It's about people who are (or think they are?) neither a man nor a woman.

[AB Editor]

"It's about people who are (or think they are?) neither a man nor a woman."

I know, but I was wondering if asking the broader questions would bring us to a satisfactory answer for everyone?

[boxtops]

Sqd, I see your point, perhaps I should have sad "Mrs only indicates marriage" to be more specific

Peolpe don't know I'm a Miss or a Mrs if I don't tell them. The difficulty is with letters - if they a not adressed Dear Mrs X, they either say dear Ms X, or Dear Fanny X (which isn't very formal)