Email tag lines in profession

[Onamat]

I’ve name changed as this is outing. I have a dissosciative disorder and different people within me have different ways of identifying - female, male and dog. I am fine with this and am fully away I am not transgender.

There’s a current trend going around in my profession to include “her/she/they/their” etc onto your email signature and on social media accounts.

I don’t want to do this because i am not her/she all the time and because I really don’t see why I should have to be forced to when my mental health is a very private battle (I’m quite open that I have a mental health illness but don’t go into details). I’ve had people asking if I’m trans and people accusing me of being transphobic.

So far it’s not company policy but it’s been picked up within and outside of work and it is starting to make me really anxious. Should I just suck it up and deal with the internal conflict of writing she/her in the signature?

[WomanBornNotWorn]

Such an important point - pressurising people to make a concrete public statement re something they are privately exploring could actually be seen as bullying.

And then having to explain why you'd rather not have to could be distressing, and lead to misunderstanding around your point of view. Thank you - I'll keep this in mind should there be pressure at future events.

Would you feel able to contact HR etc explaining without outing yourself that some might feel anxiety around this?

[BarbaraStrozzi]

It's yet another instance of a clash of rights - in this case "gender reassignment" versus disability. You should have the right to keep your medical history private, and to be treated in a way that respects that medical history by not putting you on the spot about it in public in front of your colleagues for no discernible reason whatsoever. I'd get in touch with HR if I were you.

[CharlieParley]

If you don't want to disclose the details of your mental health issues and your biological sex is female, I would go with the argument that it has been proven that reminding both the employee herself and those she deals with of her sex is prejudicial. Women underperform when reminded prior to taking a test that they are female (because our society continues to treat women as less capable than men and we are socialised to believe this, too). Clients, colleagues and bosses do the same, regardless of their own sex.

So forcing you to put she/her pronouns into your email tagline is forcing you to emphasise that you are female which we know is not a good thing in the workplace.

Ask your employer if they have considered their obligation to measure and counteract sex discrimination in the workplace and how this pronoun practice fits into their obligations to eliminate sex discrimination.

If they tell you it's meant to be kind to trans people, you could argue that now you have made them aware it's damaging to female employees, are they asking you to engage in a practice that is harmful to you for the sake of being kind to others and whether you could get that in writing.

But don't argue if you are in a position where this may harm your standing or prospects. I have heard several women say they have been ignoring any requests to follow this practice without encountering any problems.

It may be better to do nothing on the pronoun front unless they take you to task for it.