I am being asked to go into a meeting and introduce my pronouns to everyone in an hour and a half!

Nobody would ask meeting attendees to announce their marital status, ethnicity, religion, sexuality or age, or give details of their medical history as part of an introduction. Why, therefore, is it relevant to ask them to state either their sex or gender identity?
THIS
with bells on

Thanks, @BuffaloCauliflower, I thought that might be the case.

There's such a lot of woolly thinking around this issue. Nobody would ask meeting attendees to announce their marital status, ethnicity, religion, sexuality or age, or give details of their medical history as part of an introduction. Why, therefore, is it relevant to ask them to state either their sex or gender identity?

Just out of interest OP, I don’t have an office or co-workers as such, so I feel a bit ‘out of the loop’ with things like this - were there many who used pronouns you wouldn’t have normally used? As in where there many non-binary who wanted they/them or people who ‘looked’ like women wanting to be called he/him and vice versa?
This is just me - but in my real life I have one distant cousin who is trans but other than that I know no-one at all that uses different pronouns than the ‘traditional’ ones you’d expect.

I must be very thick
when I run Zoom sessions I ask people to screen name themselves with first name and job title
so that anybody can see
"Jill, Marketing manager" or "Peter, Maintenance lead" when they speak
saves introduction, and saves trying to remember

My name is
My department is

Then just sit there. The person will move on.

I'm sure Hillary Benn would love to be told to change his name
Want to tell him to masculinise his name?
[email protected]

As it happens if people dont know they often thinks hes a woman. I've definitely more than once been told he is a she with a name like that.

[quote BuffaloCauliflower]@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I’m pretty well informed about the GDPR for my job, and yes - you need a really good reason to keep this kind of personal data on people (anything related to sex, gender identity and sexuality would fall under ‘special category data’) and it has to be a reason that benefits THEM, the respondent, in some way, not whoever is collecting the data.

As @StealthPolarBear has highlighted, they need to be clear what this data will be used for, how it will be stored and who will have access to it, particularly as it will be attached to names and other personal information meaning people will be identifiable. You don’t need to comply[/quote]
This is all very pertinent, I'd say. It's information they really don't need to know - especially for a bloody zoom meeting. Just demonstrative nonsense.

@BuffaloCauliflower, it’s just they had surgery to change to the opposite. Then at some point no longer wanted to be defined by the new gender, and preferred “they”. I would say whatever makes them happy, but without revealing too much, it didn’t make them happy.

@Whatwouldscullydo
I worry about the same.

It all felt a bit silly. Why go to all the trouble of changing to the opposite gender, to then not even want to be defined by it?

I use a shortening of my name which is unisex . The idea anyone thinks I care if they mistakenly assume im a bloke us bizarre. Its happened loads. I dont even think about it. Its along the lines of buying things. Shop assistants don't care. They don't care if its a mens razor or a pregnancy test ir tampons. It realky doesn't matter to them or anyone else in the queue.

I do worry about the fragility of people and whether its really a kind thing to do to indulge such...well paranoia and self obsessive behaviour really. Jobs often rely on teamwork. If one member of that team is demanding or needy it makes it difficult for everyone else.

@popcornlover ‘they’ seems to be most commonly used by those who define themselves as ‘non binary’ so it’s neither

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I’m pretty well informed about the GDPR for my job, and yes - you need a really good reason to keep this kind of personal data on people (anything related to sex, gender identity and sexuality would fall under ‘special category data’) and it has to be a reason that benefits THEM, the respondent, in some way, not whoever is collecting the data.

As @StealthPolarBear has highlighted, they need to be clear what this data will be used for, how it will be stored and who will have access to it, particularly as it will be attached to names and other personal information meaning people will be identifiable. You don’t need to comply

Diversity? Great.

Just keep asking how they ensure they give people with disabilities a fair crack. Will they make sure that screens are available for the visually impaired? That loos are wheelchair accessible? Has proper training been carried out to ensure that in the event of an evacuation, those with mobility issues aren’t left to burn? Is the canteen allergy friendly and who are the first aides (can they administer an epipen? Can anyone use BSL? How can they make sure that all workers and visitors are considered?

Then there’s the whole thorny issue of religion on the workplace - prayers, religious days off, interactions with other religions/sexual etc... but I suspect the whole think will be a lot one issue and one issue of.

Yes that was my point too. You have to have justification for processing each data item, particularly when it's sensitive

I'm a bit vague about the Data Protection Act, but don't you have to be very careful about the data you collect from people - justify every single bit you ask for, think carefully about how long you retain it and who has access to it, get people to give explicit permission for you to use/retain the data? I wonder how pronouns fit in to all of that.

We have diversity training coming up and I’m pretty sure they’re all going to suggest we do this too. We already have a form to fill in that starts off by asking what your gender is rather than your sex. I’m taking notes here!

Good point, Collida.

I realise the meeting passed without issue, but I wonder if it would be acceptable, when asked to state your pronouns, simply to reply that you're not transgender. Anyone pushing for pronouns at that point will look nuts as it's fairly obvious what sex the vast majority of people are, especially once they've spoken.
As for normalising it, well, it isn't normal to be transgender, is it? There's something really patronising and coddling about us all pretending that we're paranoid about what pronouns others will use to describe us when the vast majority get through life without it being an issue.

Reading your post about adding a column for pronouns just made me think for a moment about titles, which is very run of the mill on forms

Or is that the whole point - if I put myself as Mrs/Miss/Ms I would assume that everyone will know which pronouns to use in my absence. Similarly Mr. I suppose if your organisation is full of Drs that may be more of a challenge.

Anyway, if the form has a column for title, there should be no need for a pronouns one?

If pushed to state your preferred pronoun, ask - what's a pronoun? If further pushed say you're a meat eating vegan

The only purpose of pronouns is to aid communication, by avoiding repetition of a noun when it's clear and unambiguous what the pronoun is substituting for. As soon as they cease to assist communication, eg by being ambiguous in any way to the hearer then they need to be avoided.