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

I've read one or two articles/interviews with individuals who use they/them, it becomes a real struggle, and very confusing as one naturally defaults to understanding it as a plural in much of the text.
Pronouns are sometimes confusing. I had to ask a colleague which "him" he was referring to, because it wasn't clear.

In person, I’d ignore firstly, but say, in a cheerful tone, if pressed, “Pronouns? Oh, I’m happy however you refer to me. If in doubt use [my name], I guess?” With an inflection to suggest, well, duh, have you no common sense?

Mandated or strongly suggested email signature or other written declaration: nope, and would be happy to explain to HR exactly why not.

My favourite retort is 'My pronouns are Me, My, Mine.' But I've not had the courage to use that in any pc circles!

I have seen that there has been a push recently for everyone, not just trans people, to declare their pronouns. This is not actually for any actual helpful reason (I mean how did we all manage before we had been specifically told what each other's pronouns are?!) but to stop trans people feeling singled out, because it 'outs' them as trans if they are the only one declaring their pronouns. Or something.
Does it not occur to these people that if you need to declare your pronouns in order for people to get it 'right', you're already out as trans....

So the new form is asking for people to state their pronouns. Is the meeting organiser clear why you're asking for this info and what it'll be used for?

*remember or

Glad it went well. I must admit I would be tempted to say something like "My pronouns are he/her. hard stare "Please note I will regard anyone using she/his as committing actual violence".

In real life I use the pronouns requested but have been known to get it wrong. I'm only human. It is not easy to remember it even use the right pronouns at all especially if you're using multiple languages so it should always be clear that you won't be chastised for getting them wrong.

Glad it went well.

Totally agree WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I've read one or two articles/interviews with individuals who use they/them, it becomes a real struggle, and very confusing as one naturally defaults to understanding it as a plural in much of the text.

"After finishing school they went on to RADA" easy enough, and neutral, but then you come to "they joined a group called The Specials and they toured the UK with great success" suddenly "they" is referring to the group until you add "as a backing singer"...

(I used to quite like the Specials and enjoyed a live show, I have no idea if they have special pronouns these days.)

I'm tempted to contact my "workplace" administrator with that one FairFridaythe13th

There is nothing wrong with 'they' and 'them if you're talking about a hypothetical person or somebody of unknown sex - and I would agree that these are genuinely neutral terms in this context; but in what way is it 'neutral' to default to 'them' for a person identifying as Miss, Mrs or Ms? Of the people who use these titles, 99.999% of them identify as 'she/her', so why ever would anybody think it neutral to assume that somebody is one of the 0.0001%?

It's not like the sky is going to fall in if the wrong sex-based pronoun (or one that the person in question rejects) is used:
"I'm meeting a friend for lunch today."
"Oh, nice - where are you meeting her?"
"Him, actually - we're going to the new cafe in the high street."
"Sounds great - hope you both have a nice time."
Not awkward in any way.

Pronouns are not a value judgement - just a socially-accepted way of referring to somebody - and neither standard one is better or worse. Your pronouns don't own you, define you or dictate what you can or can't do with your life, any more than the name of the road you happen to buy a house on.

“I don’t celebrate birthdays. It was my 8th birthday when we went for a family picnic in Yosemite park. We set up camp next to old faithful. A freak hot blast and my entire family was spontaneously combusted, apart from me because I was peeing behind a bush at the time. I’m too triggered to answer your questions about birthdays... I have problems peeing too...”

In between enjoying this thread, so many excellent suggestions, I made a very infuriating discovery at work (nhs).
The hospital recently introduced a sort of workplace messaging service, Facebook lite for individual organisations. I think it's called "workplace". It's very annoying, suddenly my email filled up with notifications and suggestions I join, endless inane chit chat.
Anyway I did join, mainly because I wanted to read a discussion about car parking as parking permits (now free thanks to coronavirus) are always a hot topic of contention. Coming back from a weeks holiday there were so many notifications on my email I couldn't find my actual emails that I needed to see. A colleague explained I could turn them off by going into the settings.
And guess what, there in my settings I find I have been assumed as having "neutral" pronouns!
I was so cross. Couldn't decide whether to change to female pronouns as thankfully the choices were limited to female, male or neutral but decided even making the change would dignify giving the option.

Tomorrow I will delete but then I fear the unsolicited notifications will resume.

My standard response is that I am a post gender individualist and I find the use of pronouns oppressive. I therefore request people to use my name at all times, eg. Wizwoz went to the canteen by Wizwoz-self.

I very much like 'whichever pronouns will get me a higher salary', and in the unlikely event of my very unwoke work place embracing this nonsense, that's what i'll go for

I have tried to understand what becoming nonbinary would change in how others treat a person.

Suppose I declared myself nonbinary tomorrow (as I like to think of myself as a human being with varied interests and hobbies which often fail to neatly fall into the Barbie doll and GI Joe categories). Would I suddenly get a raise so that my earnings would be somewhere between male and female average for my occupation? Would suddenly nobody be interested in sexually harassing me? Would I be safer walking out alone at night?

I honestly mean that I don't understand which actual changes someone expects to happen. Maybe this is why the pronouns are so central in what I have read?

PS. Link to the horse phones, please, I want!

The pronouns I wish to be addressed by are 'you' and 'yours'. Or if we happen to be in Yorkshire, 'Tha's' is acceptable. The way people refer to me in the third-person when I'm not present is up to them.

I came across a nice, polite pushback in my ruminations on this topic earlier: 'my pronouns are whatever yours are'. Watch the sheep-witted conformists scratch their heads while they try to work that one out ...

I'm so so glad this hasn't come up at my work yet as, being very honest, I'd just be irritated.

I refuse to engage with any of it and will not be told that I have to state what 'my pronouns are'. Seriously. Fuck right off.

Common sense really does need to prevail as it's all going a bit mad. I have no issue at all with people living however they wish, transitioning however they wish and therefore wanting to be referred to in a different way to how they had been previously.

But. And this is the big one for me. I personally feel that this shouldn't then impact on everyone else who would otherwise quite happily just carry on as they have done for all their lives being referred to as befits their biological gender.

Glad it passed without incident OP. It's just cringeworthy isn't it. Luckily for me, my organisation is very, very unwoke, so it'll hopefully be a while before i come up against this. But I do feel like it's just another level of self absorption from the people suggesting it. I find it bad enough saying who I am and what my role is, without all that other unnecessary stuff.

Maybe we should all be stating where we stand on the Great Marmite Divide, just so we know.

Del
Pro marmite