It has happened.. pronouns have reached my workplace

There seems to be no central record keeping of all the genders, let alone the pronouns so they presumably would not have any basis to challenge it. I can imagine conversations with some jobsworth (like that awful teacher in Scotland who pulled the boy out of his class and yelled at him for saying there were only two genders) where an employee gets accused of taking the mick and ordered to use specific pronouns which would be ironic considering.

I would also be interested to understand the process a person interested in pronouns goes through to identify their preferred pronouns - esp those like fae zir etc.

Maybe HR departments should provide a consultant to help staff that may struggle with this - if it is required by the company people would want to get it right and they can’t just fob staff off with, ‘if you identify with your gender assigned at birth you are she/hers’ for eg because how would you know?

I didn’t have a gender assigned at birth so I would have to start the process from scratch and may need professional help with that. Is there such a thing as gender assigning for adults like they do for babies these days??

It's all "she/her"

I haven't yet seen a single "he, him"

I receive emails from a big public organisation full of ambitious people. And email signatures from men invariably come with a description of their portfolio and position, while women sign off with pronouns... shooting themselves in the foot, in my opinion.

There have been studies done that show that women themselves, when reminded beforehand that they are female, perform less well on tests in traditionally male dominated areas than they do if they are not reminded.

It's even more dramatic - if you tell a woman that she can expect to do well on a particular test because women generally do well on it, she will perform worse than if you hadn't said anything. Just reminding us that we are women seems to bring up all the negative crap that we have been exposed to in our lives about women's abilities etc., even if it is meant to be done in a positive way. Gina Rippon covers this well in her book.

I agree with others that out-woking/Yogyakarta (which for info in case anyone didn't know is pronounced like "Jogjakarta") is the way to go. People don't seem to care about women and sexism but suggest that it will have a bad effect on transpeople who are not yet out and you can bet that they will back off quickly.

If I still worked for a commercial company I'd either refuse or make something up like..... ki/fer/gho and await the confusion lol

Profiles!!

I work for myself so thankfully can avoid most of the madness but have noticed pronouns creeping onto LinkedIn pronouns.

Guess what?!

It's all "she/her"

I haven't yet seen a single "he, him"

Funny that.

See I think it is coercing people to state a false belief. I will be saying no and not giving a false reason. If necessary I am prepared to argue the case. Why are so many prepared to cave to this or make up a reason to not do it rather than give the real and reasonable reason?

I/me 👸🏆
I like that! FILED

This came up at a workshop I was at recently - we should include our pronouns and encourage our students to use theirs to show trans students that we were trans friendly. I made the point that I didn’t think this was a good idea for women as the evidence was clear that this would increase both the unconscious bias and the stereotype threat that they face - or just create biases for women whose name/signature doesn’t make their sex obvious. I got a lot of waffle about this being important but also important to be trans friendly, and maybe we should just bear that in mind when advising students, but still put our pronouns ourselves. No thanks. Not interested in colluding in my own oppression.

@Danu2021 Lovely response.

Can I identify in my email signature that I am the King of France? Well most of it, as my great uncle lost a bit of the kingdom?

So far I've just added Mrs to my email signature alongside my unmistakably female first name but if pressed I shall be happy to ad "I and me". But I am nearing retirement and give less flying fucks about being provocative than I once did.

He he

If pushed, quite likely in the woke company I work for, I'm very much tempted to go with stunning/brave, as they are perfectly valid 'adjectives repurposed as pronouns' to describe me.

I work for a small family business, so far we are immune to all the wokery. Long may it continue.

How do you incorporate the vital selected pronouns? Would you say 'As Jenny ze/him/she Alcock was saying the other day? Or would you say 'As ze/him/she Jenny Alcock was saying the other day'?

Do you have as much latitude to create your own? Could you say yours are herim/Royal/Majesty etc.? No more strange than ze/zie etc. At least Royal and majesty are real words.

I wonder a lot what would happen if they tried to do this at my work. Can’t get staff to comply with the company email signature template at the best of times, so I hope it could just be easily ignored. To work somewhere where there’s be a witch hunt if you didn’t would be pretty frightening.

I got my first ever email today too - it was from a recruitment agent not my company but it's the first time I've ever seen it.

I personally don’t see the ‘discrimination’ angle being very applicable given that your name is generally in any professional email signature so unless you have an ambiguous name, people can tell if you’re female even if you don’t put pronouns. If they’re going to discriminate, you
avoiding adding pronouns won’t make a blind bit of difference
Plenty of people simply put an initial, or dr or rev or chair or chief or vicar or JP or any number of other designators.
And if not adding pronouns to emails will make no difference then why bother?

Enforced pronoun use is against Principle 6 of the Yogyakarta Principles, which covers the right to privacy (which generally includes right to privacy regarding gender and sexuality). It also adds undue pressure on those questioning their gender identity who aren't ready to come out but don't feel comfort claiming the pronouns of a gender they don't identify with.

Or the old 'my pronouns are sex based like my oppression' response always makes me smile.

I'll probably go with a 'I won't be including my pronouns, you may refer to me as you wish when I'm not there, and when I am just call me Breasted' type response when we're inevitably asked and if they push, highlight how very detrimental to women and unsupportive of gender questioning individuals their policy is. If someone wants to include them, fine, but I won't be compelled.

It must be so tempting just to play them at their own game and come up with something outlandish like xe/xer. After all who are they to say how you identify?

I had one the other day from Good Law project that had at bottom of signature
Pronouns - her/she.

What sort of world have we come to that so many people are affected and triggered by pronouns and misgendering.
Trans are such a small mintorty of the population that we are pandering to, its making me loose my compassion for people going through an identity crisis.
keep having it rammed down my through all the time is so draining and I find it inappropriate that women are loosing their biological identity that we and our predecessors have fought so hard for.
If people say he instead of she just politely correct them, its not hard

unless you have an ambiguous name, people can tell if you’re female even if you don’t put pronouns. If they’re going to discriminate, you avoiding adding pronouns won’t make a blind bit of difference.

I don’t think that’s actually true, SweetPetrichor. There have been studies done that show that women themselves, when reminded beforehand that they are female, perform less well on tests in traditionally male dominated areas than they do if they are not reminded.

Presumably all these women were very well aware of being female before taking the tests, and yet it was the reminders that served to reinforce a lack of confidence in their own ability, at an unconscious level, to the extent that they actually underperformed.

By the same token, yes, women are already discriminated against on the basis of their female names, but drawing extra attention to their femaleness can only serve to amplify and intensify that possibility of discrimination.

So many of the messages we give out and receive operate at an unconscious level, and misogyny itself still operates very vigorously at an unconscious level even in seemingly progressive western societies, so even people who think they have no bias - even women themselves - risk downgrading their perception of women’s abilities and competence when they are constantly reminded of the fact of their being female.

This just adds to the already extant burden of discrimination, which we are by no means close to resolving - proven by those experiments where people simply pretend to be the opposite sex for a while and are treated completely differently as a result.

It harms women, who are already being harmed more than enough.

I've recently seen my first one, (NHS) hospital. I wish I could add the screen shot as it is a particularly irritating example of the genre.

Curly whirly writing: kind regards, first name
Mrs X-Z (Bold)
My pronouns are she/her/hers
Job title (Bold)

Maybe I missed the memo but I kind of thought that if you wished to be addressed as Mrs it could reasonably be assumed that your identity would be female. Even for a married transwoman.

Now I really want to send her an email and address her as Ms X-Z.