I don't want to add my pronouns at the end of an email, but I can't explain why...

For this thread, it's

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4380135-I-dont-want-to-add-my-pronouns-at-the-end-of-an-email-but-I-cant-explain-why?page=1&reply=111794485

The general Havel, Solzhenitsyn plus a dose of Lifton is here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4382551-Live-not-by-lies-Solzhenitsyn-no-tambourines-involved?

Now I like a good Havel memory as much as the next woman but requoting it would make my search easier…..[please]

embarrassing it was some time ago but that essay quote from Vaclav Havel blew my mind. Thank you

Subordinate: Hey Mrs P, can you please add your pronouns?
MrsPsmalls: No. That's a complete sentence. Next question?

There was a really good article recently (I think) in the New York Times - can anyone link it, please?

This is a good answer

I'd just say "no because I have a woman's name. I've never been misgendered l, so I don't see what benefit it would bring."

I’d welcome a request like that ‘why?’ Would be my reply. ‘To show your support for LGBetc people’… they’d say…

can you imagine the fun you could have with a comment like that?😈

I got asked if I wanted to add my pronouns to my email signature by the head of my department. Some of my colleagues have opted to do so.

I said “No thanks.”

End of conversation and it hasn’t come up again. We also just did our D&I training and I was very pleasantly that a lot of the emphasis was on disability.

Had this too. Awkwardly, the young she/her on this reading group was advocating for Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women and wokeness in the same sentence. I was so sad. I could not openly express my views as there was some one from work that was making agreeing noises and I’m on probation. I felt the true weight of peer pressure and compliance to the diktat. Very worried they are going to take my poker face expression and not nodding head as proof of my crimes against wokeism!

my colleague said she’ll add her pronouns straight away. Is there Anything I can add like EDI supportive or aware or something that will encompass all PoCs so I’vent to commit to one.

Hi OP, just wondering all these months later, how did you get on standing firm but not giving your reasons? Our Trust has signed up to a new call me initiative and on the staff intranet page about it someone has suggested we all start adding pronouns to emails. The Trust comms lead has said...this is coming next.

It’s also not about trans men or women whose gender identity is obvious

Oh yes, I agree with that too. Except that I would say that goes back to the original (as I understand it) use of the term gender identity as a way for transgender people to help others understand their identification with the opposite sex, which I thought was quite useful. They felt like they were or should have been the opposite sex, not that there is an ineffable sense of being a sex which they feel and which has nothing to do with reproductive class.

This is not about people with unisex names or people with sexed names that are uncommon in the dominant culture. People with such names have always existed and any confusion is readily sorted out where it becomes relevant.

Agree. It’s also not about trans men or women whose gender identity is obvious.

I think the idea is to support non binary and gender fluid people, but the effect is to enforce gender on everyone else.

Unfortunately It’s also already clear that the concept of pronouns has been used by some gender conforming people (present as male, male name) as a way to punish women who slip up (see example used in Maya’s case), and there are the examples this week where the game was removed from Oxfam and ‘Girls night in’ was renamed because the focus was on women and not ‘all genders’. It’s fertile ground for misogynists.

The attempt to normalise stating pronouns is an attempt to destabilise the link between sex and pronouns. Already there has been a largely successful attempt to make the use of sex based pronouns for someone who claims a transgender identity as “so bad” that it should be illegal. The use of pronouns in signatures or on badges for people where sex based pronouns are obvious (including transgender people who have transitioned) is starting from a “decided” position that pronouns are not about sex for anyone, but about gender identity for everyone. When you declare your pronouns you are making a concession that you agree that they refer to gender identity not sex, which in turn feeds into the narrative that you cannot assume anyone’s gender identity and that you must check in order not to be wrong. The combination of how heinous it is to be wrong, and the diktat that you must never assume, puts a massive block on easy and effective communication.

This is not about people with unisex names or people with sexed names that are uncommon in the dominant culture. People with such names have always existed and any confusion is readily sorted out where it becomes relevant. Who knows, there might be the odd person with one of these names who likes to help someone else know their sex so that they don’t get embarrassed by using the wrong pronouns (you do occasionally see references to titles, so maybe that is a reason that people occasionally declare them). The important point though is that asserting pronouns/titles in this circumstance is about ensuing someone is using the correct pronouns within a sex-based system. It is about clarification, not about replacing an existing system with something new.

If there were not this major assault on sex-based language, spaces, services and rights going on, I would actually think that it is fine for people who reject sex based pronouns to include pronouns in their signature if it is important at to them. I may vehemently agree with their belief system or not understand it, but I don’t mind knowing that that is their belief system and that it is important to them. I do massively object, however, to yet another attempt to retrofit new and highly controversial and damaging concepts onto society by usurping common language and pretending that they are not doing so. I also object to the use of minority culture names and unisex names in support of this.

Had this at work - our LGBTQ+ rep encouraging the people In that network to do so and I said I didn’t want to. One of the reasons given by an ‘ally’ was it’s ‘useful’ if you have a unisex name for people to know if you’re a man or a woman and I told the
Grp that I have found it useful for people not to n is over the years too as they haven’t made assumptions based on my gender ( worked with MEA clients a lot) a s left it like that.
End of as far as I was concerned. And the my can think what they like. I’m gay and very supportive of LGBTQ+ in many ways, but asking everyone to use their pronouns isn’t something I think is necessary.

Exactly. No idea whether it is a standard footer for his employer or whether he has added it himself. Unfortunately it's to do with my DC and I don't want to mess things up for them bu being "that mum" but I won't forget.

After giving up on the vileness of twitter, i decided instead to create a new account with a male name and male photo. No issues at all. None. And i post regularly articles connected to women's rights. And i also respond to misogynists who then dont resort to pming me vile things either. Its almost like being female, or being assumed to be female, makes men speak to you like crap.

Which illustrates perfectly why so many young women are attracted to the notion of identifying out of their oppression.

Obviously, that only really works online where biology doesn't come into it, but when young people have grown up online, it makes perfect sense as that's the main place they exist.

Wow @LorenzoVonMatterhorn.. that's a social experiment that is worth documenting. What a miserable time to be female it truly is.

I liked a suggestion I read: 'No, I'm happy to put my faith in the English language".

I'd say that since I was 16, I've been deliberately not using my full first name or stating my marital status in correspondence because it's known that a female sender experiences discrimination compared to a male and I am not about to facilitate that discrimination after 30-odd years of resisting that pressure.

sex-matters.org/posts/updates/pronouns/

When will the infection of Stonewall be over?

Tellingly, over 200 people had read it, yet it only had 7 likes