A row erupted last night after it emerged Home Office staff have been told to declare their pronouns in their emails to make life more welcoming for trans people.
People working at the Visa, Status and Immigration Services department were instructed to say in their emails whether they are a man, a woman, or non-binary.
This means they have to say if they are he/him if they are a man, she/her if they are a woman or they/them if they are non-binary and do not describe themselves as a man or a woman.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10723983/Backlash-Home-Office-staff-told-add-pronouns-work-emails.html
This is in contradiction to Yogyakarta Principle 6f (Principle 6 is all about LGBT people's right to privacy).
6f states:
Ensure the right of all persons ordinarily to choose when, to whom and how to disclose information pertaining to their sexual orientation or gender identity, and protect all persons from arbitrary or unwanted disclosure, or threat of disclosure of such information by others.
If you don't feel comfortable making these disclosures about yourself then employers should not insist that you should do so.
yogyakartaprinciples.org/principle-6/
legalfeminist.org.uk/2020/07/19/pronouns-compulsion-and-controversy/
Sex Matters has some guidance for anybody that this affects:
sex-matters.org/posts/updates/pronouns/