I am embracing virtue signalling pronouns in emails

@Conflictedunicorn are you going to come back to this?

ni, we need to know their sex. Why should I care if paul is a gender fluid agender demiboi or a cat gender on Tuesdays? None of my business is it

I’d say it’s likely the number of cis women who include their pronouns in their email signature is much larger than the number of trans women (and specifically, those who include their pronouns in their email signature), so it was quite a good indicator that it was likely to be a cis woman, if not a guarantee.

You do potentially need to know whether to refer to them as ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘they’

The phrase I’m applying is hoist by his own petard. He wanted people to know his pronouns. OP helped him in that. That was being kind no? Is that not what we’re supposed to do? Or does it not count if we don’t believe?

Umm, how do pronouns help you know 'who to expect'?

If, as we are told, they reflect the gender identity of an individual and not their sex, then they are no help in expecting anything.

Alex with female pronouns could be a woman. Alex with female pronouns could also be a man, presenting, or not, as a woman. Alex with male pronouns could be a man. Alex with male pronouns could also be a woman, presenting, or not, as a man.

So no help at all in 'who to expect'.

What am I missing here?

If there isn't @ErrolTheDragon , there should be.

I expect there's a word for this in German - someone looking silly because another person has treated their silly behaviour absolutely seriously.

The only way he would look silly is if this whole pronoun thing was nonsense and everybody knew it.

I think this is why the pp on this thread think he might be embarrassed.

Why does he look silly?

He has stated his preferred pronouns, and OP has ensured that everyone is aware of his preferences.

The only way he would look silly is if this whole pronoun thing was nonsense and everybody knew it.

Oh - wait . . . 🤔

What do you mean you knew who to expect? Surely whoever turns up when you meet them? You don't need to prepare differently

You're brilliant

There was a lot of rage directed at the OP for actually daring to think it was quite funny, and others for laughing at it too. When all that happened was a perfectly average progressive ally he/him man had his pronouns affirmed in a meeting as he presumably didn't mind. People are reading all sorts of subtexts in.

I think I love you!

😂

The problem is that OP did what is demanded by making a big deal of pronouns, but she doesn't believe it in. It's not enough we do what's demanded if we don't pretend we believe then we're in the wrong.

Exactly. If we don't believe in it we are expected to stay silent and we can never indulge in any gentle mockery on an anonymous website.

"Normalising the practice" is exactly what worries me. I started using the internet at 16.

By 18, I was a passionate trans activist who got very upset when people were misgendered. I was always compliant with other people's choices, including unique, personalised ones. Yet I'd also figured out the difference in responses from male users if I posted using a female username and female avatar, and I'd started picking usernames that didn't indicate my sex. Even back then, I would have resisted being told I had to indicate she/her/hers in my email signature, and as it happens, I never ever did it voluntarily. Why not? Because it would have constituted a personal sacrifice.

When men do it, it costs them nothing. But it costs women.

Exactly. If you don't want people to discuss your pronouns why on earth would you put them in your signature?

The problem is that OP did what is demanded by making a big deal of pronouns, but she doesn't believe it in. It's not enough we do what's demanded if we don't pretend we believe then we're in the wrong.

I wish that all middle aged women would start putting they/them (or ideally their own made up pronouns) in their signatures. Because no-one accepts that someone who looks like a woman is allowed to do that. No woman takes her employer to work for misgendering. Everyone routinely misgenders boring biological women by calling them 'she/her' not bothering to find out if they identify as the service class who earns less and does all the shitwork.

I don't mind people calling me by sex based pronouns, but if they're using gender they can use my given gender pronouns of blah/bleurgh.

This is why the TRAs target this board. Because the eloquent posters are able to articulate the stuff that the rest of us know but find difficult to put into words. So many times reading this board I feel I've been given the words and the tools to challenge this crap that I wouldn't have otherwise.
Thank you to everyone who contributes time and effort in sharing their thoughts here. I for one hugely appreciate it and hope I'm carrying it forward with the letters I write and the conversations I have about this damaging and dangerous ideology.

Welcoming and kind to whom?

Are these values extended equally to all people in the workplace?

Or is it a special, nurturing responsibility exclusively owed to special people by everyone else?

We don't need to know their gender either, so what's your point?

To be fair, if the pronoun police think I am unwelcoming and unkind I don’t give a flying fart anymore. I’m done with pretending that this is not an ideology that harms women and girls, and is responsible for a lot of harm to very vulnerable females. They can fuck off to the far side of fuck as far as I am concerned. The elequent posters on here such as @Datun and @Olderbadger1 have expressed my concerns far better than I ever could, and helped me cement my views.

fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/

'One of the biggest obstacles to halting the stampede over women’s rights is pronoun and preferred name ‘courtesy’. People severely underestimate the psychological impact to themselves, and to others, of compliance.'

Yes the insinuation that displaying pronouns shows you are welcoming and supportive is actually disturbing and divisive. It's putting a label on those that don't as being horrible and uncaring. It's a form of manipulation to get people onside and I don't like it.

Thank you for articulating so clearly why pronoun chat makes me feel uncomfortable

Oh gosh, I'm sorry My last paragraph was meant to be addressed to Kanaloa

If you are, as you say you are, gender critical, why are you not seeing the power being wielded by pronoun proclamations and the OP's deft means of disarmament? Whilst ostensibly adhering to all the conditions expected of her!