These email pronouns at work

I told my boss that if I am forced to put pronouns in my email signature I will also put my star sign, my favourite football team and my ethnic background (it's a bit complicated).
Luckily he is very switched on about it as is our office legal team - we have had communication from senior management to say it is genuinely up to you. I privately judge any colleague who does it, particularly the dingbats who have a weblink entitled "and this is why it's important".

💀 Goofy ahhh mfer

See I have never been upset when someone has thought I was male

Actually rather like it because I know i won't be treated any differently to other men

Which trust me I have often been

( my name is apparently ambiguous in sone cultures )

I received a mail
With he him pronouns

As a female who has struggled at times to be heard in the business because I am female

As a female who is one of the few relatively senior females ever in my department

I felt told to shut up a man has spoken , recognise a man is here

It's so humiliating to feel that way - but I do

I like it. I have a male name and people have been confused meeting me if we've never met in person. I honestly don't see how knowing if someone is a man or woman when you can't see them to work it out is causing problems for you.

It wasn't me who suggested this was a debate.

Yes, it's a debate about whether, when legally and socially categorising who is male and who is female in those limited circumstances in which such categorisation is necessary, the undefinable, recently invented and self declared characteristic of 'gender identity' should now trump the provable, biological, material reality of sex.

That's not a debate about anyone's right to live or about whether anyone exists, ffs.

It must be exhausting to be so obtuse.

It wasn't me who suggested this was a debate.

I think a lot of people don’t really think much about it beyond it being “kind” to and showing solidarity with trans and NB people. I’d probably have been the same a few years ago.

Now I see this practice for what it is and no way will I be complying. I’d prefer to just say no if asked about it and not go into it but if for any reason that wasn’t enough I’d explain

Straight in with the hyperbole

no one is debating anyone’s lives or right to exist or anything else

we simply don’t accept people can change sex because they can’t

also as we very well know pronouns are the thin edge of the wedge. It starts off with that and ends up with men in women’s refuges or women’s sport

I unsubscribe from anything when pronouns are in the email.

Yes I have consciously come down on one 'side'. No, I do not want to publicly announce it. Nor do I wish to debate it. I think it is pretty telling that some people don't know why people might do it.

But I reckon most do know. They just don't think its valid and would much rather 'debate' people's lives.

What @Xiaoxiong said. I work with people in the NHS, third sector & local authorities. They’re nearly all be be prounoned because they’ve all been to the stonewall E&D training that says “it’s just being kind to a marginalised minority” and are subject to emails from the E&D lead telling them the same. Other than a handful of true believers I don’t think the vast majority think beyond that.

I very much doubt they think men actually become women or what it is they’re really being asked to buy into

I do inwardly cheer though when I see a signature without them

It's a wanky move and I refuse to do it.

Because a lot of people don't actually think it's incredibly contested. They have busy lives, they don't know any transpeople, they don't have kids, they get their news mostly from the BBC and the Guardian, they are told (from HR, from diversity trainers, by EDI initiaves) that stating their pronouns is a neutral thing - well, I'm female so it's obvious anyway and if it makes life easier for a couple of trans people in the workplace to state my pronouns then why not do something kind.

I'm basing this on my colleagues who are lovely people but have no idea of any of this stuff. They are absolutely not TWAW either - when things like sport, prisons, rape crisis shelters etc are brought up are absolutely in agreement that they should be single sex. It's just that pronouns in an email footer or when prompted by LinkedIn feels like no big deal.