Colleague has suggested I remove all pronouns from a report

Surely she can just change it herself?

I mean if it was framed as a confidentiality thing then you can just use the person's initials? It's fair enough if it was for that but it shouldn't be because she suspects some of them might be trans. When you know none of them are.

Presumably some are so profoundly disabled that the concept of who they 'identify as' could be unclear to them in any meaningful way.

I would say this is the best approach. Ignore the email and just do what you were going to do. If they want to make a scene, they can

Reply "I will give your comments appropriate consideration", which can mean anything and nothing.

You can say that their gender is irrelevant but you know their sex and that will do fine

If you’ve not been advised that this client/patient has preferred pronouns, you should simply continue to follow the usual department style guide and refer to them using sex based pronouns. Unless colleague is co-authoring, her opinion (whilst possibly well-meaning) is irrelevant.

I am currently in a battle with my local council who asked for my gender ID (on a consultation about how housing should allocated) because I do not have a gender ID.

They have said that there is an option to say, 'prefer not to say 'but I do want to say.

Gender ID is a political position and should not be imposed on anyone.

Have they told you why they think you should remove the pronouns? Is it possible that they just didn't want you getting into trouble if someone kicked up a fuss over it?

Ultimately, unless you've had new guidance on the subject, you've no reason to do things differently. But unless this colleague has form for it, I wouldn't immediately assume that they were trying to waste your time.

This. If the colleague is indeed caring and sensitive, show her how she is herself making assumptions.

Why don't you just explicitly state that for clarity you are using pronouns based on the sex of the individuals and that their preferred gender is unknown? That is factual, clear and in 90% of cases more useful than using arbitrary preferred pronouns anyway.

I would push back on grounds of data protection. I had to work with a report recently from a few years ago, and it was completely unreadable due to every name being redacted (instead of changing them for anonymity which would have made sense from a historical POV), so you couldn’t follow who was doing what through the 40 page report. Correctly-sexed pronouns give future readers more of a chance of working out who is doing what.

Is it health related? Then correctly sexed pronouns are the right way to go.

Your perception of daft is correct. In your position I wouldn't support any genderwoo.

I have been told by my Gen Z DD that the preferred pronoun for the youth is they/their if it's not known. FGS. I just told her I'm not having any of it because they/their is for the royals or non-binaries only. She has no response to that.

Have you had personal interaction with this client? You could push back stating that they have always referred to themselves as X and you would rather respect their wishes

Absolutely no reason to introduce the idea of 'gender' when none of your clients have asked you to. From what you've said, it's completely irrelevant in this case. You wouldn't ask them to state their religion, or their astrological star sign, or their favourite football team.

Also, depending on the issues, their sex may be relevant. So introducing the concept of gender identity is not only pointless and irrelevant, but could cause a lot of unnecessary confusion, and possibly bewilderment and distress.

Say no. Say you are in fact using the correct pronouns so there isn’t an issue.

Just say no. It could infer you suspect that someone involved is transgender when they have made no indication that they are or want you to know. Just say you respect their privacy and feel this could be construed the wrong way.

I think for your own professional reputation you should refuse.

The tide is turning on this issue and the ethics of, unprompted and without good reason, asking LD clients about their GI is going to look very dodgy in the (hopefully) near future.

Keep well out of it and stick to your guns.

Agree with others, please don't. I'd be quite upset if someone did this with one of my daughter's reports. It's impersonal to an unprofessional level

Strongly agree.

Is it possible to say that pushing people for their pronouns actually places a burden on them to define themselves when they are not ready to do so.
It would be fair to say that unless someone is confident enough to make that statement freely, perhaps you should continue to refer to them in the standard way and not place them under undue pressure to announce a gender.

It sounds like it’s in the best interests of your clients to respect their obvious sex. If there are cognitive disabilities then it’s also a safeguarding issue and there might be situations when the sex of the client is relevant.

Therefore you need to use sex realist pronouns.

Agree with 5andals. Theres no need to ruin your report and do a lot of extra work for an issue that the person the report is about has not raised. When working with people with LD, clarity and timeliness have to take priority (tbh for everyone!)

It’s worth giving that feedback. I know it’s hard to do.