Pronouns at work/being gender critical at work etc

[Leafstamp]

If you are a woman and have your pronouns in your email signature at work, can I ask why?

If you haven't given it much thought, are you open to being persuaded that, albeit in a small way, this practice of declaring pronouns is contributing to a movement that harms women, children and LGB people?

Equally, if you are already clued up on this and consider yourself a sex realist/gender critical are you able to be open about this at work and challenge instances were gender identity ideology is being unduly promoted? Do you find that others agree with you?

I work in a small company where none of this goes on, so I am curious.

That is just offensive.

Do you mean that you want to show support to men who claim to be women?

Why so you want to support them? Genuine question.

Do you show support to any other types of people when you sign off emails?

Sorry it spell checked to truly rather than actually. However you are still wrong. There are people who are in between, as in they have both traits of female and male sexes. It's just that we as a society pick a sex to identify them as and we don't always get it right.

I do feel it is very much a form of attention seeking.

What is your understanding of what makes someone male or female?

What are these traits you mean?

This appears to be rare, very rare. Therefore irrelevant IMO

Yet there is pages of posts here comparing it to racism, sexism, mentioning rape etc- whereas the vast majority of us read the email and don't give two hoots about whether the pronoun is attached.

I know not one person who writes pronouns in emails to get attention. What a strange view.

I believe you are posting in good faith, but this is wrong. People with DSDs are still one or the other. There’s no in between.

A colleague of mine is sweetly compliant and puts his pronouns on his emails years ago as soon as this all started.
He is such an obvious bloke as well, with a very blokey name (think Derek wearing tweed and a flat cap drinking a pint of real ale - sorry for the stereotypes but he really is). It just makes me chuckle a bit whenever I see his name badge, Derek he/him. As if he'd ever be mistaken 😄

I can almost understand it if people are quite androgenous but don't want to be confused with the wrong sex (my son was a prettyboy infant and strangers would come up to him and say 'hasn't she got blond hair' - that kind of thing).
But no-one should be asked to do it.
Just do it if you really want to.

Saying that - a female colleague of mine has a gender neutral name and HR mistook her for male (having never met her) when she started work and put her on a higher pay band - every cloud!

Saying all that - I can't say anything, my boss told me all about the 57 genders 5 years ago and made it really clear that anyone who didn't agree was a complete and utter thicko bastard.

Yet you're almost advocating allowing people to think you're male to get ahead. A bit ironic when claiming there is no such thing as gender and sexism.

@AccidentallyWesAnderson is correct.

@Nn9011 you may find this piece helpful

fondofbeetles.wordpress.com/2019/07/22/from-humans-to-asparagus-females-are-females/

@dontlletmedownbruce has it right.
In terms of work it should be entirely irrelevant whether someone is male or female. I'd love to know how some of the people who think it's helpful would treat female Sam compared to male Sam. I can only assume it won't do female Sam any favours.

I've also read plenty about women who found men showed more respect and took more account of their professional opinion when they were erroneously assumed to be male. In which case maybe we should try to normalise using Inital.Surname. in email correspondence.

Well, if I'm looking for Sam in accounts in the office, there's a blindingly obvious reason why it'd be helpful to know if Sam is male or female!

As in most people will be either xx or xy chromosomes and will have clear identifiable sex organs. For some people with chromosome disorders they may not have clear xx/xy separation. Turner syndrome for example.
For interex people their external organs may not match their internal organs. They may also have differing levels of hormones compared to those expected with their identifiable organs.
This can lead to doctors agreeing surgeries to assign a sex, people can be put on hormone treatment etc. as they are being assigned to a category that actually as an individual they don't fit.

Walks into an office - hi! I’m looking for Sam Wilson. Sam Wilson walks out.

Everything is fine in the world.

True, but if Sam wants to state he's a he, let him crack on. It hurts nobody.

That is just offensive.

I agree. Sam can believe he’s anything he wants. All power to Sam.

He doesn’t get to compel me to believe he’s a he if Sam isn’t actually a he though. That’s up to me. You see?

It only starts to hurt people when Sam starts to go into spaces not meant for Sam due to their sex that would be detrimental to others.

But if you're replying to an email, why do you need to know their sex? Don't you just write Dear Firstname? I guess it's different if you're in some kind of formal sector where you need to write Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss Surname, but then for women you'd still be stuck as some take offence if you use the wrong one.

Actually I find addressing emails more of an issue if the name is from a culture where is not clear to me which is the first name and which is the surname, as I don't want to write Dear Surname by mistanke.

Turner’s syndrome only affects females.

All of the chromosomal abnormalities that might lead to ambiguous genitalia or affect either males or females.

In all of the very rare cases you seem to be talking about, the correct testing will give someone’s sex as either male or female.

I’ll leave it there on this as it’s not really the topic of the thread.

But why do you need to know.

"Dear Dr X,

blahblahblah

Kind Regards,
DuesToTheDirt"

At no point in that email do I need to know whether Dr X is male or female.

I have a clearly female name so no actual reason to have pronouns in my signature.

I don't subscribe to the ideology that requires declaration of pronouns so wouldn't include them.

If I had a gender neutral name such as Alex I would still not put my pronouns in because I would expect to be treated less well as a woman - why would I flag this?

One of my female colleagues has an unusual name and I have to admit I assumed it was a male name. She now puts Ms in front of her name in her signature.

Generally I assume someone is not very bright when I see pronouns in their signature - and I can only think of one exception.

I think women who put their pronouns are weak little sheep who are stupid and can’t think for themselves. Traitors to womanhood. You may not agree but that is how I perceive it. If I think Doris is great, and pronouns appear I lose all respect for Doris. Don’t be a Doris.

And how do you feel about men who put their pronouns?

To me pronoun statements are rude. It's telling me to ignore and override my essential instinct as to who is male or female. I need that. It's kept me safe many, many times. To tell a woman to ignore her instincts is a red flag.