to not want to sign off my emails with preferred pronouns?

[AlphaBites]

We've had an email do the rounds today at work saying in the next few weeks all staff are expected to sign off with their preferred pronouns, to save any embarrassment for any staff.

I don't want to.

Can I fight this somehow?

why do you say it doesn’t help with gender dysphoria? Just curious

Two reasons:

1. Experience. I know people with GD, their description is fairly consistent. Gendered behaviour like this is discomforting for them, not helpful.

1. Evidence. There isn't any that it's useful.

So why are organisations making a concerted effort to control language?

Interesting

I wonder where the idea is coming from that it is better for them

My MIL has a unisex name. Sort of like Sidney. She’s in her 80s and did it bother her a jot when she was “misgendered?” Not a bit.

If I sign off A Bloggs, it really doesn’t matter a bit if someone mistakenly addresses me in emails as Mr when I’m a woman.

Could you give them a wee list, @AlphaBites, of whatever ones you prefer, leaving out those you don't want?

Sign off something like this:

Alpha Bites
[ I / me / we / my / whose / myself / self / us / you / your / yourself / all / some / who / our / anyone / anything / everything / something / someone / everyone / those / etc etc etc]
Position in the Company

They couldn't say you weren't giving them a choice.

Pronouns are a broad grammatical category and include both personal pronouns (he, she, they etc) and other ones like relative pronouns, eg where, who etc.

Interestingly, "whatever" is also a pronoun (Carter and McCarthy, 2006), so assuming the person who came up with this idea isn't a linguist and doesn't know their personal pronouns from their interrogatives, technically, you can ask to be called "whatever".

You're welcome

I've never heard of this. Never seen it before. Send and receive 100's of emails a week internally/externally.

I've RTFT and still a bit baffled what it's supposed to mean or be for. Is it cos I'm in a Northern town and we're not as liberal thinking?

What's wrong with just a name? That's how you refer to someone isn't it?

Why is the sex of the person relevant in a work environment for communication purposes and getting the job done? It's irrelevant to me.

Stan - bloke
Steph - lass
Lindsey - could be either, but doesn't matter.

I quite often have no idea what sex people are from emails, especially if they have names like "Chris" "Sam" "Alex"

I deal mostly with international clients and I can rarely tell from their names what sex they are, which makes utterly zero difference to my exchanges with them as it’s complete irrelevant to any work-related discussion.

Tiny things make big differences

That's true. For everyone. If someone demands I put the tiny word cis in front of my biological sex of woman that makes a big difference to me. I'm not doing it. I don't need to change the biological reality of my sex to validate the perceived reality of a man now identifying as my sex, so for him his new gender. I'm not redefining myself, I'm not moving over.

Tiny word, big difference.

Could I reject gender as a notion (I do) and therefore my pronouns are my name, ie

Spotted Zebra
Fan Engineer
(Zebra / Zebra's)

Tiny things make big differences
eg a penis?
certainly does to my pay packet

If my HR team start getting daft ideas, we'll all tell them to button it.

It's beyond absurd. People who are routinely called "brave and stunning" for "being their true self" need the entire world to write pronouns on their email sign offs to make them feel comfortable?! I'm betting that once everybody complies, there'll be the exact people who stop doing it: you can't stand out as your "unique self" if you follow the herd, even if the herd was created specifically for you.

I'd go with 'comrade' and 'it'.

@nicenewdusters
Thank you for summing that up so succinctly! I 100% agree

Alpha Bites (, )
Position in Company

• In solidarity with colleagues and friends who don't wish to declare personal pronouns whilst still in a process exploring gender identity, and who find the pressure to choose and declare triggering, I am choosing not to declare pronouns in order to contribute to a safe space for Questioning people. Please use you/your when addressing me and any pronouns you like otherwise, I promise not to be offended.

What complete and utter bullshit. Just don't do it OP.

Count yourself lucky. My sister worked for a kids' party company that required her to sign all her letters, "Magically yours"....

So, I'm sending a work email to someone called Chris, I have no idea if Chris is male or female so I email them saying, "Hi Chris, blah blah blah"...., so essentially I don't need to know whether they are male or female as I'd treat them the same regardless.

It only comes in if I then email Bob and say " Chris just came back and said blah, am I right in thinking that she heads up the marketing team?" Bob emails back and says "yes that's correct, for future reference Chris is a man".

Chris is oblivious to this conversation so I really can't see what the point of all this is.

I'd rather declare a pronoun preference than use my title actually. The one request I did make at work was to not have my title publicly displayed - it wasn't for the men.

Maybe I need to do a PhD to get a gender neutral title that doesn't overtly declare my marital status.

My pronouns are me/I/mine

Y'all can use whatever words to discribe me as suits you. Who am I to police other people's words?

I deal mostly with international clients and I can rarely tell from their names what sex they are, which makes utterly zero difference to my exchanges with them as it’s complete irrelevant to any work-related discussion.

Couldn't agree more. Sometimes when I'm then on a call with someone and they are the opposite to what I thought they were, I get a momentary pause in my head then I just get on with the meeting. it makes no difference. The only people who ever need to correct in an email scenario are people other than the person you are deealing with as you don't use he/she/her/his etc directly on an email to them.

My email footer doesn't declare if I'm a Mrs/Miss/Ms or whatever, why should it? It's a business thing, I just use my name.

So, I'm sending a work email to someone called Chris, I have no idea if Chris is male or female so I email them saying, "Hi Chris, blah blah blah"...., so essentially I don't need to know whether they are male or female as I'd treat them the same regardless.

You may treat them the same regardless but a lot of people don’t: men are afforded more respect, more opportunities, more pay, more responsibilities, etc etc. By highlighting that you are a female Chris you are allowing them to express their bias against you.

I find it of huge concern that the discussion always comes back to being kind, and the backdrop is quite literally rainbows, unicorns, bunny ears etc.

The most cynical part of me feels that it is aggressive trans women, some of whom possibly have AGP, who are subtly trading on what are commonly seen as womanly/feminine traits. By this I mean the injunction to be kind, to not want to cause offence, to step back.

By all means dress and present as what is generally accepted to be a feminine representation, but don't use gender stereo types against me to stop me saying what I believe to be both biologically and literally true.

DontDribbleontheCarpet: "Sometimes I consider applying for Proper Jobs instead of working for myself from home. Then I read this kind of nonsense and I'm utterly convinced that I should stay as I am because I am just not suited to navigating the modern world of employment."

I could have said this myself. Self-employed for almost 20 years. No way could I go and work in an office as an employee. The thought of appraisals was enough to put me off, but this stuff now?! No way!