To not get the e-mail sign off with pronoun's?

[hehimshehertheythem]

He/him and she/her at the end of an email. Margaret I know you're a woman and Jeff I know you're a man. Why are you teaching me to suck eggs. I don't get it?

I have not once never see a they/them as a sign off, so what is the actual point?

I for one will not be taking part in this madness. But would like to understand the thought behind the people that do? If there is any thought that is.

Goodbye Sam hello Samantha
Goodbye Joe hello Joanne.
Goodbye Lew hello Louise.
From today there'll be new games
For me to play
So good luck and goodbye Sam.

@AnnaSW1

If my employer makes it compulsory, which I doubt it will, my preferred pronoun will read, "my name is Anna, please just make you best guess.". I have never had someone use the incorrect pronoun in my whole life and so I doubt it will start happening now. I am a woman. I look like a woman and I have a woman's name.

I have a male friend called Sharon. In friend's country, it's a male or a female name. If everyone was making a best guess based on his name, he'd have a lot of explaining to do (luckily for him, he lives in his own country so only an issue when he is abroad!)

@DepletingDopamine Cisgender is actually not allowed to be used on Mumsnet, and it's a deeply offensive term. Perhaps you should be more aware and less insulting to women, and less desperate to be seen to be woke.

My boss pressed us to add our pronouns for the sake of inclusivity. I refused point blank because if all of us used the pronoun signature we will be forcing people who are not fully transitioned to lie or to reveal their new identity long before they are ready.

I don’t have any problem with people using pronouns when they have a unisex name though, although I don’t see the point of complicating things so much when signing as Ms or Mr would have done the trick in times past.

I dont get it. I wouldnt put Ms. Miss or Mrs on my email signature (which is surely more relevant to addressing in emails) so unsure why I would a pronoun which would never be used.

For example my accountants admin is called Sam. To this day after numerous years of regular emails I have absolutely no idea whether its a man or a women. Does that matter? No

For those whose organisation is 'forcing' (is that even legal? Might want to check with your union) them to use pronouns, please email the link that DdraigGoch posted - www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/what-happened-when-a-man-signed-work-emails-using-a-female-name-for-a-week_n_58c2ce53e4b054a0ea6a4066

and tell them that this is the reason you are withdrawing your pronouns. CC to your union and/or HR team.

People need to be aware of the ramifications for women in FORCING people to use pronouns on badges/email signatures. This, is the key to us stopping this nonsense.

Yes, exactly this, if it helps some people feel more comfortable and confident about how they express themselves then that’s fine by me. I work at a university and many of the students have said they appreciate this approach and also use the pronouns themselves.

Shouldn’t adults, including university students, be learning how to be confident and comfortable in themselves regardless of what other people’s email signatures say?

If grown people can’t be “comfortable” without being “validated” by the exact phrasing of an email from someone else in a workplace setting, then something has gone very wrong with their selfhood and resilience in life.

@foxgoosefinch

The lack of self awareness in your comment is incredible.

One of the reasons people don't feel 'comfortable' and 'confident' in asserting themselves is the resistance and pushback that is clear as day in this very thread.

By which I mean too that workplace communication is not there to affirm or validate any of your sexuality, selfhood, identity or personal self esteem, and it’s rather worrying that other people just doing their jobs is somehow being co-opted into a social service for “validating” other people’s identities. That’s evidence of some very worrying psychological projection in our current culture, and not a very healthy sense of self.

How have I managed doing my job in a university for decades without having other people affirm me as a biologically female lesbian? And me affirming their identities back? Simple - it’s no one else’s business what my “identity” is and I don’t have any business with anyone else’s when I’m just going about doing my job which isn’t anything to do with my gender.

How we have spent decades trying to prove our gender and sexuality shouldn’t impact on our professional working lives, then suddenly find we’re meant to signal it all over the bloody place I don’t know.

@DepletingDopamine

If Margaret and Jeff add their pronouns it displays that they are an ally and won’t assume another person’s gender. It promotes inclusivity. And no, I haven’t been on a course.

Unless you are a person whose experience with gender issues has been negative, say a woman who has been incarcerated, in which case it's not inclusive to her at all.

@DepletingDopamine

Huge generalisation alert! I’m guessing that the people that have an issue with this are cisgender.

Anyone that wants to label me with the offensive term cisgender can fuck right off. I refuse to identify as that. I’m a woman, full stop. I’m not telling anyone my pronouns either. They’re obvious, they don’t need telling.

[quote Ivyonafence]@foxgoosefinch

The lack of self awareness in your comment is incredible.

One of the reasons people don't feel 'comfortable' and 'confident' in asserting themselves is the resistance and pushback that is clear as day in this very thread.
[/quote]
Rubbish. I’ve spent twenty years lecturing and researching on sexuality, gender and the history of psychology and psychoanalysis, amongst other things, and this current fad for pronouns and gender identity is not only intellectually incoherent and reactionary, but completely antithetical to progressive thought in a whole host of ways. It’s faux progressive, not actually progressive; it privileges stereotypes and gender roles above reality; it’s especially damaging to women; and it’s based, fundamentally, on play acting and make believe. And as a lesbian woman who’s spent my career trying to battle against gender stereotypes to be taken seriously, I find it deeply offensive at the idea I should be putting a simpering “she/her” on my emails just to “validate” other people’s self-esteem and confirm to a bunch of sheer nonsense that a bunch of kids have made up on the internet.

@LemonSwan

I dont get it. I wouldnt put Ms. Miss or Mrs on my email signature (which is surely more relevant to addressing in emails) so unsure why I would a pronoun which would never be used.

For example my accountants admin is called Sam. To this day after numerous years of regular emails I have absolutely no idea whether its a man or a women. Does that matter? No

I had an email from someone called Andy - unconscious bias, I thought it was a bloke. It wasn't, it was Andrea.

And god knows how anyone felt “comfortable” before the age of gender ideology! Thank goodness we must now all make ourselves uncomfortable just so a tiny proportion of very self-obsessed young people who believe a bonkers load of rubbish about “gender” can feel “comfy”. Again - you go to work to do a job, not to make other people “comfortable”. FFS. (Note of course the sheer sexism of it always being women’s job to make other people feel comfortable, no?)

-Huge generalisation alert!
I’m guessing that the people that have an issue with this are cisgender.

Nope, but thanks for your input. I don't have a "gender", many people don't.

@OfstedOffred

I also contact a lot of people from different cultures where the gender of the name is not known to me so I appreciate it when they use pronouns as Google isn't always clear

Why do you need to know their gender when you contact them?

This.

I want transgender and non-binary people to feel comfortable, but I have two issues with there being pressure to include your pronouns in email signatures. What I've noticed at my work (government department) is that it is only people using she/her that add their pronouns to their signature, highlighting that women are obedient and men make up their own minds and lead. Secondly, why is there so much focus on gender? Why is someone's gender the most important thing about them in the workplace?

I saw a woman on Twitter (I think) who had her pronouns as she/him. Which is just confusing.

@foxgoosefinch

And god knows how anyone felt “comfortable” before the age of gender ideology! Thank goodness we must now all make ourselves uncomfortable just so a tiny proportion of very self-obsessed young people who believe a bonkers load of rubbish about “gender” can feel “comfy”. Again - you go to work to do a job, not to make other people “comfortable”. FFS. (Note of course the sheer sexism of it always being women’s job to make other people feel comfortable, no?)

👏👏👏

@girljulian

I put mine in my sig because my name is Julian. I don’t like getting emails saying “Dear Mr Lastname” because I’m a woman.

I also have a unisex name and got fed up of being referred to via email as Mr, or people calling me and assuming that I am my own secretary and asking me to put me through to myself.

Might sound petty to some but when it happens frequently it actually wastes a surprising amount of time.

@BernardBlackMissesLangCleg

i tend to view it as mindless virtue signalling and assume the pronoun bearer is not a deep thinker.....

Yesssss!

Only put them there if that is your religion.

@DepletingDopamine

Huge generalisation alert! I’m guessing that the people that have an issue with this are cisgender.

Nope, I have a sex (female, making me a woman) but no gender because I view gender as an outdated, misogynist & homophobic concept. Other people feel differently and that’s fine.

I shared this article with my HR department as part of my argument that pronouns in bios shouldn’t be made compulsory.

www.filia.org.uk/latest-news/2021/12/1/should-you-declare-your-pronouns-a-simple-guide

@DepletingDopamine

If Margaret and Jeff add their pronouns it displays that they are an ally and won’t assume another person’s gender. It promotes inclusivity. And no, I haven’t been on a course.

Inclusivity to whom?

Some people also include a couple of lines saying which third-person pronouns they would like you to use to refer to them when they're not there.

Therein lies the rub! When I'm not there. Well, I really don't care less what people say about me when I'm not there. It has never even crossed my mind, and I'm too busy getting on with my job to appease other people who feel their priority agenda needs to be mine too.

The fact is before this pronoun nonsense started a couple of years ago, nobody at work (where all this stuff happens) ever got my sex wrong, they've always known who I am. But for some weird reason, I'm now expected to put my preferred pronouns at the bottom of my email. It feels daft and I've chosen just to ignore the lemming approach of everyone feeling forced into doing something that is completely unnecessary to them.

Women have a hard enough time in the workplace as it is, without having a big neon light shining on them, self-declaring "look at me, I'm a WOMAN!!!". No, how about you let me get on with my job and let me make my own choices, to my preference not yours.