To think stating your pronouns is redundant?

[BridgertonLady]

I’m referring to email signatures. When for example you’re female with an obvious feminine name. It seems a bit performative in my opinion.

If however your name is Michelle and you state in your signature he/him then great thanks for letting me know so I can refer to you correctly without offensive as I would have just assumed she/her.

What's happened is you have aged and now see the world through the same jaded eyes she did back then

Was discussing this feeling, of just absolute CBA-ness when any new 'initiative' is announced at work.

Sorry, I am off topic, as not discussing pronouns specifically.

Speech cannot be compelled?

Tell that to Maya Forstater or Allison Bailey or Kathleen Stock.

It IS hard at work (public sector, full of this BS).

At the moment I’ve been able to resist putting pronouns in my emails (although everyone else does). Nobody has pushed on it. One colleague asked why I didn’t want to and I said ‘because I don’t have a gender and don’t believe in gender identity’. They looked baffled but didn’t ask again.

If I am pushed, though, I have got to the stage where I will expand on that if required.

I wish I could just scream ‘because it’s a load of reductive woo woo bollocks!!!!’, though. Really wish.

I recently had an email communication with someone from a different department who I'd never met, named Alex. I had no idea before I emailed Alex that he was male. I only knew this because our company used photos next to our email, therefore his photo came up when I searched for his email. However, if we hadn't had an email system that uses photos, would I have needed another way to know that Alex was male to communicate with him about the work issue I needed to communicate about? Nope. His sex was irrelevant.

A very long winded way of saying... it's a complete waste of time putting them on a work email imo. 🤷‍♀️

It's unnecessary. And redundant. I'm not going to use third party pronouns (she he her him) in direct conversation with someone so what does it even matter?!

ItS not about you.

We have a lot of pronouns at work for ‘inclusion’ reasons, often from people who infuriatingly AREN’T hard work and special little flowers, but genuinely lovely people with limited critical thinking. I can guarantee almost none of them have actually thought about their deeply felt gender identity though, but have used the relevant pronouns because they just ARE male or female.

Welfarerightsworker · Today 19:51

Speech cannot be compelled?
Tell that to Maya Forstater or Allison Bailey or Kathleen Stock.

Not legally, which is why they won their cases. It's horrible what they were made to go through, but there are legal precedents protecting people, because of them.

Hate it so much.

The worst one I’ve come across is “it”.

Just why would you refer to yourself as an “it”. If someone called me “it” I’d think they were being rather rude.

Mr,Mrs,Ms,their you go,simples!!

I know a very male and masculine Michelle. It's an Italian version of Michael pronounced "mi-Kelly". The person is prob fed up of being mistaken for a woman so probably a genuine need for pronouns!

My organisation had something called ‘LGBTQI+ Awareness’ training back in 2019 l. There was nothing about LGB, a lot about TQ and then shitloads of bizarre stuff about pronouns.

We were shown a grid with honestly maybe 25 different possible pronouns. Ze/Za or some such nonsense. I wish I’d had the bottle to say something, but it was online and not interactive (, and I bottled it!). Something like ‘who says so? Where did this come from? Because it sounds like something some stoned teenagers invented in a Discord chat’.

I notice nobody on my organisation has had the brassneck to choose one of those wacky pronouns on their email sig. I wonder why…

It' s not something I do but I have considered it as my name is pretty unique and people can't tell if I'm male or female from it 🤔

Yes it must be frustrating as a male to experience everyday sexism and if he buys into the misogynistic attitude that being mistaken for a woman 'lessons' him, well my heart bleeds for him.

Perhaps he could use blue macho font or something.

Or make up for it by behaving like a toxic masculinity dick.

😂

I was on a call pitching for a client contract not long ago and they started off with ‘Before we start, I just want to introduce myself as x, pronouns y’ before expecting everyone including me to do the same.

They were also expecting me to achieve something in about a fifth of the time that it would usually take. On that, I gave them more realistic timescales.

I might have danced the pronoun knobhead dance but I take my reputation seriously and it would have been that at risk if I had failed. Anyway, didn’t get the job. I was not upset.

Funny isn't it how. Man might be upset at being missexed - as a female I have always been happy

Perhaps a man who is unhappy could consider why it matters and what message it is giving by insisting he isn't female

Only the most sexually unambiguous people ever seem to do it.
And it's compelled speech, which is offensive.
It implies I will talk about people who are actually with me in the third person.
Just, no.

My fab teenage DD informed me about neopronouns - if I'm ever in a situation where I'm asked my pronouns I say xe/xem/xyr. Blows their bloody minds and no one can question if I'm taking the piss

This is what I think too. Pronouns are irrelevant to the work that people do. And I also agree that if I am a woman called Michelle who presents as a man, I would change my name by deed poll to Michael or some other classically male name and skip on the pronoun thing.

I too have a unisex name. Despite 55 years on this planet being "misgendered" I'm still here, unbothered by the misgendering, who knew you could survive such tragedy.

@findmybalance

I don't give a flying fuck. I will never use pronouns and cannot be forced.