AIBU to feel uncomfortable about sharing pronouns?

[Oodiks]

I am on the interview panel for a junior position in my office and have been given a sample set of interview questions to amend as necessary for the advertised post. It's a 2-person panel and the other person is happy to share their pronouns but I'd rather not. Also, the first question invites them to tell us a little bit about themselves, where they are from, what their interests are, and what their pronouns are.

It seems to me that if the other person on the panel shares their pronouns and I don't then it shows that sharing is optional, and I'd like to change the interview question to tell them they are welcome to share their pronouns if they choose rather than straight out ask them.

Am I being unreasonable to feel uncomfortable about sharing pronouns or not?

Thoughts?

My pronouns are sex-based, like my oppression.

It’s posts like yours that make me despair for the human race.

I’ve been in HR for about 100 years. I can’t recall ever calling a candidate anything other than “you” in an interview, ever.

Guessing pronouns was never a problem before the MRA and Big Pharma started a belief system.

I'm just waiting for someone to ask me this, so I can get to use one of my mums old sayings
"call me anything you like as long as you don't call me late for me dinner".

I'm so glad I will never have to attend another job interview. Which frees me to say what a load of malarkey. Nobody would employ me these days.

"What pronouns do you use?"

"Oh, all of them, depending on the grammatical need".

Op, I also work in EDI and I would feel deeply uncomfortable about this. I think you could push back by saying that you might make a vulnerable trans person feel outed and also that you don’t think it’s appropriate to explicitly call attention to gender in an academic interview given stereotype threat (linked above). Also you could suggest that explicitly putting in a personal question like that potentially violates GDPR and also potentially leaves you open to a discrimination claim if they don’t get the job. Basically, throw every EDI/legal angle at it.

a more inclusive question would be “what’s your preferred name?” Or “how would you like to be called?”

as an analogy, would people feel it’s ok to ask about someone’s age or childbearing status in an interview? No, clearly not!! In fact I’m pretty sure you would leave yourself very open to a legal challenge if you did that! (I’m sure we’ll have a lawyer here who could comment)

If someone asked me in an interview 'what pronouns do you use?' I'd just give them a confused look and say 'well, all of them. As needed'

There's not much guessing involved. Whatever I'm wearing, whether my hair is long or short, whether my legs/underarms are hairy or not, whether I'm wearing make-up or not, nobody has ever "guessed" my sex incorrectly!

It's all bollocks. My uneditable work email reply has my pronouns in it. I don't want them there. Asked it to taken them off. It's now with HR, who are now called 'people team'.

They didn't even asked me my pronouns which seems a bit stupid anyway.

If any one wants to announce them crack on, I don't.

😂 They really don't see themselves, do they? Assuming your gender, honestly! 😲

Asking someone to share their pronouns assumes they share your belief system, so is like asking them to join you in prayer.

Totally inappropriate in an interview.

Don't worry you won't need to ask it will be made clear to you if they are part of the gender club

This all seems like making a big deal out of nothing. I don’t see why you can’t just share your pronouns and move on!

Perfect.

Several trans identifying people that I know never share their own pronouns, even when everybody else in the room has done. I assume it is a matter of comfort for them. Surely the #bekind thing we can do is to not force the very people that this policy is trying to make comfortable, to do a thing that makes them uncomfortable.

I like the phraseology "Do you have any accommodation needs, or is there any information that you would like to share about yourself that would make you feel more comfortable here today?" Gives them a chance to say anything that would help them from "I'm a little nervous today," to "I am autistic, please don't use metaphors as I find them confusing," and includes "I want you to know that my pronouns are..." if they want to.

It annoys me so much. I know lots of companies ask staff to put pronouns in email signatures now, and it's just wrong.

I don't think there's any point me telling people I'm she/her. I look like a woman. Mainly because I am one.

If you want to go by different pronouns then good for you (I recommend getting psychological help though) and you can point that out, but we shouldn't all have to do it. We'll have to announce that we're human, too, soon. It's ridiculous.

I will always call people by their preferred pronouns, because I'm not going to just upset people for the sake of things, but I GENUINELY believe that it's either a) attention seeking or b) a mental health condition that needs help.

I work at a university, and they make a big deal out of making people feel comfortable by inviting them to share their pronouns, but it makes me feel uncomfortable.

What other protected characteristic are they asking people to share?

Because I don't want to.

Would you expect people to share other protected characteristic such as age, disability, religion?

The thing is that pronouns are used about somebody, not to their face. So the whole thing is totally irrelevant in an interview. I just can't see how it would crop up.
If I'm interviewing you and I go out of the room, and you want to refer to me, you can use my name: When would Alex like me to start? or similar.
I think the most sensible approach is the point above, to totally ignore the question and then at the end ask if there's anything that would make them feel more comfortable or that they'd like to add.

So, if you don't like sharing your prefered pronouns, are you happy for people to guess your pronoun based on your perceived gender?

I'm happy for them to use the pronouns appropriate to my sex. Which was the only real take on this until about 5 minutes ago when we started unnecessarily complicating things by talking about 'perceived gender'.

Oh God, if I went to an interview and they asked for 'my pronouns' I wouldn't accept any job offer. That environment wouldn't be for me. I'd recommend that nobody mentions it in case you discourage potentially desired candidates.

The people that share their pro nouns have usually told your their pro nouns before you’ve even had chance to say good morning so I wouldn’t worry to much about the question

My preferred pronouns, if I am speaking, are: I, me, my. If you are speaking: you, yours.

It's of no interest to me what pronouns you use when I'm not there and you're talking about me. What difference could it make to me?

If I were asked my pronouns in a job interview, I would politely end the interview there. That's not an exaggeration; I would know at that precise moment that I could never work there so what would be the point of wasting everyone's time? It tells me immediately that this is a TRA-compliant organisation to the point of ignoring good practice and equality law.

It is not inclusive, it is intrusive.

This sort of nonsense has no place in an interview and is about as inappropriate as asking about someone's sexual orientation or what their childcare arrangements are.

Query with HR because this could be a legal minefield, and they should seek clarification on it themselves.

We were advised not to ask any questions that were not related to the job advertised, because it doesn’t play out in your favour at tribunal. That included innocuous questions like “did you have far to come today” aimed to put people at ease, but could potentially be twisted into an implication that you don’t/want to hire locals.

I know it’s on trend and virtue signalling, but it’s also a time bomb.