To not be happy that my new work lanyard has “she/her” on it without me asking?

[TheNavyAnt]

I’ve just started a new job and noticed that my staff lanyard/pass automatically has my name and “she/her” printed underneath it. Nobody asked if I wanted pronouns added - it was just assumed and put there by default.

I don’t have anything against people sharing pronouns if they want to, but personally, I wouldn’t have chosen to have it printed on my pass. It feels a bit forced, like I’m being made to take part in something I didn’t ask for and I’m not sure why it needs to be there at all unless I choose it.

AIBU to feel slightly uncomfortable about this? Or should I just let it go as one of those “modern workplace” things?

How did they know you are she/her? You can’t tell by looking at people at all you know. 🙄 How dare they assume your gender, and maybe they’ve misgendered you.
I would definitely go to HR with all these points. It works both ways.

My DP was also given a name badge with he/him on for his volunteering role. Unfortunately he wasn’t bothered enough to complain. I would have done.

Tell them you will need several lanyards, because you are genderfluid and your pronouns vary from day to day.

Does everyone lanyard have them. I would wonder if it previously belonged to someone else who got their own lanyard and work are just recycling.

The issue is sterotype threat.

The issue is that announcing pronouns has been shown to increase sex discrimination.

The issue is co-opting all employees into a particular belief system, whether they want it or not. What if the lanyards were all automatically printed with 'God is great', or 'MAGA', or ' Om mane padme hum', or 'All property is theft'?

There is a body of research showing that drawing attention to her sex, which inclusion of pronouns does, results in women being taken less seriously in the workplace with consequent negative impact on career progression.

So yeah, it is an issue.

Someone who happened to have the same name?

Put a sticker over it

No, nobody asked me at any point - not during the application, onboarding, or in person. That’s exactly what feels odd to me too. If pronouns are meant to be about respect and inclusion, surely asking should be part of the process rather than assuming and printing them automatically.

All the "allies" at work have done this. And I think thanks Jane, thanks Matt, was so hard to tell if you were male or female with those incredibly gender neutral names. Of a thousand or so people in the organisation there's about 50 who have done it.

It’s on the actual pass

Tell them they have misgendered you. Your pronouns are He/His and they can look forward to being sued.

In the meantime, you will be going home immediately to recover and do not expect this recovery to take less than two weeks.

Was literally thinking the exact same thing

I wouldn’t be bothered about having my pronouns on my lanyard. I would be bothered that someone else assumed my pronouns to put them on my lanyard - it defeats the whole object of the exercise. For this reason I think you should feed back to hr

😂😂

I would ask for a new one without pronouns. You're absolutely not being unreasonable. I'd be far too embarrassed to go around wearing a lanyard with pronouns on and it's not right that anyone has to display them. It's all absolute nonsense.

If ever asked to put my pronouns down, I would say I hadn’t finished deciding if I wanted to be Dave or davina and by making me choose they were forcing me to put myself as Dave when I wasn’t ready but I wasn’t davina. Or some bullshit like that

I love this!
You could ask for several lanyards and say that your gender is fluid and that you never know how you are going to feel from one day to the next. You could be like Eddie Izzard and be in 'boy mode' one day and 'girl mode' the next and another day could be feeling non binary. So could they supply you with all the different options to suit that particular day.

This and if they ask what pronouns you want to be known by say you're still deciding so please can it remain blank while you think about it.

Sharpie and complain. How dare they.

I would be furious about this. Women have worked so hard and risked so much to break free of this idiotic ideology that puts women and young people at risk.

I would write a strongly worded letter and point out that gender critical beliefs are protected by law.

Over my frosty corpse would my pronouns be going on anything. The nerve!

It's very easy to avoid using sex/gendered pronouns. You simply switch to the passive voice. This takes some reframing in the mind, but after a while it becomes habit.

I work in an organisation with a clear policy that disciplinary action could be taken over any slips, however unintentional. So to me it became like a game of linguistic contortionism. This has the twofold benefit: no one gets inadvertently offended, and I don't have to compromise my principles (which are that I don't hold with regressive gender stereotypes).

Therefore: 'I agree with what Rachel just said. That was a very valid point'.

Here's an example:

email from author with a Chinese name that I am not familiar with. They have she/her in their signature.

I forward email to colleague saying e.g. "See email below, I'm not what she's asking".

I don't care what sex they are, it just makes the grammar easier.

In the event I don't have a pronoun, I might Google the name. Sometimes it's very clear, other times it's not. Sometimes Chinese authors use their last name when communicating in a professional setting so that can make things more difficult.

If I don't find out it doesn't matter, I would just say "See email below, I'm not sure what they're asking" or "I'm not sure what Xiaoming means".

This is NOT an argument for putting in pronouns in emails, absolutely not, I am just giving an example where it can be helpful.

Its rather different because it is a notification that the person thinks they are a woman and not about what you or others think.

You think that the worker in your job is a man your employer adding a pronoun line to the email field has not changed the fact that you dont place that employee into the class woman.

I wouldn't have a problem with wearing it.
With you not knowing it was going to be on there though - were you asked what your pronouns were? If not it's a bit 🙄 that they've just presumed!