To be irritated at being asked to give my pronouns?

[purpledaze24]

I work in a very “progressive” organisation who are constantly trying to be sooo pc about everything 🙄
Almost daily I have meetings with colleagues, clients, and people from other organisations. At the beginning of EVERY meeting my manager asks everyone to go round and give their pronouns. It’s SO annoying! Every single person is always the pronoun they look like, my work also has nothing to do with supporting trans people or anything related, many of the people I’ve known for years, yet she still makes us do this every single meeting!! AIBU to be unbelievably irritated (and actually kind of offended) by this?

On a slightly different topic, I was at a friend’s barbecue recently and there was a young woman there who asked what my pronouns were. I answered she/her through gritted teeth and she said back “I’m he/him” (!) She was (what I assumed) was a slightly boyish lesbian. She didn’t appear to be making any attempt to look like a man. She even had long hair. She was just wearing “boyish” clothes (but stuff I’d wear sometimes). I thought how annoying it must be to go through life constantly having to “correct” people. Am I being overly judgmental by being annoyed by this? Like it feels like she’s just making a total mockery of gender and actually if I was a genuine trans man who desperately wanted to be recognised as he/him I’d feel like she was taking the absolute piss!

I, me and mine could work for all

YANBU because it's performative nonsense.

Leave then.

It is just "modern life" now I get it is irritating but a sigh and a She/her is fine, the youngster probably thought she was being progressive and polite.

I thought the pronouns bs had finally stopped, this would drive me nuts too. I would just say, “I don’t wish to give pronouns”, and move on. Once one or two people do that, others will follow suit. Most people only go along with this nonsense because they are scared of being labelled trans-phobic.

That's actually crazy and what a waste of time. Can you suggest it's put on the agenda as part of the attendees? I don't really care about pronouns but I do about dumb BS

Standard response: take a guess.

It might seem sarcastic, but it’s essential to rebuff. I have never given my pronouns despite 4 years in a progressive work environment. I have never added pronouns to the foot of my email. I’ve never used incorrect pronouns for other people either. I just construct sentences to be pronoun-free.

Fuck me, I'm glad I don't do corporate. Would be hard to resist saying "why do you need to know what gender I am if you can't figure it out, are you going to treat me differently?"

That's actually a good point too, why is it even relevant. If anything it's rude to make it a thing. Are we all supposed to state our Ethinicity too or any disabilities we might have?

‘no thank you’

Second person singular. Or mind your own business. Or grow up.
Any or all of the above.

I don’t know how you keep quiet, if this was happening in my workplace I would have to say something

I am very glad I am self-employed. This whole "pronouns" shit is so self-absorbed.

We were given rainbow ribbons to wear earlier this year. I just said ‘no thank you’.

I’d just say ‘whatever pronouns you think suit me are fine’. Literally none of my business what people refer to me as 😄

I voted YABU because you are answering!

"I don't subscribe to that particular right wing political ideology" is my normal answer.

"I don't think anyone has any right to attempt to control what is said about them when they are not there" if I am pushed

I'm with you OP. It's performative, empty headed nonsense. I work in a corporate role, and I've never been asked my pronouns to my face, but if I was I think I would say either 'no thank you' or 'Im sure you can work that out for yourself!'

I did have a manager who suggested that a new group of trainees get given sticky labels for them to write their names and pronouns on, but it never caught on thankfully. Cringing for your manager, I bet she thinks she's so cool 🤦🏻‍♂️

In this scenario I’d want to say “ I don’t want to have to explicitly point out the differences that disadvantage me at the start of this meeting, so I’d prefer not to answer thanks”, as being a woman and being trans are a statistical disadvantage vs being a man.

What I would actually say is “I don’t have a preference, so long as it’s clear it’s me you’re referring to”, because I genuinely don’t.

I also deal with a lot of Lord and Ladies and other titles in my work, and it somehow feels disrespectful to refer to them by pronouns in their presence so I’m quite good at not using pronouns in front of people and just using their names. What I say behind their back is none of their business (and tbh misgendering might be the least offensive thing I say about some of my colleagues 😂).

I don’t care what pronouns someone uses. I’d quite like to mandate that they don’t call me names or slag me off when I’m not there, but I’d be naive to assume I have the power to police that.

My parents gave me an androgynous name so that I wouldn’t be unfairly discriminated against because I’m a woman before people met me. I get offended people thinking I must present my pronouns in a work setting.

We had this at my charity workplace, asked to add pronouns as part of email signatures.
no one did except the initiator. It

ALSO THIS. All the girls names on our list for a future DD meet that criteria, so she’s not dismissed over email or via CV before anyone meets her. Making a woman state she’s female in every correspondence is oppressive.

I'd tell whoever it is at your workplace that requiring routine and public pronoun disclosure goes against Yogyakarta Principle 6, which says "The right to privacy ordinarily includes the choice to disclose or not to disclose information relating to one’s sexual orientation or gender identity, as well as decisions and choices regarding both one’s own body and consensual sexual and other relations with others."

Undertaking F of principle 6 says that states (and by extension, organisations subject to the laws of those states) should "ensure the right of all persons ordinarily to choose when, to whom and how to disclose information pertaining to their sexual orientation or gender identity, and protect all persons from arbitrary or unwanted disclosure, or threat of disclosure of such information by others."

If pronouns are routinely required to be disclosed in public, like at the beginning of meetings in a way that makes it difficult or othering not to disclose, it doesn't make it easier on trans people if they do not want to be outed, or are still in stealth. You can really lay it on thick about a poor trans person in those situations who may not feel safe to disclose, ready to come out of stealth, or alternatively forced to state pronouns that they don't identify with solely because they are forced to do so etc etc etc.

The side effect hopefully will be that you are also not required to state your own pronouns, if nobody else is.

Why are you continuing to engage with this? Especially at a bbq!

"I prefer not to discuss my pronouns "
"That's personal"
"I don't have any"
"Use whichever you prefer, I dont mind"
"My pronouns match my sex"
"Im not sure but you can use sex based ones today, no ones ever got it wrong"

Depending on how brave you're feeling.