To not agree to pretend to my company that I don’t know what a man or woman is?

[Grain25]

My company has held a big team meeting this afternoon to bollock us because we haven’t been following their guidance that in our notes we refer to everyone as ‘they’ and ‘them’ unless we’ve explicitly asked if they identify as a man or woman and what their pronouns are.

It is grammatically and logically ridiculous.

They want me to pretend I don’t know if a male voice with the name Michael is a man and a female voice named Susan is a woman. They want no he/she in the notes unless we confirm with the aforementioned Michael and Susan that they are indeed a man and woman, which would make me look quite mad.

They have tried to conflate it with not assuming a married Michael is married to a woman, and that Susan is married to a man. This is completely right and proper and I hope I wouldn’t assume this.

AIBU to simply not change my notes?

This is actually what they want!

Then I think I would try and insert they/them etc a ridiculous amount of times.

It is outside the lands of reality.

Susan and Michael have been she and he since well before the 13th century and there has been no issue.

Such an ablist policy of your company. Again not caring about those with a communication disability.

I work somewhere with one of the oldest demographics in the UK. The organisation briefly tried the they/them approach and it caused so much confusion and complaints about grammar that it was quietly dropped and never referred to again

I’d just carry on as I was doing. Total nonsense

I agree with you but wanted to point out that the actress who played the mother in The Waltons was called Michael - she was credited as Miss Michael Learned. So not all Michaels are men.

I also did encounter a "Steve" who I assumed would be a man but was actually a woman.

If your company is saying it's so important, why can't you check at your first meeting "Michael, can I just check what pronouns you prefer please?" then note it and you are fine from then on. If you really want to show it's checked then when you write up the next meeting: "Note, Michael uses he/him as per check made at our meeting of 31 Oct 2025" or "Michael uses he/him as per information in signature of email received on 31 Oct 2025". Then just do what you normally do. If you otherwise like the role then I don't think you need to get wound up by it.

"MP - will contact John for further help but is worried about own Internet connection. Stated will try and use helpline instead"

They, their and them have been used as singular since the 13th century, only recently have people decided they have an issue with it.

That only applies when you don't know their sex.

"Someone left their jacket behind" is normal speech.

"Susan left her jacket behind" is normal speech.

"Susan left their jacket behind" is not normal speech.

I'd just be cleverer than them to avoid the accusation. Eg. MP confirmed future contact with John pending Internet availability with the helpline as an alternative.

Yeah that's exactly what I'd do.
It's kind of what I used to do in work when transcribing qualitative interviews. In that the person is basically now a serial number but you just call them their initials when writing it up.

As long as you only ever need to convey events that involve a single person of unspecified or unknown sex that's ok. But even in your curated examples it sounds unnatural.

Oh my gd I’m showing my age here perhaps but what’s wrong with being a man or a woman? I know that a small minority people feel they were born to the wrong gender but why does that mean terminology for the majority have to change? I’m deaf but would expect everyone to learn sign language!!!

I wouldn’t last long in your job…

I bet you didn’t have to ask Steve if she was a man or woman.

Because it’s batshit and the people I talk to would think I’d lost the plot.

Logically it’s silly. Grammatically it can and does make sense, but that doesn’t mean you should do it.

I don’t think I’m going to. I’m not changing my notes and that’s that.

Susan picked up their book is not grammatically correct.

@Agix Your postie example is jarring if you name the postie Susan or Dave.

I agree- its fcking ridiculous.

I personally do NOT WANT to be referred to as them. I want to be defined as female so how on earth is this not a discriminatory rule?

Their logic is flawed, as you'd have to check EVERY SINGLE TIME.

What if you asked 5 years ago,and in the meantime they'd changed their mind?

I hadn’t realised this was a thing but read several emails this week from a (20 something, male) colleague saying things like ‘Emily didn’t attend their interview today’, this could be why.

You're not supposed to do this, because what if they're not ready to share? And now you're forcing them to publicly declare...

It's all bullshit