“Self description for inclusive meetings” What fresh hell is this?

[BlueOrangeRed]

AIBU to not understand this at all? I’ve just attended an online event with around 20 people, from a mix of organisations.

The three organisers of the event introduced themselves by name then followed up with descriptions of themselves along the lines of “My pronouns are she/her. I’m a white woman in my mid thirties. I have blonde hair and am wearing a blue top”

A quick google afterwards came up with the following: “For inclusive meetings, a self-description offers context for visually impaired attendees, focusing on key identifiers like Name, Role, Pronouns, and brief visual cues (gender, skin tone, hair, clothing/accessories, background), keeping it concise (1-2 sentences) and optional, to help everyone feel seen and reduce assumptions. Start with your name and role, then add pronouns (she/her, he/him, they/them) and a quick visual detail like "brown skin, bald head, black hoodie," ensuring it's about access, not performance

It will be a cold day in hell before I start introducing myself like this. Leaving aside the foregrounding of pronouns issue, I can see zero benefits, but lots of pitfalls, about reminding everyone in a meeting that I’m a woman in my early fifties. I would also hate it if I was the youngest colleague there, for example. Or the only non white participant.

I’ve never experienced this before. Is this the latest thing to tick some inclusivity box, and for people to perform some virtue signalling? Because the cynic in me really can’t see how it will help anyone. Do visually impaired people find these kind of descriptions helpful?

Or am I just hopelessly out of touch? I don’t go to many events so maybe I am and this kind of thing is now the norm.

Should have been a game of pants or no pants seeing it was online.
Sounds horrendous, Hi I'm short fat blond and hate stupid intros.

Why are you being so unpleasantly snide?
I understand perfectly well but nobody has made a convincing case for hair colour, skin colour and what colour top you are wearing being any more important in a business than a social setting.

Which bit did you object to?

If it helps visually impaired people to form a picture by me saying "I have dark hair and I'm wearing a green top", then great - I will say that.

I obviously wouldn't be on board with stating my skin colour and I don't have pronouns. That doesn't mean I'm non-binary I just don't use pronouns.

oh. i don't know.. Maybe i'm sick to the back teeth of the fucking ablism on this forum.. and how people are defending others taking the piss out of policies put in place to assist disabled people just because they can't personally think of a scenario where it might be useful?

Apart from people who lip read. They can fuck right off, eh?

I am feel uncomfortable when we are not about me?

That's not always clear, though

So @BlueOrangeRed that's why you had to ask here.

I actually saw somebody querying this on X as well but they went straight for "this is ridiculous" and it's not the place to explain what might be going on. Also, I wasn't 100% sure myself at the time.

I guess organisations have some work to do in explaining why they do things like this.

If someone is attempting to lip read from the video my laptop provides, they're going to struggle. I'd suggest that they turn on captions.

What are you blathering on about?

Ah, sorry, was a meme.

What I was pointing out is that this isn't about you/trans. Not everything is about trans. This is about whether emphasising characteristics/fashion sense is actually helpful to people with visual impairment.

Oh come off it.You could’ve made this point without being hostile. It’s a good reminder that people have different needs, but if you seriously think that @Soontobe60 meant to be dismissive towards and to exclude lip readers, I just cannot see where you got that from.

Hi, My name is Luna
My pronouns are ARRRGGHHH/EEEEEEEKKKK.
Im wearing a black ‘Woman : Adult Human Female Tshirt and a Hobbs skirt.
I’ve got menopausal blond ish hair and consequently a very expensive haircut that covers up the thinning due to me being a middle aged woman.

Do you think I would get spoken to by HR??

because that's REALLY going to help the visually impaired person in your meeting isn't it.

Okay, another potentially useful thread that got hijacked

Literally exactly why I didn't bother explaining it to the person on X.

No, you're right, not everything is about trans people. But I do believe that OP has made this post to enrage those who are "gender critical" (and yet will use gender neutral pronouns when referring to a group of people)

Also, I apologise if I'm coming across as hostile. I'm just sick of posts like this that feign concern about non issues

If they're going to rely upon captions, they've got more problems coming your way - unless you have a perfectly clear American accent at the same time as the diction of a 1950s BBC Radio presenter, chances are that in the icebreaker, your ideal gift of a new Rush album is subtitled as you wish for any Russian atom bomb.

Captioning is shit.

How hard can it be?
I'm Audrey.
I cook like Betty Crocker and I look like Donna Reed.
There's plastic on my furniture to keep it neat and clean....

<Dr Evil> Hi I'm Chatty, and the details of my life are quite inconsequential.... </Dr Evil>

I wonder how far I could get before being stopped!

a non-issue in your opinion.

it really is. i have ADP and audio on calls is hellish, i sort of rely on high volume, some auto-captions, i tried some speech to text programmes too.

luckily my volunteer job had a very skilled minute taker and the people i worked with were happy enough to repeat stuff or type it in the side-bar chat if i was struggling.

Oh - and I'm not saying that it's a "non issue" to be inclusive of visually impaired people. I'm saying it's a non issue to describe who you are and what you look like. It literally doesn't matter. Who does it put out? It's only 5 seconds per person, 10 maximum.

You’re not going to make your point any more effectively by swearing and being rude.

I think it is too. Surely these descriptions only work with visually impaired persons who have lost their sight during their lifetimes - what does ‘blonde’ mean to anyone who has never been able to see? Why do they need to know you are 35 - many people don’t look 35 so even people who can see aren’t able to work this out.

All they need to know is name, function and department and - perhaps - whether you are new to the organisation.

as i aid upthread, i don't feel everything needs to be compulsory if you're not comfortable sharing a particular detail.. but what is so hard about

"I'm Kreepture, i'm a mid 40's aged woman with dyed purple hair and i'm wearing black."

to help the colleague who might just be seeing a screen of vague people shapes with a blob of colour for hair/clothes??

It’s also pretty demeaning when you’re disabled and you ask for accommodations but they’re not met over and over.

I use hearing aids and have lost count of how many times quite minor adaptations (hearing loop, seating near speakers, etc) aren’t accommodated. Being disabled is hard enough without always feeling different and inconvenient when you just want to do your job.

I genuinely cried the first time I went to a conference with a hearing loop for every session, normally it’s only in the main hall (if it all) so you can’t choose what you attend. My colleague who organised it didn’t think it was a big deal but it was huge to me.

Describing yourself is another small adjustment that could make a huge difference to someone else.