Just been told to remove my pronouns from my Teams profile

[Horrace]

I'm weak 🤣
My manager just phoned me to say there has been some serious complaints made about me that he must urgently address.
I panicked.
In the Pronouns section of my Teams profile, I have

'Take a Wild Guess'

Its been there for a few years. Its finally been noticed and I've been told to take it down because it's made someone or more than one possibly, FEARFUL of me.

If he didn’t pass, I would still respect their pronouns.

And any manager who engaged in direct sex discrimination against the OP for poorly expressing a PC on the employers cheapscate investor relations fluff is a financial liability to their employer.

Ha ha in your dreams maybe.

You just called him "he" and "their".

It's ok. I know someone who says her sibling isn't a woman even though she clearly is (it's really laboured how she always uses the word "sibling") and she slips up all the time by accidentally calling her "she" and "her" instead of "they". Why wouldn't she? I've met her, she's clearly a woman and everyone who meets her knows it, just like you know your coworker is a man.

Don't you mean; if she didn't pass, you'd respect her pronouns...?

LITERAL VIOLENCE.

Why in my dreams?

The manager is choosing to carry out a act which opens up the company to a financial loss.

Funny how pronoun policys which dont benefit female employees must be complied with/ respected/enforced but sexism is a joke.

Same old same old every single time.

I've never worked anywhere where it was mandatory. However, I've worked somewhere where it was mandatory to hold the ramp when going up and down the stairs (and where people would call you up on not doing it). Did I feel coerced? No. Did I have a private belief that it went a bit far? Yes. Did I voice this belief, mock the policy or the colleagues following it every time? No. Why? Because it was work.

I don't know why these companies/institutions don't just have male/female listed, or the male or female symbol. That's all that's really needed.

Sure, that's all that's needed if you're happy for the consequent negative impact on women's careers of having attention drawn to their sex.

The only people who NEED to know what sex someone is are sexist because sex doesn’t matter in most ? All? Work environments it’s not useful - it’s enabling assumptions to be made

Do you mean hold the stair handrail?

In which case, it’s about ingraining safety behaviours and following rules put in place to protect the workforce, which ignoring in an office situation might lead to a minor injury (or worse) but ignoring in an industrial situation could be catastrophic.

What's the difference between that and 'she/her' next to her name/profile? It leads to the same thing.

Yes, stair handrail in a non-industrial setting!

There is no difference. Both would be equally detrimental to women. I don't include pronouns in my signature and I would challenge my employer if they tried to included anything that specified my sex by default.

Change it to "she / we". It literally takes the piss.

It’s about embedding safety culture. Slips, trips and falls are common hazards, mitigate the risk by using the handrail.

Once you get people into that mindset, it makes H&S management much easier, even in an office setting.

I think that's funny. But then again I do tend to find lots of things funny particularly in the workplace which often resembles a sort of dystopian universe. Keep thinking I may wake up in 1990, realise it was all a bad dream and make better career choices.

That was the approach, but it felt quite new and, I must admit, over the top at the beginning. I soon got used to it, though!

I feel like I'm Napoleon and I want everyone to address me as Emperor.

Are going to respect my wishes?

That was quite the slip.

But it comes down to your personal choice doesn’t it. You choose to change your language to start meaning the opposite to the word’s established meaning to suit someone else’s philosophical belief. Particularly one that has no foundation in material reality.

You choose to obscure meaning and accuracy. This has proven harmful at individual level for women and girls and collectively.

Others should have the choice not to. It is not respectful to emotionally manipulate or to use policy to coerce people to do this.

Are you required to put your pronouns there? If so id ask them to remove that & don’t ask for participation & then not like it when you do.

So? You can’t police people’s thoughts. You may go by pronouns that contradict who you actually are but b/c people use them it doesn’t mean they see you as you wish to be seen. They’d be something going off in their head & all it does is highlight who you ain’t to them. Making people go through mental gymnastics everytime they talk to or about you is extremely selfish & expecting people to change the definition of words is completely self entitled.

If you are a female person, it causes harm at a collective level.

This has been evidenced by activists since at least the mid 2010s if not earlier saying that because people use female pronouns and call them a woman, policy should treat them as a female. That it is cruel not to. Hence we ended up with male people in female single sex provisions including sport.

There are other harms as well that also involve safeguarding.

Thanks. But you didn’t answer the questions I asked. You tried to apply them to the OP but they were specifically about respect, as I have already said. However, you seemed far too interested in telling me I was making things up etc.

You have mentioned it again in your answer here. (“as a mark of respect within the workplace”)

The questions were

What is respectful about demands of changing language to suit a person’s philosophical belief about themselves that doesn’t reflect material reality?

What is respectful about obscured language that is inaccurate being demanded and supported by policy?

I am fully cognisant of standard corporate practices thanks. I asked specific questions in relation to ‘respect’ and how respectful it is for any person to demand language change to specifically suit their personal choices and their philosophical belief.

“Please use whatever pronouns you’re most comfortable with especially if English is not your first language “