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.

As others have said, individuals demanding that specific pronouns be used when referring to them are the ones not separating their personal views from being professional at work.

But that’s the issue, isn’t it?
One could also question why telling people how they should perceive you (ignoring the evidence of their own eyes) is considered professional and something that needs to be declared at a workplace.
Gender ideology is a belief system and not everyone is buying into it.

I'm often misgendered because people think my unusual name is a man's name. I can't say it upsets me. In fact, in my previous job, I used to prefer it if our suppliers assumed I was a man - they were less likely to fob me off then. I did laugh though, when one of them referred to me as my boss's "young lad". I was in my mid-thirties at the time (and pregnant).

I work for a university now and wouldn't dare to do what OP did, but sometimes it is tempting.

I strongly disagree. You can have an opinion, but you can’t go around harassing people that share a different viewpoint.

Absolutely agree.

I’ve been picked up on this twice which is fair. I hesitated over it as I was typing at speed. I’m trying to consider than someone who has gone through surgery and is legally now ‘recorded’ as female on documentation etc would be (clumsy word) genuinely trans.

I agree that their fundamental biology hasn’t changed and cannot change. I didn’t mean ‘genuinely trans’ indicated that it had.

My personal view is that calling trans women ‘trans women’ is fine and we shouldn’t have to call them ‘women’ but there are so many pitfalls in this discussion that I will paint myself into a corner that doesn’t represent my actual thoughts.

I still feel that OP’s choice of words was antagonistic.

I haven't, I've already said I do not list my 'preferred' pronouns because I'm a woman so it's self explanatory.

Writing 'take a wild guess' under anything on a work profile is unprofessional, and the only reason people are pretending they don't see that is because which section it was written under.

But language changes over time. There is no static language.

As one of them, I couldn’t care less. If it mattered, I’d tell them. As it is, it’s obvious once we speak or meet. I’ve had some hilarious double-takes, as well as some outright honesty - which, TBH, is also hilarious.

OP: stay 💪 Not your problem if somebody is frightened because you don’t submit to their misogyny. Your right to unbelief is protected in law.

@whittingtonmum

I am ridiculing those that feel the need to tell us their 'preferred ' pronouns

Hilarious OP. Replace it with 'real woman'.

It’s just pronouns. I have a first name that is commonly a given name for both males and females. Having pronouns on my email or teams profile avoids confusion. There doesn’t have to be any “ideology” about it.

They totally deserve to be ridiculed. 🤣🤣

What about disabled employees? Are they allowed to signal their disability by use of special pronouns?

Diversity and inclusion seems to only apply to blokes wearing frocks. 😡

Afraid I’d be replying with - ‘on the basis that holding GC views is legally protected, I think I’ll leave them as they are, but please do feel free to offer counselling and support to the person who complained. It must be so difficult to navigate the world when humorously flippant comments cause psychological trauma.’

I have an unusual name and often am referred to as "he" at work by people who have never seen me. I can't say it's ever bothered me. I know I'm female.

Having said that, I agree that what OP wrote would likely fall under bullying at my workplace and really isn't appropriate.

A fella at work has his pronouns as His/Majesty.

This bollocks right here is going to keep me snurking all day long. Funniest thing I'm likely to read this week.

There are people within the trans community who do not like to be asked their preferred pronouns either. Who feel that when they are clearly presenting as one sex or the other, a requirement to state they are he or she is deeply invalidating, as the affirming action would be to accept that their gendered name and stereotypically gendered presentation made their pronouns obvious. So unfortunately these pronoun policies are not as 'inclusive' as people like to think.
I agree the flippancy of the OPs response isn't suitable for a professional context. However for too long people have been compelled to go along with the practice of pronoun sharing, despite many, including TI people, having all sorts of valid reasons why its not something they wish to do. Such acts of rebellion are the inevitable result of this imposition.

Oh I love this! 😂

Even asking their pronouns is now problematic!?!
Jesus fucking Christ - these people have got too much time on their hands.

How about you don't ridicule anyone and let them get on with their own lives while you concentrate on yours?

I’ve worked with hundreds and hundreds of people over what feels like about a hundred years, and I can’t recall this ever happening, even without a company wide announcement of everyone’s genitalia/preferences.

Or if it did, it was very easily and quickly corrected without the misgendered person collapsing like a bruised fruit and running to HR. Wild to imagine, I know.

Same here. Unisex name that when spelled a certain way is assumed to be masculine. (I was named after my grandfather. No idea why other than my not-so-dearM wanted/expected a boy, so when I wasn’t one named me after her multiply incarcerated and domestically abusive swindler father. Make that make sense…)

YesX it changes over time - slowly, organically and ultimately with the consent of the majority.

But this not the evolution of language. It’s the distortion of language to shore up a sexist, homophobic, child-abusing ideology, and it should have no place at work.

Surely in the days of identifying as whatever you want it's acceptable to put whatever you want.

Are they removing pronouns from everyone?