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International Pronouns Day

27 replies

NoodleNooNoo · 21/10/2026 14:37

Today is international pronouns day. I have copied the below from Naomi Cunningham on LinkedIn

A quick post for "International Pronouns Day."

If your employer invites you to add your pronouns to your email signature, it should be acceptable simply to say "No thank you." If they insist, that's discrimination or harassment related to your protected dissent from gender ideology: you should not be made to signal assent to a belief-system you don't subscribe to with your every email. But don't be a martyr: a job is usually a better thing to have than even the most cast-iron discrimination claim - which an employment tribunal may get around to hearing in around 2030. So if they insist, you'll mostly have to comply.

What you might do, though, is comply under protest. "This is harassment of me relating to my protected "gender critical" belief/ my protected dissent from gender ideology. I will comply because I have to, but I am upset and humiliated to be made to signal assent in this way to a belief I reject." Then when you leave that post, provided the pronouns declaration has been imposed on you ever since, you'll have 3 months to commence proceedings for harassment, if you want to. A sensible employer faced with such a claim will cough up a modest settlement and learn the lesson.

If you're in the mood to pick a more immediate fight, pick it quite carefully. If your employer permits or encourages colleagues to put (eg) "Prounouns: she/her," and add "Why are these here?" with a link to a little sermon about why it's "inclusive" to add your pronouns, you might want to propose a parallel course: "Pronouns: sex-based," plus "Why don't I declare my pronouns?" linking to an article about why pronoun rituals aren't as harmless as all that. But keep your proposal carefully parallel to what you can demonstrate your employer permits your gender ideologue colleagues to do. So if your colleagues are encouraged to add "she/her" or "they/them" or whatever, then "thou/thee" really ought to be permissible, as should "sex-based." But "get/a/life" is not comparable, and will reasonably enough be considered unprofessional.

"Thou/thee" is my personal favourite, because (a) it's 2nd person, not 3rd, so it actually forces your colleagues to choose whether to comply in their every interaction with you - it's easy enough to swerve 3rd person pronouns in face-to-face interactions, much trickier to avoid saying "you". And (b), even better, it comes with a load of additional grammatical baggage: you can't just substitute it for "you" and carry on, you have to conjugate the verbs accordingly. "Have you got your ergonomic chair yet?" becomes "Hast thou got thy ergonomic chair yet?" "Are you going to the EDI training this afternoon, or are you too busy doing your actual work?" becomes "Art thou going to the EDI training this afternoon, or art thou too busy doing thy actual work?" And yet if your employer is willing (even in principle) to indulge a colleague who expects everyone else to tangle with "ze/zir" pronouns, on what basis can they object to your preference?

OP posts:
ProfessorRedshoeblueshoe · 21/10/2026 14:46

I love Naomi Cunningham

Bigfattwatt · 21/10/2026 14:49

“No”

And if they insist, “fucking make me.”

I haven’t got time for bullshit.

oviraptor21 · 21/10/2026 14:51

Love it
😂 but with the usual serious message too.

OtterlyMad · 21/10/2026 14:52

I work for an international organisation so I actually find pronouns in signatures really useful, saves me having to ask Copilot “is Vietnamese person called Hoa male or female?”

I imagine all the colleagues with unisex names like Sam/Alex/Frankie etc. are grateful for it too!

Greengreengrassofhere · 21/10/2026 14:54

OtterlyMad · 21/10/2026 14:52

I work for an international organisation so I actually find pronouns in signatures really useful, saves me having to ask Copilot “is Vietnamese person called Hoa male or female?”

I imagine all the colleagues with unisex names like Sam/Alex/Frankie etc. are grateful for it too!

What does it matter? ‘They have emailed the figures to me’ etc. no need for he or she. It’s a bit sexist to think there is a difference, no?

Throckmorton · 21/10/2026 14:57

OtterlyMad · 21/10/2026 14:52

I work for an international organisation so I actually find pronouns in signatures really useful, saves me having to ask Copilot “is Vietnamese person called Hoa male or female?”

I imagine all the colleagues with unisex names like Sam/Alex/Frankie etc. are grateful for it too!

Why do you need to know their sex in order to work with them? What difference does it make?

As to unisex names - I wish I had one so that people did not automatically know my sex, because women are far more likely to be discriminated against than men. Just knowing I am female increases the likelihood people will discriminate against me.

Bigfattwatt · 21/10/2026 14:58

Also, if I felt like being a prick, what if I don’t identify with any pronouns at all? Surely that’s also valid?

I have a unisex name. Only it’s spelled the “male” way. I am a woman. It’s never, ever been an issue. I don’t need to put a pronoun at the end of my email. If someone assumes I am a bloke, it’s no difference to me.

Blueblies · 21/10/2026 14:58

If an employer tried to force me to do this I'd tell them I was questioning my gender and didn't feel comfortable with any label! What can they say to that?

Merkins · 21/10/2026 15:01

They’re just words, they can’t hurt you.

Bigfattwatt · 21/10/2026 15:01

Blueblies · 21/10/2026 14:58

If an employer tried to force me to do this I'd tell them I was questioning my gender and didn't feel comfortable with any label! What can they say to that?

Yeah, and then I’d get signed off with the stress of it all…. I’m not in the best mood today, or most days, so I’d hate to think what I’d do if I was pushed into this utter bollocks.

Throckmorton · 21/10/2026 15:02

Merkins · 21/10/2026 15:01

They’re just words, they can’t hurt you.

yes they can - they increase the likelihood of people discriminating against me. There have been studies done that prove this

[edited for typo]

Soontobe60 · 21/10/2026 15:02

OtterlyMad · 21/10/2026 14:52

I work for an international organisation so I actually find pronouns in signatures really useful, saves me having to ask Copilot “is Vietnamese person called Hoa male or female?”

I imagine all the colleagues with unisex names like Sam/Alex/Frankie etc. are grateful for it too!

Why would you need to know if they’re male or female?

OtterlyMad · 21/10/2026 15:02

Greengreengrassofhere · 21/10/2026 14:54

What does it matter? ‘They have emailed the figures to me’ etc. no need for he or she. It’s a bit sexist to think there is a difference, no?

It doesn’t matter to me personally because I don’t have a unisex name, but my colleague Sam finds it very irritating when people refer to her as “he/him”. (I doubt they do it deliberately but they see the name and make an assumption).

EppingIsFun · 21/10/2026 15:04

Shitty advice, but funny.

I have a unisex name. I don't do the whole pronouns thing and actively prefer to keep it unclear at least via email - people tend to respect your opinion more when they think you're a man. Sadly.

APurpleSquirrel · 21/10/2026 15:05

Throckmorton · 21/10/2026 14:57

Why do you need to know their sex in order to work with them? What difference does it make?

As to unisex names - I wish I had one so that people did not automatically know my sex, because women are far more likely to be discriminated against than men. Just knowing I am female increases the likelihood people will discriminate against me.

Exactly! This is why Dame Stephanie Shirley changed to signing her name as Steve as correspondence under her real name was ignored & belittled.
I can’t see how pronouns can ever be beneficial for women.

OtterlyMad · 21/10/2026 15:05

Soontobe60 · 21/10/2026 15:02

Why would you need to know if they’re male or female?

I don’t want to give away too much detail about my job as it’s quite niche but it’s to do with voice recording so I usually need to know people’s sex, age, accent etc.

SockPlant · 21/10/2026 15:06

i have spent many many many years, on the advice of older (mostly female) mentors, removing any hint from my written work that i am a woman.

Sign off is Initial, Surname. I go through letters, emails etc with a keen eye for things that give me away as a women (exclamation marks, too many "please" and "thank you", more imperatives rather than requests. And i try to shorten it by 30-ish %)

I am not ruining that all by then putting female pronouns in the bottom (i may do "Sex Based" if forced)

Bigfattwatt · 21/10/2026 15:07

EppingIsFun · 21/10/2026 15:04

Shitty advice, but funny.

I have a unisex name. I don't do the whole pronouns thing and actively prefer to keep it unclear at least via email - people tend to respect your opinion more when they think you're a man. Sadly.

Yup. The amount of opportunities I swear I only got (in a typically male dominated industry) because my name is spelled “Terry” instead of “Terri”.

I know this because when they met me face to face rather than speaking over email (or via fax, I am old), their faces were a fucking picture.

Too late to go back on it without looking like a dickhead once they saw I was a woman though.

Floristian · 21/10/2026 15:15

OtterlyMad · 21/10/2026 15:05

I don’t want to give away too much detail about my job as it’s quite niche but it’s to do with voice recording so I usually need to know people’s sex, age, accent etc.

But if you need to know someone's sex, pronouns aren't going to tell you that with any certainty. After all, this whole nonsense was invented by males who want to use female pronouns.

SomersetBrie · 21/10/2026 15:24

OtterlyMad · 21/10/2026 15:05

I don’t want to give away too much detail about my job as it’s quite niche but it’s to do with voice recording so I usually need to know people’s sex, age, accent etc.

That's quite interesting but then you'd have to ask them, surely?

A friend of mine is in a choir and there is a transwoman there who struggles to sing alongside the women in the group. The transwoman's voice is deeper but no one really wants to say anything!

MrsTerryPratchett · 21/10/2026 15:27

I imagine all the colleagues with unisex names like Sam/Alex/Frankie etc. are grateful for it too!

Maybe they should be grateful. After all, study after study shows men are treated better, believed more, respected more. When I use "TPratchett" and men think I'm male, great. I will need to justify myself less.

Greengreengrassofhere · 21/10/2026 15:28

OtterlyMad · 21/10/2026 15:02

It doesn’t matter to me personally because I don’t have a unisex name, but my colleague Sam finds it very irritating when people refer to her as “he/him”. (I doubt they do it deliberately but they see the name and make an assumption).

Well they can put He / Him if he doesn’t want people to assume if he’s male or female while leaving the rest of us alone.

The first person I saw give their pronouns was called ‘Dave’ and it blew my mind that someone could be such a self absorbed virtue signaling tosser, but if they were called Sam or Alex I would think that at all.

MoistVonL · 21/10/2026 15:36

OtterlyMad · 21/10/2026 14:52

I work for an international organisation so I actually find pronouns in signatures really useful, saves me having to ask Copilot “is Vietnamese person called Hoa male or female?”

I imagine all the colleagues with unisex names like Sam/Alex/Frankie etc. are grateful for it too!

Surely you're familiar with the copious amount of evidence that people treat women worse professionally when they are reminded that they female.

Not just the bad treatment women receive normally... When the fact the other person is a women is repeated or stressed - like by having to declare pronouns - the amount of sexism actually increases.

Stating pronouns as a professional woman is an act of self sabotage.

OtterlyMad · 21/10/2026 15:42

MoistVonL · 21/10/2026 15:36

Surely you're familiar with the copious amount of evidence that people treat women worse professionally when they are reminded that they female.

Not just the bad treatment women receive normally... When the fact the other person is a women is repeated or stressed - like by having to declare pronouns - the amount of sexism actually increases.

Stating pronouns as a professional woman is an act of self sabotage.

That’s not the case in my industry, but you have my sympathy if you have experienced that kind of discrimination.

I was just commenting that I find it handy to know people’s sex for the purpose of my role, I wasn’t saying that it should be mandatory for everyone to declare their pronouns.

AlmostAnUnderAchiever · 21/10/2026 15:42

I identify as non-pronounary

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