"Your pronouns"

[bingoitsadingo]

I've seen on a number of threads discussing being asked for your pronouns, people referencing research/studies that shows that when women are reminded of their gender or sex, their performance drops, or that when other people are reminded/told that X is a woman, they treat them differently, etc. Could anyone direct me to any of these please? I've been searching but struggled to find much.

I've noticed professionally that pronouns are creeping more and more into peoples email signatures, twitter bios, etc, so would really appreciate some resources to back up why I think this is a terrible idea for women generally, as I can't imagine it will be long before I'm asked to do the same

This seems to be creeping in at my workplace.
I will be putting my pronouns are obvious

"Please do not use pronouns when referring to me"

@WombOfOnesOwn - I'm not being flippant at all, and this is all new to me, but I don't understand how your pronouns work. Do you mean other people refer to you as 'you' rather than your name or 'she'? I am trying to imagine how a conversation about you would go, could you expand?

Seeing as during Pride month work sent us all an email reminding us to think about our privilege as cisgender people (no idea how they know we're not transgender) and to fight cis sexism whenever we see it, I'm fully expecting to be asked to add my pronouns to my email signature.

To which I will reply that I will not do that due to the unconscious bias against women, and to reinforce that I am female will disadvantage me.

If I haven't been sacked by international women's day, I will be asking whether we'll all be sent an email reminding us to check our misogyny (and men to check their male privilege).

mistermagpie I'm pretty sure Womb was joking about her pronouns.

Lysistrataknowsherstuff I've got a tenner on you getting an IWD email reminding you that IWD is about "ALL women" and that you need to check your "trans misogyny". No no, make it a twenty, I've got a good feeling about it.

I'm not, thank goodness, likely to be told to indicate my pronouns, but I think my response would be "I, me, my" or "I do not force compelled speech upon others".

My workplace insisted on “updating” (I called it retrofitting) every personnel file with people’s pronouns. Mine says “genderfree so pronouns in line with my (female) sex”.
I have a conference in a few weeks where I’ll get a name tag printed with that on too. Though they’ve asked me for a short version - I might reply “adult human female”.

Somerville, change it to "obvious"

Though that would only work if your badge says "My pronouns are..."

I'm pretty sure Womb was joking about her pronouns.

Womb was joking about your pronouns.

Somerville you could shorten it to "third person singular" if you felt like being particularly obtuse?

Womb was joking about your pronouns

omgosh

@ByGrabtharsHammarWhatASaving:

I hope you don't mind if I don't follow most of your suggestions - I just very much want to nick your idea of using the pronoun "milady". Class.

Haha be my guest wellhonestly, although I can't claim to have invented "milady" - I saw it used a few weeks ago unironically by one of the TRA academics who signed the counter letter again Kathleen Stock in the Times, and have been rather taken by it ever since.

Pronouns: "who's 'she', the cat's mother?"

I am going to identify as a Mandarin speaker, then I can use "ta" which, when spoken or written in Pinyin, is the same for he and she. (When written in traditional characters, "she" has the radical for woman in it, which is kind of nice ).

The only reason to ask everyone to state their pronouns is to avoid a logical problem. Courtesy it may be to ask somebody which pronouns they prefer, but what you are actually saying is, 'I stronly suspect that you are not the sex class you present as. What should I call you?' The only way around this is to have everyone self-declare pronouns, trans or not.

Or we could accept people make mistakes, correct them and get on with it.

People sometimes assume in correspondence that I'm male because I'm "Dr Theorem". I don't get mardy, I just correct them. Though it is a major source of annoyance that people default to "male" for professional qualifications - I would guess every professional woman in a STEM subject has been "mis-sexed" on occasion simply because people default to the "scientist/engineer - must be male" stereotype. If I put Ms down as a title, they assume I'm divorced. Again I don't get mardy with them (I may roll my eyes a bit inwardly), I just correct them and we move on.

I was asked to add mine to my work email signature. I said no, I’d rather not and that was that.

then I can use "ta"

Imagine the confusion up North where I’m from originally.

“What are your pronouns, love?”

“Ta”

“You’re welcome love, but is you a he or a she?”

Pronouns: "who's 'she', the cat's mother?" Yes - standard practice to say that where I live.

What getting ordained online into some fake American church and insisting on being referred to as 'Reverend'. That would work.

"Hi David, thanks for sending me the minutes of that meeting - unfortunately though you forgot to make it clear in your email whether or not you're currently pregnant. I know that this is a pressing issue for men these days, so please correct it for next time. Best regards, Grabthar (white british, 35, not pregnant or on maternity, has not undergone gender reassignment, atheist, unmarried, heteroflexible cross-orientation demisexual agender nonbinary femme, pronouns: just "milady" for first, second, and third person speech)"

Brilliant

I think we should just cut to the chase and put a little graphic in signatures showing our privilege level calculated by the intersections.

(Yes it's a real graphic from a real website. I don't know if it's satire or not, having trouble with my satire-radar these days...)

The only reason to ask everyone to state their pronouns is to avoid a logical problem. Courtesy it may be to ask somebody which pronouns they prefer, but what you are actually saying is, 'I stronly suspect that you are not the sex class you present as. What should I call you?' The only way around this is to have everyone self-declare pronouns, trans or not.

It is discourteous in the extreme to compel a person's speech, to deny them their perceptions, to force them to lie.

You want to avoid a logical problem? here's a logical statement for you that will prevent any problem: she is a human female, he is a human male.

If I turned up in a baronet's crown and ermine, you might well suspect that I am not the class I present as. Yet by your reasoning it would be discourteous to refuse to refer to me as 'milady'.

Would pronouns count as "sensitive data" under GDPR? And would it therefore be fine to volunteer them and not for employers to require them, especially to require them to be advertised in communications?

One transactivist has certainly worried about this before!

twitter.com/miss_s_b/status/976379005921357825

The definition of sensitive personal data under GDPR is data consisting of racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation.

www.burges-salmon.com/news-and-insight/legal-updates/gdpr-personal-data-and-sensitive-personal-data/

If your pronouns are held to reflect your inner psychological state of "gender identity", they might count as at least one of

*Privileged medical data under both the Data Protection Act as they disclose information that only a mental health professional might normally know. Compare the state of "feeling female", if that is indeed possible, to the state of feeling depressed.

*A privileged political opinion, religious or philosophical belief, namely that gender identity is something you can or cannot have. If you have the philosophical belief that you cannot determine your own pronouns, asking you for your pronouns forces you to disclose this sensitive data, and requiring them may also force you to lie (in breach of EHR article 9).

The corollary is that any organisation which stores pronouns would also be in receipt of such sensitive medical or philosophical information and would be counted as a data controller under the GDPR, and must obey the conditions for processing sensitive data (broadly, that the storage must be necessary for carrying out obligations), with very large fines issued for breaches. Organisations must issue extensive record keeping principles to show they are satisfying the principle of lawful processing. See:
www.burges-salmon.com/news-and-insight/legal-updates/gdpr-data-protection-principles/

This has not been tested in court and is my general ignorant musing interpretation only. Just throwing it out there!