to not want to sign off my emails with preferred pronouns?

[AlphaBites]

I've been redirected here from the AIBU board.

So, we've had an email do the rounds today at work saying in the next few weeks all staff are expected to sign off with their preferred pronouns, to save any embarrassment for any staff. hmm

I don't want to.

Can I fight this somehow?

Can I add a pronoun that is PA enough to not get me sacked?

I think it's all bollocks.

I always found that, if you ignored a stupid diktat from management long enough, they would forget about it and start some new crap to signal their trendy virtuous wokeness.
I wouldn’t put any pronouns on your emails, OP. Don’t encourage their stupidity.

I’m going to repeat what I put on a similar thread. If I’m ever asked to do anything this wankerish.

Coffee,black,no sugar/tea,black,two sugars/tea,earl grey, hot

Probably ignore it and it will go away. I think if someone challenged me I would say something like the following:

"I have not included preferred pronouns in my email signature as I do not have any. I believe that people usually use "She/Her" when referring to me because my sex is female, but I do not prefer them over others and would not be offended if referred to as "He/Him" for example. I do not personally have a sense of gender identity in relation to myself.

Additionally, I am concerned that this may have a negative impact on female staff who use "She/Her" due to unconscious bias that may arise when attention is drawn to the sex of the email's sender. I also have concerns that this may have a negative impact on anyone who is questioning their gender identity but has not yet decided whether they wish to change their pronouns."

I'd refuse point blank to do it, and cite that I have no desire to draw attention to my sex in a sexist workplace.

You could either ignore it (there is no established legal right that anyone on here can find, to force anyone else to declare pronouns against their will)

Or you could actively resist if you feel safe to do so by pointing to the precedent set by the Northern Irish ‘Gay Cake’ case which established that it’s not legal to try to compel someone’s adherence to a belief that they don’t share.

This thread covers the same issues and links to previous threads on the same.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3574450-Work-policy-coming-in-AIBU

When they put you on the line and tell you you've got to make up your mind about your pronouns and do it now, how about saying that this whole gender thing has sent you over the edge because actually, you've never really thought of yourself as being a woman, you just are a woman, or at least that's how it felt until they suggested that you aren't necessarily... It's doing your head in and you don't know what or who you are, you need help. And then have a month off sick for stress caused by the company undermining your sense of self.

Or I'd say that people can call me whatever they want pronounwise and that having never been called 'Mr' and 'he' in my life, it will be interesting to see if people start doing that now.

I wonder why. I’ve never sent an email referring to the recipient as he/she/they.

It's pretty sinister, really. I mean, all of this is being introduced under a great big shiny rainbow banner of inclusiveness and wokery, but employers asking for totally extraneous evidence of people's personal feelings and beliefs leaves everyone more vulnerable, according to the prevailing ideology of the day.

People have started putting this in their signature at my work. I'm waiting for us all to be asked to do it. I won't be doing it, even if I am asked to.

I wonder if this is something Stonewall advise in their workplace training?

I disagree with GCAcademic's suggestion as I think anything which validates the idea of 'gender' and the idea of 'woman' being an identity plays right into trans ideology.

My work tried to introduce this in rather mandatory-sounding language, then quickly backtracked to ‘its entirely optional and just a suggestion’

I refused to do it and still would - if nothing else because it would require me to classify every email as ‘highly confidential’ as my pronouns are sensitive personal data about my sex, gender reassignment status and political beliefs.

I refused to do it and still would - if nothing else because it would require me to classify every email as ‘highly confidential’ as my pronouns are sensitive personal data about my sex, gender reassignment status and political beliefs.

Yes. That's the way to do it. Passive aggressiveness mixed in with a dash of "beat them at their own game".

This pronouns nonsense is such a load of crap - I can't believe women have been fighting for decades for some nod towards equality in the workplace, and we're still not there yet. But a few people decide they "identify" as the opposite sex, and everyone's all over it

This is an excellent article about why we need to care about pronouns.

‘Zebras I got a weird age warning when I clicked your link

Yes I would really like to know if this is official advice from someone. It’s massively invasive if you take your privacy in any way seriously and it’s very sinister as a way of outing the TERFs at work.

ChattyLion, that's weird - it's just the archive of Barracker's article "Pronouns are Rohypnol".

Perhaps the word "rohypnol" trigger something?

Have said this on another thread, but just sign off with "My preferred pronouns are: I, me, mine."

@MamaOomMowWow that's a brilliant response

If it happens in my workplace I'm going to

a) ignore it

b) if forced use thou/youse to reflect my mixed Scots/Anglo heritage

c) if questioned on b point out using third person pronouns in my presence is rude and any attempt by me to compel speech of others in my absence is a breach of their rights under Equality Act/ Human Rights Act/ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We were asked to do this a year ago, nobody did and it just kind of went away. I remember feeling quite fired up but in hindsight think the eye rolls and carrying on as if nothing has happened is more powerful.

I find this so bizarre. It is not something happening in my workplace and don’t expect it to (especially as I am one of the bosses) but it makes zero sense to me to have people do this.

I sign off with my name. It seems to me my colleagues and peers all use my name. Why do I need to dictate what others use as pronouns otherwise. I don’t care if they use they, she, he, xiy, because I am not so fragile to think any of that changes my sex.

If I were you I would just keep using my name. If they press you on it say you don’t believe in assigning yourself a pronoun based on gender role stereotypes.

Then say you feel unsafe that they are trying to force you to identify pronouns against your beliefs. If they are trying to be woke they should know not to push someone who feels “unsafe” by pronouns...

So tired of this manipulation of language to include a few at exclusion of many. I was on a menstrual cup forum recently and people were using “menstruators”
Or “bleeders” to be more “inclusive.” How, by excluding actual women? On a site discussing menstruation and vaginas of all things! I won’t buy products from any manufacturer that uses that language either.

That article is SO interesting, Zebras. It makes a really important point. Thanks for posting it.

Put Princess. That will shut them up

A work related thing asked me to indicate

“which gender do I identify most strongly with?”

Then had female, male, transgender, non-binary, other, prefer not to answer.

I was forced to choose prefer not to answer

They had no question about sex.

This survey was supposedly designed to figure out the demographics of the event. What it did instead was erase women since the only way I could answer that question honestly was to choose “prefer not to answer”

I think GC's idea is brilliant. Since we live in a world where discrimination is real, and living out your gender identity as a female since you are one has the real life consequence of bringing on discrimination and many other disadvantages--discrimination that can actively be proven by the use of statistics as well as anecdotes (I mean, the richest woman in Britain, JK Rowling, changed her name so she wouldn't sound like a female author, just as George Eliot and the Brontes did early in their careers when they were Currer, Acton, and Ellis Bell, FFS.) It is just this very ability to remain unidentified by gender that allows many the freedom to create and move freely yada yada and you will not allow yourself to be stereotyped having yourself defined by having your pronouns written down in official emails and therefore have your identity limited in this way and possibly subjected to the effects of the harmful prejudice that exists against women and has for millennia!

There is also an article (linked to ages ago on a thread on this board) about how forcing others to use the "wrong" pronoun is effectively coercive control - I've been trying to find it again for ages so if anyone has a link to it I would be very grateful.