"Preferred Pronouns" sneaking into the mainstream.

[Lamahaha]

This was posted on a Facebook group for people in the publishing industry. The poster was obviously absolutely new to the gender discussion:

I hope this isn't an incredibly naive question, but forgive me if it is! I was browsing a US publisher's site this morning, and after every editor's name and role is had this: (she/her/Ms.)

I'm assuming the Ms. means that's how to address the person in the opening of a cover letter, but what about the she/her? Can anyone enlighten me?

It sounds to me as if this is becoming almost a routine thing, at least in the USA.
The Facebook group is UK based, but all the replies to the question were along the lines of, "yes, it's about gender identity" or "it's being inclusive".
No-one was critical, including me; I'm still incognito GC. I would like to reply in some neutral way that won't start a pile-on. I've had it before: being GC in an open group, and then everybody slinging mud and eventually me being chucked out of the group.
Any suggestions?

Why don't you put the negatives for women, such as the unconscious bias that favours men? By putting she/her, it may be inclusive but it also has a negative effect on the woman putting it.

Perhaps link to a study about how fantastic everyone being gender neutral would be: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/aug/05/he-she-or-gender-neutral-pronouns-reduce-biases-study?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

But my problem is not with the use of she/her; it's with the seeming current obligation to add pronouns to someone's profile, a thing I will never do. I use sex-based pronouns and will never announce them in advance to the world.

I don't believe in using gender-neutral pronouns such as they or some made-up thing. She and her should be the obvious choice if the person is female.

It's true that it's sometimes difficult to know a person's sex if you don't actuallly see them, as in this case; but this has always been the case if the person has a neutral name such as Chris or Alex, yet we have always somehow managed

Someone here suggested putting “fuck” and “off” when asked for pronouns.

I'm going with thou and youse followed by wide eyed innocence and suggesting speaking about me in the third person in my presence is rude and dictating others speech in my absence is kind of authoritarian.

I'll go with my very first reaction when asked- "My what? Pronouns?? Mine??? Aahh, no? I don't have my own. I just use ...you know..the ordinary English ones "

When it hits my workplace I plan to inform them that I consider my gender identity, like my sexual orientation, to be none of their business, which I'm hoping will put them on the back foot and buy some time.

Use he/him... and wait...

I read an infuriating article on LinkedIn yesterday - Virgin are going to introduce pronouns on all their emails. The whole article was posited on LGBT quality; yet the only letter mentioned specifically was T.

Apropos of nothing, I'm just musing here about this pronoun nonsense, and it just so happens that in days gone by it was perfectly normal to address a person in the third person singular in German-speaking countries. Not when talking about, but directly speaking to.

It was only done, of course by higher status persons when addressing lower status persons or when the speaker wanted to convey their contempt for or reproach of the person they were speaking to.

The latter usage can still be found in various German dialects today, in the one spoken in Berlin for instance.

Having grown up under a totalitarian regime that punished thought crimes and controlled speech, this issue makes my blood boil. (Quite aside the fact that we know emphasising being female in the workplace where this is irrelevant is detrimental to women.)

So now I am wondering whether I should just shrug my shoulders and say, alrighty then, she/he it is and proceed to address them as such...

Virgin article: www.virgin.com/richard-branson/why-weve-added-pronouns-our-email-signatures

They've been hit by the Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence Trans Train...

Pronoun declarations are marching on. At least three of the US presidential candidates have announced theirs.
Also this happened at a Q&A with Castro, one of the Dem presidential candidates: 'The audience member, whose full name hasn't been reported, but who was referred to by activist Renee Bracey Sherman as Oluchi on Twitter, identified as non-binary before asking Castro the question, according to Nuzzi. Before giving his answer, Castro first asked what pronouns the activist preferred, to which Oluchi responded, “I actually don’t use any pronoun,” which was met with applause from the audience, Nuzzi reported.'

So no pronouns? Also read an article saying that you shouldn't say preferred - I forget why- but just ask pronouns. It's a minefield out there.

'Preferred' suggests that it's a choice rather than natural truth. How dare anyone, etc etc.