Use of preferred pronouns in work signature

[refusetobeasheep]

I came across my first work signature today which showed the preferred pronouns I should use. Not entirely sure why as she has an unambiguously female name and her pronouns are she / her / hers.

Anyone else seeing this in their professional lives?

I had one of those emails this week and I found it regressive and enraging. I couldn't tell the sex of the person from their name and that, surely, is how it should be.

I don't care if the person I'm corresponding with is married, gay or enjoys shopping in M&S, I just want them to deal with my enquiry efficiently; now I have the impression that this particular she/her is a twenty something blue haired handmaiden, so that's not done she/her any favours professionally.

Our head of diversity has it but I’ve not see anyone else with it. My organisation is Male-dominated and I can’t see it catching on

I see it

I don’t care about the sex of whoever I exchange professional emails with, and I don’t see why they feel the need to tell me other than to let me know how woke they are , which I don’t really care about either.

The suggestion that this hurts nobody is specious. Because this is compelled speech. It’s part of the Newspeak agenda to force people to use language in a deliberately fictitious, oxymoronic way as part of an attack on external objective reality and the words used to accurately describe it.

I saw this for the first time around a year ago from someone in higher education. This was from a politically radical woman I admire and respect. My reaction was Surprise and a slight sadness. It simply felt like an unnecessary posturing signalling move.
Face to face I understand that someone I am speaking with may wish me to call them an inaccurate pronoun - I have seen/heard this on name badges and in meetings during introductions etc. I’m often in the minority in not tripping over myself to use the incorrect pronoun. Names seem to work !

Yeah, saw it the other day on the email of a straight, white guy in his 50s. Apparently Dave’s pronouns are he/him. Who would have thought it. I never would have worked that one out without help.

For some names, I agree pronouns would be helpful actually but that’s not why they’re being used is it? It’s to tell people what that person’s apparent gender identity is. I do confess that I sometimes have to look people up on Facebook or google them to see if they are male or female so that I know how to refer to them if I am copying them on an email or something.

Interesting article from Sept 19 Guardian:

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/sep/13/pronouns-gender-he-she-they-natalie-wynn-contrapoints

Unfortunately Dazed it does affect other people and isn't just about people needing to 'feel comfortable'.
Just like the rainbow lanyards dominating my HE environment, it is another landgrab by one lobby. I am waiting to be asked to wear nine lanyards, and state my disability or otherwise, my ethnicity etc. on my signature.
The irony is that it is a means of trying to tell people how to refer you to you in your absence. I'm not sure we have a right to control that. Maybe we all need to tolerate the discomfort of how people to refer to us in our absence? Or are we after ways of controlling every darned thing people thing and say?
The inability to tolerate discomfort, and being just one or two of protected groups, has led to an absolute takeover. 80% of hate crime is ethnicity/race/religion-related, but there ain't no lanyard for that as far as I can see.
It is just infantile and self-indulgent and just more of what I see in intolerance of discomfort and a range of opinion, in HE generally. It's making people lack resilience and independence, and takes the focus off far more important issues.
So the rest of us carry on referring to transgender colleagues as we would anyone else, without surveillance.
It's nonsense. I just say 'I don't mind what you call me' and smile sweetly.

Not seen it yet. But I'm wondering why the need for 3 instead of just he or she?

Could you have he, her, his?

I have a surname which can be used as a male first name. Sometimes get called it in emails by mistake, so mistaken to be male. I really don't care.

I think it's useful, a guide to who's a woke arsehole that you really should avoid. Mainly because they'd bore you to death with their worthy dullness.

*except if you did something evil like say humans can't actually change their biological sex, then pro noun people would hunt ya down and get you sacked for wrong think.

After that, dull again

It’s woke posturing, it’s insidious and it can fuck off. I work in an international environment and in some cultures my first name is interpreted as male, so they write to me as Mr. Foxtrot, it doesn’t ruin my day, not like being harassed or paid less because I’m a woman does.

I suspect, a bit like 'cis' that this betrays a fundamental insecurity of supposed certain belief in an adopted gender. If you really know and believe you are a woman, you simply don't need a badge. Or a 'trans/cis'. Or a pronoun sign-off. The self-absorption around this issue is fairly unique.

I see it

If anyone applies for a job with me and has pronouns in their email signature, I immediately discount their application. Sorry not sorry.

It very much affects me, I often deliberately use a gender neutral version of my name in emails when dealing with people who haven't met me as it makes a big and positive difference in how helpful respondents are. I wish it wasn't so but it is.

It’s been proven that when people think they are dealing with a man (or think it could be a man) that they behave very differently to when it’s a woman. So I agree that reinforcing femininity and agreement with feminine gender-norms (which you surely do if you think the body doesn’t matter and that how you feel is the important thing) will increase the risk of prejudice.

I work in an organisation of creeping wokeness and if this becomes mandatory, I've already decided I'm going to a) quietly ignore the request to add pronouns for as long as I can get away with until and unless I'm compelled to, at which point I will b) add "you/you/your - if I'm not there I don't mind how you refer to me".

Good thinking only. Self employed here (at the Bar) but I can see perhaps chambers or the lord chancellor’s dept considering this. May be able to hold out until my eventual retirement.

Same, I deliberately use a shortened version of my name which is unisex. As I work in tech, I am assumed to be male and it makes my job easier to be assumed to be male. Once the customer/supplier realises I'm female (as a result of a phone call or meeting) I've already proved myself.

She’s showing that she supports the right we all have to identify as who/what the hell we like. She’s okay with that. And I hope we see much more of it in our professional lives.

Or she has been forced into it by a woke work culture which won't stand for dissent. I know you'll disagree but I'd personally like to see less of that in our professional lives. Authoritarian dictates won't be helpful for anybody but those at the top but you know ... be nice and all that.

Pronoun demands are incredibly exclusionary of vulnerable people.

As someone who works with vulnerable people I'd be horrified if any of my colleagues put pronouns in their e-mail signatures. It would be utterly inappropriate. Thankfully I've yet to see such a thing.

My answer to pressure at work to do this is evolving, but will be something like this:

'Pressurising colleagues in mental distress over their identity to make a public declaration on something they may not have even decided themselves?

Could be seen as harassment and bullying, causing more distress to a person who would rather think it through in their own time and make their public statement when - and if - they want to.

This must be a personal and voluntary decision'.

Or something like that ....

People can identify as how the hell they like but others who don’t agree that they personally have an innate gender identity should feel under no pressure to participate. If I am pressured to put she/her pronouns on my email, I am being pressured to do something I vehemently disagree with, ie confirm that I believe myself to have an innate femininity. Why is that okay just because it makes some other people feel better when it makes me feel worse? They are welcome to put their own pronouns on and I will respect them but there is now becoming real pressure for everyone to do it.

As a pp pointed out, many trans people don’t even feel comfortable with it. Sexuality is also part of identity but hopefully nobody would dream of telling people to put that on their signature (although it wouldn’t surprise me). What is it about gender identity that means it must be publicly disclosed? And as I said, I don’t believe myself to have a gender identity that is innate. I believe I behave in a gendered way because society has told me I have to act a certain way because I am female. That’s not a good thing that I want to celebrate.