It has happened.. pronouns have reached my workplace

[KeyIndexAug]

I've read a lot of these threads but never actually seen people put pronouns in their email signature. Well today it happened...

Two different people I've had emails from today at work have specified pronouns in their signature.

I'm waiting for the inevitable announcement that what should all be doing it 😫

This came up at a workshop I was at recently - we should include our pronouns and encourage our students to use theirs to show trans students that we were trans friendly. I made the point that I didn’t think this was a good idea for women as the evidence was clear that this would increase both the unconscious bias and the stereotype threat that they face - or just create biases for women whose name/signature doesn’t make their sex obvious. I got a lot of waffle about this being important but also important to be trans friendly, and maybe we should just bear that in mind when advising students, but still put our pronouns ourselves. No thanks. Not interested in colluding in my own oppression.

I/me 👸🏆
I like that! FILED

See I think it is coercing people to state a false belief. I will be saying no and not giving a false reason. If necessary I am prepared to argue the case. Why are so many prepared to cave to this or make up a reason to not do it rather than give the real and reasonable reason?

I work for myself so thankfully can avoid most of the madness but have noticed pronouns creeping onto LinkedIn pronouns.

Guess what?!

It's all "she/her"

I haven't yet seen a single "he, him"

Funny that.

Profiles!!

If I still worked for a commercial company I'd either refuse or make something up like..... ki/fer/gho and await the confusion lol

There have been studies done that show that women themselves, when reminded beforehand that they are female, perform less well on tests in traditionally male dominated areas than they do if they are not reminded.

It's even more dramatic - if you tell a woman that she can expect to do well on a particular test because women generally do well on it, she will perform worse than if you hadn't said anything. Just reminding us that we are women seems to bring up all the negative crap that we have been exposed to in our lives about women's abilities etc., even if it is meant to be done in a positive way. Gina Rippon covers this well in her book.

I agree with others that out-woking/Yogyakarta (which for info in case anyone didn't know is pronounced like "Jogjakarta") is the way to go. People don't seem to care about women and sexism but suggest that it will have a bad effect on transpeople who are not yet out and you can bet that they will back off quickly.

It's all "she/her"

I haven't yet seen a single "he, him"

I receive emails from a big public organisation full of ambitious people. And email signatures from men invariably come with a description of their portfolio and position, while women sign off with pronouns... shooting themselves in the foot, in my opinion.

@Greencoatblue

If I still worked for a commercial company I'd either refuse or make something up like..... ki/fer/gho and await the confusion lol

I’d be interested to see what a company would do if a person used something like ki/fer/suth for eg.

There seems to be no central record keeping of all the genders, let alone the pronouns so they presumably would not have any basis to challenge it. I can imagine conversations with some jobsworth (like that awful teacher in Scotland who pulled the boy out of his class and yelled at him for saying there were only two genders) where an employee gets accused of taking the mick and ordered to use specific pronouns which would be ironic considering.

I would also be interested to understand the process a person interested in pronouns goes through to identify their preferred pronouns - esp those like fae zir etc.

Maybe HR departments should provide a consultant to help staff that may struggle with this - if it is required by the company people would want to get it right and they can’t just fob staff off with, ‘if you identify with your gender assigned at birth you are she/hers’ for eg because how would you know?

I didn’t have a gender assigned at birth so I would have to start the process from scratch and may need professional help with that. Is there such a thing as gender assigning for adults like they do for babies these days??

Workplaces don't have the legal right to make people announce their transgender status - which is in effect what this would be doing for at least some people, whose rights are as valid as anyone else's. In fact broadcasting anyone's transgender status could be a breach of GDPR.

Then I would assume that compelling some to reveal their non-transgender status would be, to borrow a word, a "problematic" thing for an employer to do.

How about adding a preferred noun instead? (On in addition)

Pronoun: She / her
Noun: Woman

I may have posted about this before but pronouns came up in the introductions on a training course at my (very woke) place of work last year. I introduced myself with my name and job title and then smiled at the next person to move the conversation on. The trainer prompted "and your preferred pronouns?" and I simply said "no thank you, I'm not ready to share my pronouns, but I won't take offence however you choose to refer to me". There wasn't a big fuss made and I'm quite content with leaving them thinking I'm in the grip of a very quiet identity crisis (and may turn up any day now demanding to known as Wayne von Hairychest ).

@Chrysanthemum5

I've gone through this twice at work with requests to add pronouns. I'm very clear that research shows women are treated more harshly in environments where there are reminders of biological sex so I won't be adding my pronouns. So far I've staved it off

Please share. I might use that in future.

@TitOfTheIceberg made me snort with laughter, at both your post, and your name. Thank you - so needed that today

A good synopsis here which touches on many the points already mentioned by PPs.

legalfeminist.org.uk/2020/07/19/pronouns-compulsion-and-controversy/

As discussed - is against GDPR and an individual’s right to freedom/privacy of belief. It is discriminatory against anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the ideology, women, staff who are autistic etc and any person questioning/distressed by their gender and who are not ready to ‘out’ themselves.

I will say no thank you or ‘woman’.

I agree with previous posters who suggest keeping responses brief. "I'll give it some thought". "I'll look into it when I've got time". "I'm a little uncomfortable with this. I would like this directive in writing from my line manager". "I'd like to see how this sits with the code of ethics of my professional association". Or smile, say nothing and don't get around to doing it. I also like RosesAnd suggestion of using Miss Ms Mrs and last name. I would also be wary of anyone who states pronouns, keeping communication non personal, polite, professional and brief.

I haven't been asked to do this yet but it could happen.
My response will simply be 'I do not have preferred pronouns'.

I got the dreaded order a couple of months ago. I deleted it. If anyone asks, I'll be asking if they want me to broadcast my race, religion and sexuality too, remind them of the narrow circumstances when they can collect such sensitive personal data, and ask when they can force me to broadcast it to the world. Plus of course the principle of data minimisation.

@UppityPuppity I am autistic. Why is it discriminatory to me in that respect? (not saying it isn't, I just don't know the answer)

My response will simply be 'I do not have preferred pronouns'.

I like this, because it's true. I don't prefer she/her I just see them as appropriate to my sex. If someone wants to use he/him about me then that's weird but fine.

KeyIndexAug

It doesn’t affect all - but has the potential to affect people on the autistic spectrum disproportionally - and therefore falls into discrimination. It was given as an example because it something I am indirectly familiar with.

My niece is on the autistic spectrum and she will not be able to refer to anyone beyond he and her - and only when it is factually correct - irrespective of what is put in email signatures.

I’d be interested to see a study to see if enforced pronoun use has an impact on productivity for all employees.

The act of having to stop your train of thought and focus on correcting a very basic part of your speech (and any ensuing side conversations caused) can only be detrimental to the work rates/meeting effectiveness etc.

If it was discovered that this results in a decrease in productivity and focus for questionable gain (some people may not want to be ‘outed’/not relevant to 99.9% of people), company management might take a different view. Presumably it wouldn’t be a difficult or expensive experiment to conduct?

I see it in responses I get from mailings I send out. Like pp I’m yet to see a ‘he/him’.

They'd have to talk about me like this:

'So I emailed Corvus yesterday to request wanker's pronouns, but I don't think fuck was very happy & I might have made off quite cross'.

There’s one woke young bloke at my work who uses he / him, & I’ve seen it from a couple of other men - both actual men - on LinkedIn / Twitter.

It’s currently optional for us, & seeing pronouns in someone’s signature makes me wince a bit, especially when it’s someone I thought was sensible. I’m storing all the arguments up in case they decide to enforce it.