Employee using pronouns. Help!

[OfNobody]

Hi all,

A friend of mine has just taken on a new recruit and he's just realised that she uses pronouns after her name on her email signature.

He'd love for her not to do that because he's GC himself (and has a very traditional client base) but can he ask her to stop? Is that in itself discrimination?

Would love to advise him but generally, all the work issues I see around this run in the opposite direction (employers asking employees for pronouns).

Any experience of this, or any insight into how he can politely request that she drop the pronouns without ending up on the front cover of The Guardian?

From what he said, she doesn't sound like a massive raging handmaiden. She's just fresh out of uni and obviously thinks this is the way to go.

1. 'We have a corporate style, this is it.

If there is any further conversation

His clients are mostly all from one strict religious community (that he also belongs to)

We are culturally sensitive to our customers, this could cause distress to them because they have strict rules and these are based on sex not gender.

This can be added to depending on the group eg if it is orthodox Jewish a woman might feel obliged to have children to 'replace the 5 million', if it is Plymouth Brethren, then I have not got a clue.

If it is a minority that use a different language. you can add in that in whatever language gendered pronouns work differently. eg in French a teacher is Le professeur regardless of the sex of the teacher.

My industry is slowly being taken over by stealth by the woke pronoun brigade.

Minezatea

That's something of a non-sequitur. It's possible to be Christian and not homophobic. There are plenty of gay Christians out there!

Why though?
I'm genuinely not meaning to be goady.
When first new to this topic on here I was more "OMFG, can you not tell I'm a woman?!" and take offence.
Now though, from reading both sides over the years, I can see why pronouns are important.
Not for me, but for others.
Why should I deny the right for trans people to be seen too, whether a trans woman or a trans man?
(Not aimed at you in particular, just generally thinking out loud)

I think it would be rude to ask a trans person who was clearly presenting as female for their preferred pronouns.

If you ask for pronouns you force many people to either lie about or reveal a gender identity.

personally I have a problem with the idea that pronouns enable any insight into somebody’s innate identity. It’s just plain sexist.

We also know that women are disadvantaged at work when sex and gender are emphasised.

I think all these points have already been covered on this thread.

@Ulna

The issue with this is that it will reflect badly on your company and all of your customers will think you're absolute twats.

Agree with PP: she should be given an email template and told to stick to it, and not to add emojis, rainbows, fluffy unicorns or pictures of her chihuahua.

😂

I've been thinking about this some more and I think the 'emphasising I'm a woman' aspect is a bit of a red herring. It's not untrue - in the current sexist climate it's not advantageous for a woman to draw attention to her sex. However, if the workplace became less sexist, pronouns would still be a problem, because they're compelled speech. It's not an act of self-expression (as other questionably professional signature content might be), it's a demand for others to change how they speak, and more importantly, how they perceive.

You could say 'you're already limited in how you speak at work' - but this goes a step further. You're not prevented from perceiving your boss as a fuckwit, you'd just usually not express that perception. Under gender ideology, though, you are prevented from perceiving him as a man, if he doesn't think he is one. Pronouns and other basic parts of speech in a language are closer to your perceptions than secondary impressions like 'fuckwit'. The whole thing is an attempt to force perceptual change via compelled language.

That's something of a non-sequitur. It's possible to be Christian and not homophobic. There are plenty of gay Christians out there!

It's really not. There are, of course, plenty of nonhomophobic Christians, whether they are gay or not. But you are more likely to be homophobic if you're Christian so I don' thin it makes sense, at all, to say that Christians don't easily feel offended. In my experience they do.

Let's cut the new employee some slack and remember she's probably just spent 3 years or more among the superwoke and thinks this is routinely done everywhere. She is just launched into her first professional post and will need mentoring, which it seems OP's friend is doing.

All she needs to hear is, "Not like that," which will be a familiar phrase, I'm sure. Perhaps she could be made aware that asking people for their pronouns is potentially outing and distressing for those who might still be questioning or unsure and reluctant to draw attention to themselves. Posting her own pronouns could be problematic or triggering for such colleagues as it implies that everyone might be required to do the same.

She just needs to be kind and inclusive and follow corporate policy. Other jobs are available if she feels the company she joined is not woke or zealous enough for her, after all

I don’t really understand the link between homophobia and being offended, in my head they are two different things

Im obviously being a bit too literal

I see homophobia as taking offence at what other consenting adults choose to do in private. I don't see how you can be so riled about other people's sex lives without also being offended, but I'm open to people seeing it differently.

Basically I guess the point is that if people announced their religion on an email, I'd believe that they are more likely to be homophobic, anti-female choice in terms of abortion and otherwise judgemental of others. Not because I think that all religious people have those views but to feel the need to announce it when we've probably not even met is quite a political statement which suggest that these things are more likely. Just as if I announced I was an agender, atheist, labour voter in an email - people would assume I'm announcing that for some reason. Otherwise why not also add on that my favourite drink is red wine, I prefer red bush tea to PG tips and support Arsenal?

I think my lesbian vicar friend would disagree with you.

Over the years I've been in work I've seen plenty of references to someone's pronoun preferences in their email sig. In the past it was often "Jo Blogs (Mrs)" or "Sing Ho Chun (Mr)" type of thing. I can't really get that excited about it either way

@Arbadacarba

I’m fairly certain a Christian would be offended if I put in my email signature that I worship Satan

I've just asked this question of a Christian - his response was 'I wouldn't be offended - I'd feel sorry for them.'

Do you award contracts out of pity?

And likewise I'd pity this young graduate who is trying to prove herself in the world of work but is inadvertently putting herself at a disadvantage in this sexist world because at Uni she was conditioned to think that it is important to mention to clients that she is female and doesn't realise that doing so before they've got to know her work will affect the way they treat her in this sexist world we live in.

I think my lesbian vicar friend would disagree with you.

She would disagree that Christians are more likely to be offended by homosexuality????? Really????
Do you mean that she would not be - fair enough. As I said before I know there are many religious people who are truly tolerant (and my aunt is also a lesbian vicar). I think if you don't believe that if you're religious you're likely to be less tolerant, that's a bit naïve. My Aunt is certainly well aware of that.

@Brefugee

Over the years I've been in work I've seen plenty of references to someone's pronoun preferences in their email sig. In the past it was often "Jo Blogs (Mrs)" or "Sing Ho Chun (Mr)" type of thing. I can't really get that excited about it either way

It’s really unusual to include Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms in signatures.

@Brefugee

Over the years I've been in work I've seen plenty of references to someone's pronoun preferences in their email sig. In the past it was often "Jo Blogs (Mrs)" or "Sing Ho Chun (Mr)" type of thing. I can't really get that excited about it either way

These aren’t “pronoun preferences”.

Your examples would have been telling everyone they were, respectively, a (married) woman and a man, no doubt in the old-fashioned sense. Not sure why that was necessary, but there you go.

I see homophobia as taking offence at what other consenting adults choose to do in private. I don't see how you can be so riled about other people's sex lives without also being offended, but I'm open to people seeing it differently

Thanks for your reply, i think its because i see ‘offended’ as being very mild…I’m offended that you didn’t say hello to me

And homophobia as being much worse

@Delphinium20

Outhere I know you said this midway in the thread, but I just want to applaud you for this lovely alliteration. Made my day.

"...brightly coloured badges of bullshit"

These aren’t “pronoun preferences”.

But they function in a similar way. And for pp who said it's not usual - your mileage may vary. I've seen it a lot particularly from women in Eastern Europe and (more often men) in Korea, China and Japan.

Tbh my sole objection is the knowledge that drawing attention to the fact you're a woman at work disadvantages you. I'm more for a corporate template with first name, last name and telephone number.

(in fact my biggest bug are with email sigs is with people who don't give their sodding phone bmnumber. Come the revolution...)

I can't see why her views are 'more inclusive' and his 'less inclusive' when we are talking about an email signature
It is very unusual to address someone you are directly emailing in the third person.

Perhaps she could be made aware that asking people for their pronouns is potentially outing and distressing for those who might still be questioning or unsure and reluctant to draw attention to themselves. Posting her own pronouns could be problematic or triggering for such colleagues as it implies that everyone might be required to do the same.

This is what I plan to say should our company ever decide to start insisting on pronouns. For all they know I may be closeted transgender and them forcing me to either deny my authentic self or out myself before I'm ready could be massively triggering and exclusionary.

@JoanOgden

I can't see the harm in this either, as long as she doesn't pressure colleagues to do the same.

I am currently searching for a contract with an external company I need to use for business reasons. Looking through one such outfit last week, I saw an employee’s bio with she/her in it and decided I would not want any contract where I had to work with that employee.

This isn’t unreasonable bias. The industry itself is very much in thrall to the trans agenda and many women involved in it are bullied mercilessly if they are found to disagree. I want to work with someone I know will have my back and support me, should such bullying arise.

So depending on the industry, a pronoun wielding employee might well put potential clients off. It might encourage some, but I suspect the lack of pronouns would not put anyone off, but the presence of them might well do so.

So if the company in the OP has many religious clients, it may well be very bad for business.

It annoys me when I see it but I just ignore. It's not worth the battle. Being forced to do it though would make me stand up and be counted

@ArabellaScott, one of my colleagues has a swirly, purple signature that looks very nice and is identifiable at a glance. I like it. I suppose it’s OK, unless she’s emailing someone with visual or literacy issues. Also, it might not be very clear on printed or scanned documents.

However, the colleagues who are determined to shoehorn their BA (Oxen) or MSc (LSE) into their signatures, should know that other people do snigger at this. As bragging goes, its pretty transparent and it doesn’t make them more approachable to customers.

Imagine if you were communicating via email with your solicitor/accountant/doctor/whatever and they had on their email signature "I'm bisexual", or "I'm Jewish", or "I vote Tory" or "I'm 64".

It would be weird, unnecessary, and incredibly unprofessional.

Email signatures are supposed to say your name, your position, your company and your contact details. They are not a space to make curious political declarations.

The 'neutral' thing to do is to not include anything political and superfluous, and keep it professional.