The look at me of pronouns

[Ritascornershop]

Recently I’ve had two interactions that have startled me. One was with legal aid (I’m in Canada) where the young lawyer rang me and said “Hello this is Thomas from xx, my practice is x and my pronouns are he/him.” Just in case I thought someone with a male voice and whose name was Thomas might like me, when speaking to him, to refer to him in the third person as she/her. I laughed and pointed out that as I was speaking directly to him, his pronouns wouldn’t be relevant.

The other interaction was after I’d written my member of parliament’s office asking for an answer on something I couldn’t get a Ministry to answer me on. 3 months later I finally got a reply suggesting I contact that Ministry 🙄 and signing off “Benjamin Lastname, he/him, Useless Twat, Your MP’s office”.

I replied telling him it was useless information that should not have taken 3 months to cough up, and I didn’t care what his pronouns were and I wasn’t going to proffer mine as doing so for women tended to increase sexism in professional interactions.

Is this as rampant in the UK? It just seems so unprofessional and so “look at me!” I’ve no interest in how they hope people refer to them when they’re not there, I just want answers to my questions that they are qualified to provide.

@DucksFlyTogether

@Earthsight I genuinely don't think the HR team like it/support it. Loads of people have refused and they have just gone ok.

Because I and other members pointed out. We have as much right not to express ourselves to the same extent as those who want to express themselve. Other people's want to "throw it out there" doesn't trump our right to privacy. I mean that's equality....

We have as much right not to express ourselves to the same extent as those who want to express themselve. Other people's want to "throw it out there" doesn't trump our right to privacy. I mean that's equality....

You’d think that would be glaringly obvious, wouldn’t you?

@EarthSight: thanks for the advice , its really helpful!

I genuinely feel I'm lucky with my employer, they are wonderful and really believe in giving women voices.

We have a female CEO and 70% of the staff are female.

So when we speak up, we are genuinely heard and listened to.

[quote DucksFlyTogether]@Earthsight I genuinely don't think the HR team like it/support it. Loads of people have refused and they have just gone ok.

Because I and other members pointed out. We have as much right not to express ourselves to the same extent as those who want to express themselve. Other people's want to "throw it out there" doesn't trump our right to privacy. I mean that's equality....[/quote]
Yes, this, 100%. Pronouns on my email signature is the hill I will die on at work if it's ever demanded - how can I put on my pronouns when I don't have a gender identity?

There are a few people in my work who have started using pronouns in signatures, some of whom I really respected, and now I just can't understand why they have fallen for this. It's pretty much all young women who do so as well - interestingly none of the senior male managers feel the need

It really is the most ridiculous new age shite

If I see pronouns at the end of an email I cringe. It seems so unprofessional. It's like signing off with 'SingingSands/I love cats/my favourite colour is purple' nobody gives a flying fuck.

I'm lucky enough to live in The North so I've never seen it IRL.

how can I put on my pronouns when I don't have a gender identity?

@Itsinthetreesitscoming I used that once and someone said 'Oh, so you just use your name then, like without any pronouns at all' and 'so are you 'they' then?'.

I had to explain to them that the whole gender identity thing belongs to an ideology I don't subscribe to about my own identity. Therefore why would I frame my identity using their terms and methodology?

I'm in England I received an email from my local town museum, which is owned and run by the council.

The museum assistant, who had an obviously female name, had she/her after her name. First time I've ever seen this.

I was SOOOOO tempted to reply "Dear Judith she/her, thank you for your email....."

Please, please tell me what is the point of Judith emphasising that she is someone I should refer to as "her".

What has this got to do with trans people? If Judith was, say, a transwomen, I would not know that from the email.

So what's the purpose of it?

@minipie

On the plus side, the more middle aged people working at big boring corporates start to do this, the less cool and appealing to teenagers it will become.

Perhaps this is the solution to it all? Get more 40-70 yr olds to identify as gender fluid or demisexual or whatever, or talk embarrassingly openly about their kinks.

@SingingSands

If I see pronouns at the end of an email I cringe. It seems so unprofessional. It's like signing off with 'SingingSands/I love cats/my favourite colour is purple' nobody gives a flying fuck.

I agree SingingSands

I genuinely don't know why it's needed.

If I wrote an e-mail depending on informal or formal I just beging

Good morning XXX ,

Hope you are well (enter rest of e-mail) sign off Kind regards (e-mail signature)

Or

Hey XXXX,

Can you print this out?

Thanks
(Email signature)

Why do need to know your pronouns?!?

Even in chain e-mails everyone is referred to as names due to multi agency working. I'd never wrote "she from XXX agency said....

Seems completely irrelevant.

Hmmmm.........you're gender critical are you??? I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to see your previous posting history before I believe that.

You could have just looked, rather than presuming PP wasn't genuine. Goat has been on MN for a couple of years and made her GC views clear.

I agree with every word you wrote about why she's wrong in this case but I really think we do ourselves no favours by playing hunt the TRA like this, it gives ammo to the accusations of cliquiness and groupthink.

The dickheads pretending to be feminists show their true colours within a couple of posts anyway- they just can't help it.

My 12 year old daughter met a girl her age. This girl said, "my name's x, my pronouns are her/him/it". My daughter replied, r"eally? So you don't mind if I say, he is over there or it is sitting there?" The girl thought about it and said nothing! How weird?!

I have had a few bosses that include them, including my present one, and the principle of my kids school. I find it incredibly annoying and in the school, worrying.

Most IMO do it just because it's the done thing in their political demographic.

I will never play this ridiculous pronouns game.
That would be a simple #NoThankYou

@donquixotedelamancha Fair enough. I was wrong in this case.

HR have added pronouns recently, thanks to stonewall (they also removed all references to women and mothers from the maternity policy). It is empty virtue signalling by people who don't know what's going on. They think it is simply Kind.

The only other place I've seen it irl is from my local dv shelter and that just made me really sad.

I will no more add pronouns to my signature than I will proclaim a belief in the healing power of crystal skulls, flat earth theory or that Die Hard is a Christmas film

My employer has just launched a new policy aimed at helping "people going through the menopause"

Aside from the fact that women are disadvantaged by highlighting the fact they are women in the workplace (this article is particularly enlightening www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/gender-inequality-man-woman-switch-names-week-martin-schneider-nicky-knacks-pay-gap-a7622201.html ), I couldn't care less what term people use to refer to me when I am not there. Why would I dictate that to someone? What possible difference does it make to me if someone says to another workmate - 'she was using the photocopier' as opposed to (for example) 'fae was using the photocopier'. I won't be there to hear it! If I am in the room, they will presumably just use my name.

MrsFin mine too. Closely followed by a workshop for men on prostate problems.

Die Hard is a Christmas film.

I am a uni student and currently studying human biology and had a non binary person complain that gender was used when talking about sex differences. That was nice until she said she felt unsafe.

@KittenKong

It looks so unprofessional. I got a sheher answering a helpdesk query. It is flipping obvious what sheher pronouns are. Sheher has a girly name and even has a photo of sheherself on the email footer. I don’t think sheher really wants to know what i think.

Sheher didn’t fix my issue either.

😂