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.

@LadyVymes

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.

I don’t feel safe around people who wail ‘I feel unsaaaaaaaaafe!’ every two minutes about things that shouldn’t make any sane person feel... ‘unsafe’. I assume they are unstable and possibly likely to lash out if disagreed with.

I haven't been asked yet but when I do, I've decided to say that I am agender and would request people refer to me by my name.

@astoundedgoat

Hmm. I’m pretty gender critical, but I don’t mind this. If I’m emailing back and forth with Alex McStranger, or Sandy, Chris etc OR an Asian name - for instance Harpreet is a male, Jaspreet is a female, but would you definitely have known that? Or an email from Wei or Xiang. Are you sure you know what gender they are? So sure that you are positive you won’t cause offence when you refer to “her” in a cc’d email?

You DON’T always know. Equally, does my fictional Xiang know whether the Sam she is referring to is a man or a woman?

So it might be slightly silly from a gender identity perspective (which is probably how many are using it), especially if your name is Manly McBrawny, but more broadly, it’s very useful. You might argue that you don’t NEED to know the sex or gender of the person on the other end of an email, but from a relationship-building perspective, it’s important.

I’m in favour.

Isn't it a good thing that you don't know? Then you aren't going to be discriminated based upon your sex.

See it all the time on IG, I refuse to fill out that stupid box.

A friend of mine was telling me her workplace (an NHS trust) were going down the route of making it mandatory to add your pronouns to your email

My dad (70+) recently had his first email with pronouns ‘female name she/her’ and replied that he was interested to see her pronouns and wondered if the Queen would be signing things as we/us. He was very pleased with himself- and I’d have loved to see her face.

Pronouns are creeping in on work emails. The office I work out of ( big company, lots of offices, some in very woke places) have put our star signs as pronouns along with a list of traits associated with that sign eg Taurus/Taurean/reliable/level headed/stubborn.
I think it tells far more about the person I am emailing.

Hang on - star signs on emails?

@donquixotedelamancha

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

Me too, it's something I've only ever seen on Twitter (and only on the profiles of insufferable oiks).

@silentpool

I haven't been asked yet but when I do, I've decided to say that I am agender and would request people refer to me by my name.

When I get asked my gender on forms these days I always reply with whatever neutral option is offered.
I did on the census too. I felt quite proud of myself.
Happy to tick F under any "what is your sex" question though.

Our diversity manager assumed my pronouns and put them in a
newsletter. I asked her not to do so in future, explained that I'm gender critical and cited Maya Forstater's judgement.

People who feel “unsafe” when “the wrong pronouns “ are used - how ON EARTH do they cope if there’s a REAL emergency to deal with? A fire? Someone behaving in a verbally or physically threatening way? Broken down at night by the side of the motorway? A colleague has a heart attack in front of them?? Etc etc…

How does this generation (because I know that it’s the young ‘uns using it) actually manage to cross a road or talk to someone they don’t know??

@RocketPanda

Pronouns are creeping in on work emails. The office I work out of ( big company, lots of offices, some in very woke places) have put our star signs as pronouns along with a list of traits associated with that sign eg Taurus/Taurean/reliable/level headed/stubborn. I think it tells far more about the person I am emailing.

That’s absolutely beyond fucking stupid.

I go to work to do my job as per my work contract. Thanks couldn’t give a toss about anything about my colleagues’ personal lives - sexuality, star sign, what colour socks they wear on a Tuesday - I’m only interested in their professionalism.

It’s meaningless, empty nonsense.

I, not thanks

I work in IT and it is hard enough as a woman. I have an obviously female name so like hell am I adding pronouns. My male colleagues already have an easier ride

If people feel the need to stick pronouns on profiles/emails it is usually a good sign that they are people that no one sane should interact with.

Star signs on E-mails wtf.

I'm a Capricorn the most stubborn, competitive and achievement based star sign. I'd rather not have that on my e-mail. People will assume I'm a cunt 😂 I mean I can be but don't like to divulge it on my work e-mail signature 🤦🏻‍♀️

I might add Gemini though - "will talk shit about you while being nice to your face" 😂

DSD12 has a friend who’s non binary and literally announces her pronouns for the day each morning. She sometimes feels more masculine and sometimes more feminine and this rigmarole seems to make her happier. The expectations on those around you to prop up the belief system/fantasy/neurosis are really unreasonable but their group are constantly bedecked in be kind t shirts so it was inevitable something like this would happen.

I logged in to LinkedIn for the first time in ages a week ago and the first thing it asked me for was my pronouns so I think lots of people just do it without thinking.

I found myself browsing a job ad which talked about the company including five or six things around gender and gender presentation but didn’t mention sex. That sort of illegal codswallop and the pronoun compulsion are making it easier to avoid daft organisations.

@DucksFlyTogether

Star signs on E-mails wtf.

I'm a Capricorn the most stubborn, competitive and achievement based star sign. I'd rather not have that on my e-mail. People will assume I'm a cunt 😂 I mean I can be but don't like to divulge it on my work e-mail signature 🤦🏻‍♀️

I’m going to use my Chinese calendar zodiac then.

🐔

Broken down at night by the side of the motorway? A colleague has a heart attack in front of them?

Both times, the person's sex is more relevant than their gender. (Or do motorway recovery services no longer prioritise 'lone females'?)

@hamstersarse

DS16 started college today and someone introduced themselves to him as “Chloe. She/her”

I'd have assumed she was telling me her full name and refer to her as Chloe Shearer for the rest of the year.

See - I would so that!

And ask if she was of Chinese heritage (you can imagine it said in that tone - shi-hrrr) or whether she was appropriating their culture and language?

@EarthSight

I'm a millennial who works for a company in the U.K. About 70% of people in it have pronouns in their email signatures. I don't, and will not, and cannot.

Most people do it because they really don't know what it's really about, and I really think some people would prefer it that way so that everyone will play along without asking questions. I can bet most of the women putting she/her have never given a thought to the fact that they're actually reinforcing gender stereotypes. They think 'Oh I'll just put this in my email because everyone else does, and I'm a she/her anyway'. They probably think all it is is a reference to the fact that they're women and feel comfortable in their sex......but that's not what it means. There's a whole ideology behind it.

I had to explain to a friend the other day why I refuse to do it. Her kneejerk reactions was 'but it's important to be inclusive and support those who are gender questioning, isn't it?'. I replied yes, but that I wasn't going to use that ideology to define my own identity, because of a myriad of reasons which I explained. I don't think she had once thought about any of those issues and it certainly made her think.....not for long I suspect, because once you start doubting it it then requires a lot of further thinking which is clearly a lot of hard work for most busy people!

So glad to see a millenial with this position. I could not agree more. Most people don't think much about this and are just wanting to signal how inclusive they are. They have not thought through the implications or taken responsibility for the damage they are doing through their very binary thinking. Thank you for being brave enough to question this stuff directly.

Our point about star signs is they mean absolutely nothing. Most people think the time of year of your birth dictating your personality is utter tosh. Very like pronouns. Meaningless drivel.

Although I often think about making public an email sent from head office advising my particular office about our names. I come from an Irish speaking area of Ireland as do most of my colleagues and therefore our names are in Irish. The translation denotes my sex ( Mary Daughter of Smith for example). Apparently we should have English names that are easier to pronounce and not triggering to those who are gender diverse. This coming from a British company does not come across well at all.