Anti-pronouns letter to companies

[Sunkisses]

This is an email a friend wrote to a law firm about how seeing pronouns in their staff emails makes her feel, as a woman. Apparently it may have worked as the male lawyer stopped putting pronouns in his signature. She wants other women to adapt it. She set up a gmail account in another name as she didn't want her email to result in negative treatment from the staff, but wanted the firm to know how statements of allegiance to gender ideology makes her feel.

Dear XX

I am a client of yours but I am sending this from an anonymous email account as I do not feel safe sending this from my real account, and fear it will have repurcussions on my treatment by your staff.

I wanted you to know that two of your staff who I deal with have she/her and he/him in their email signatures. I don't know if this is a standard practice and encouraged by XX, or if this is peculiar to these two staff.

I see the statement of pronouns in email signatures as a political statement on an extremely controversial and divisive issue. It makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable, alienated, and quite fearful that I may not receive fair treatment if I disagreed with your staff on this issue. I wanted XX to know how I feel about this, and how many people are likely to feel.

The two staff are clearly female and male, and there is absolutely no reason for them to add these pronouns to their email signature apart from to make a clear political statement on their position on a very divisive issue. I do not believe your staff should be inserting their political positions into their communications with clients, especially on uniquely divisive issues. You would not expect to see staff stating their position on Brexit in their email signatures, with "Leave" or "Remain" added under their contact details. Or people stating "Christ is Lord" or "Allahu Akbar". Or "Vaccinate now" or "Lift lockdown" added.

I profoundly disagree with gender identity ideology. I see it as regressive, sexist and homophobic. I do not regard it as progressive in the slightest. I regard much of gender identity activism as extremely authoritarian and a threat to freedom of thought, belief, and expression, and a threat to the rights of women and girls. I profoundly disagree with the attempts to redefine what a woman is, and what same-sex attraction is. From conversations I have, most people agree with me but many are too fearful of saying so as this issue is so controversial and trans activists are incredibly aggressive and target people in their workplaces.

When I see your staff acting as activists with political statements in their email signatures it does not make me feel comfortable at all, and makes me feel like they would not treat me fairly if they knew that I profoundly disagreed with their political views on the importance of women's rights. It makes me feel they oppose the rights of women and girls, and it makes me feel alienated and completely excluded.

I ask that XX reconsider whether it is appropriate for staff to have political statements such as pronouns in their email signatures, and whether staff should be using their workplace as a forum for their activism.

Yours, XX

Did that person ask for your opinion on their pronoun use ... it has zero impact on you ... you might disagree with it ... that's fine ... but to request that someone does not use them ... it has nothing to do with you and does not affect any service someone would provide to you ... why on earth would it ... what an utterly ridiculous conclusion.

If you don't like someone using pronouns then find someone who doesn't ... but it has nothing to do with you if someone does ... it has no impact on your life.

If you deliberately and continuously misgender them then yes they might get a bit stroppy with you ... but then if I insisted on called you 'banana' instead of 'Yllasin' constantly you might get stroppy too.

Someone ending their business letter can give their name.

Their pronouns provide extra information about themselves, including something similar to their politics or their religion. This information is both unnecessary for our neutral dealings with each other, and also intrusive.

in no way is it intrusive into the recipients life other than informing them how they should refer to the person who sent the letter.

What about prefixes like Mrs Dr / Rev or for the feminists Ms/Mx (ie mind your own business) or postfixes like their BSc ... are they pushing agendas too ?

And you don't make the rules ... you might like them to only give their name (see above) ... but what the fudge does it have to do with you if they give more information.

If you are dealing with a huge energy company then yes you are likely to not even be conversing with who you think you are ... names are often made up for consistency ... but if you are conversing with a person then you respect them and their wishes ... or is this really about being anti trans and not wanting to be dealt with by a trans person ... which has very little if anything to do with pronouns.

Interesting, isn't it?
We must accept that pronouns are put on emails, even if they are enforced and we dislike them or feel uncomfortable. We cannot politely decline, or write to the companies, telling them how we feel about it.

But Heaven forbid that we should misgender someone! Remember the charmless little individual screeching "My pronouns are THEY, you cunt!" at the JamJar?

“softwearmummybear-
If you are dealing with a huge energy company then yes you are likely to not even be conversing with who you think you are ... names are often made up for consistency ... but if you are conversing with a person then you respect them and their wishes ... or is this really about being anti trans and not wanting to be dealt with by a trans person ... which has very little if anything to do with pronouns.“

This thread was about large companies who have a formal relationship with their clients.

If I am such a client, I have no need to know anything about the person I am dealing with other than their name.

I would call them by their name or ‘you’

The pronoun sent to me pulls me into an un neutral position in regard to my relationship with them, and into an ideological debate that I don’t want to have.

As a client of a company, dealing with a member of that company, if that member were say deaf and needed me to communicate in a certain way via particular technology then that would be different. Having information like that would be essential.

From Original post ...

"I see the statement of pronouns in email signatures as a political statement on an extremely controversial and divisive issue. It makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable, alienated, and quite fearful that I may not receive fair treatment if I disagreed with your staff on this issue. I wanted XX to know how I feel about this, and how many people are likely to feel. "

Someone who puts their pronouns in an email is very unlikely to treat you badly, the whole point is they give a fuck, unless you deliberately and persistently use the wrong pronouns with them and they actually care that much.

Note I tend to use the words them and they generally when referring to anyone as I don't like to make assumptions about people and these terms are totally neutral ... so maybe these are terms you could use.

I also work with a lot of asians and I have no idea whether a name is male or female.

By your request you also shouldn't be happy with Mr/Miss/Dr/Ms/Mx/Rev etc.

If not how would you feel about a female using Mr on their name ... you'd probably think it was typo and just skip it.

Or do you froth at the mouth and write another poison pen letter.

"The two staff are clearly female and male, and there is absolutely no reason for them to add these pronouns to their email signature apart from to make a clear political statement on their position on a very divisive issue."

Firstly it's not divisive.

Secondly how do you know they are male and female ... or whether they even exist at all and you aren't talking to many people who use a fake persona who replies to emails or letters.

"I do not believe your staff should be inserting their political positions into their communications with clients, especially on uniquely divisive issues."

Its a statement of how they would like to be referred to, just like Mr/Mrs/etc.

"You would not expect to see staff stating their position on Brexit in their email signatures, with "Leave" or "Remain" added under their contact details. Or people stating "Christ is Lord" or "Allahu Akbar". Or "Vaccinate now" or "Lift lockdown" added. "

That's because it is not anything related to political or religious subjects.

A person called Lesley Simons gives you their pronouns ... what is the problem ?

@softwaremummybear

I'm surprised how many people on here are worried by something that causes them no harm whatsoever.

Why would you be worried about writing to someone who expresses their preferred pronouns ? In what way does this cause you any issues ?

So a man writes two otherwise identical letters ... one in which he puts his pronouns and one he doesn't.

Are you that weak and flimsy that you fall apart at the letter with the pronouns and cannot function ... because that's what this post says about those that use the template.

Lets hope your little darling offsprings don't grow up hating their parents ... because you have zero control over their feelings ... you selfish fools.

Ive been very clear as to why I don't like them.

I hope your darling offspring grow up to understand that their feelings and demands can't always come first, particularly if they are providing services to vulnerable people

'I also work with a lot of asians and I have no idea whether a name is male or female'

WTAF

So you work with a 'lot of Asians' but still have no idea about name conventions. That must take a hell of a lot of willful ignorance.

I do so love it when someone is demonstrating how woke they are by being massively ignorant

“Ive been very clear as to why I don't like them”

You need an apostrophe in there.

I’m sure you’ve memorised every name in the universe and know exactly what gender the person is, even the ambiguous names.

What does you (or anyone) being vulnerable have to do with someone stating their preferred pronouns ?

I just don’t get this.

Displaying pronouns is declaring a belief in gender ideology that all human beings have a gender identity. It’s not a neutral act. It’s not about trans people, it’s about an ideology. I don’t have a gender identity. Trans women and trans men have one and that’s fine. Most people don’t and shouldn’t be forced to say that they do.

You have a right to your beliefs. Beliefs, including gender identity beliefs, are protected in human rights law. But it is a category error to say that a belief is a factual reality. It is a massive category error to state that not sharing a belief is discrimination. We have 9 protected characteristics in human rights law, 8 of which are based on REALITY and 1 which protects beliefs.

Imposing a belief IS discrimination Saying that gender identity ideology is a HUMAN RIGHT as opposed to a BELIEF SYSTEM is a massive category error. Imposing the belief that ALL human beings have a gender identity has had devastating consequences for the most vulnerable in our society.

On the pronoun badges:

It’s not democratic for an organisation to obey the orders of a lobby group, to ‘shame’ staff into visible displays of allegiance.

It’s not inclusive to demand visible displays of an ideology which DISCRIMINATES against children, women, lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

It’s not healthy to impose the symbols of a movement that’s sterilising lesbian, gender non-confirming and gay kids.

The timing is perverse whilst the so-called ‘conversion therapy bill’ Trojan horse consultation is happening in government at this very moment - to get gender identity onto the statue books. Inserting this belief as ‘a reality’ into law, as has happened in Canada, Ireland, Australia Victoria and the US, has led to state discrimination and physical and mental harm against the most vulnerable.

FindTheTruth said

"I don’t have a gender identity."

You're saying you are genderless ... you don't identify yourself as anything ... that's a bit out there ... but you've just imposed your belief on the universe ... you wicked person.

"Beliefs, including gender identity ..."

You seem to be conflating someone stating their pronouns with some kind of faith or childish belief that you don't subscribe to.

If a woman identifies as a woman ... what's wrong with stating she/her as their pronouns ... what harm can that cause ?

"Imposing a belief IS discrimination"

It is indeed ... and I couldn't agree more ... but I wouldn't call this imposing anything on anyone but themselves. It's a statement.You need to but out of their business ... they aren't making you do it ... it is a free world ... by complaining like the letter above ... you are lobbying the business to not do it ... did anyone 'lobby' the business to do it ?

"Saying that gender identity ideology is a HUMAN RIGHT"

Yeah ... you are orthogonal to gender I remember.

"It’s not democratic for an organisation to"

Well if they choose to democratically then it is.

"obey the orders of a lobby group"

who's lobbying and who's giving orders ?

"It’s not inclusive to demand visible displays of an ideology which DISCRIMINATES against children, women, lesbian, gay and bisexual people."

gender is not an ideology ... how does it discriminate ?

"It’s not healthy to impose the symbols of a movement that’s sterilising lesbian, gender non-confirming and gay kids."

huh ... ? pronouns ?

"The timing is perverse whilst the so-called ‘conversion therapy bill’ Trojan horse consultation is happening in government at this very moment - to get gender identity onto the statue books."

Fuck me ... you'll be incanting paedophillia next to get your point across.

Conversion Therapy ... you see the bit above where you wrote "Imposing a belief IS discrimination" ... mmm ?

You want to keep conversion therapy ?

"... has led to state discrimination and physical and mental harm against the most vulnerable."

Who the fuck are these vulnerable people ?

No-one seems to be able to tell me.

@softwaremummybear, I'll give you a simple example.

I've recently received an email from my DS school teacher. He has a standard male name, yet adds him/his to his signature. I have met him before and I know that he is male, so what's the point in including the pronouns? Whay is he saying with this? That he is male and he also 'feels like a man'? Why do I need to know how masculine or femenine he believe he is?

Now, let's say I got it wrong and he is not actually male. He is a passing transman. Fair enough, I would still call him by his male name and refer to him as 'him' because I would be non the wiser.

Or the other way around, if the teacher was a non-passing transwoman called Paula, I would still use her chosen name (and refer to them as 'her' in public).

No need for pronoun statements.

I see the inclusion of pronouns to signatures/badges/etc as a) attention seeking behaviour and/or b) a way to show adherence to this nonsense ideology.

@softwaremummybear

“Ive been very clear as to why I don't like them”

You need an apostrophe in there.

I’m sure you’ve memorised every name in the universe and know exactly what gender the person is, even the ambiguous names.

What does you (or anyone) being vulnerable have to do with someone stating their preferred pronouns ?

I just don’t get this.

I have been struggling to answer this post. Your devastating critique of my grammar has shattered me so.

Only kidding
I am not going to worry about someone pointing out grammar issues when they are struggling with basic comprehension.

Young woman with LDs is having her parenting of her newborn assessed by a SW. She is a care leaver.
This young woman is one of the most vulnerable people in our society. She is at real risk of losing her child to the care system.
She may have LDs but she isn't stupid.
She knows how the system works. What is at stake.

SW has pronouns in her email signature and on her name badge.
All CIN meetings start with an introduction including pronouns.

Young woman is terrified of getting it wrong. She already struggles understanding what is expected of her and why.
Know she has to remember why the bloke wants to be called They and the woman insists she is a he/him

If you are claiming 'no one can tell you' who the fuck these vulnerable people are its because you aren't paying attention.

A pronouns badge is a gender identity badge and it's not a neutral act to wear it.

As experts say:

" “gender identity” is an experience unique to people with Gender Dysphoria that should not be generalised to all people. We disagree with transgender activism that has confused this matter."

@TheFirstMrsDV

Young woman with LDs is having her parenting of her newborn assessed by a SW. She is a care leaver. This young woman is one of the most vulnerable people in our society. She is at real risk of losing her child to the care system. She may have LDs but she isn't stupid. She knows how the system works. What is at stake.

SW has pronouns in her email signature and on her name badge.
All CIN meetings start with an introduction including pronouns.

Young woman is terrified of getting it wrong. She already struggles understanding what is expected of her and why.
Know she has to remember why the bloke wants to be called They and the woman insists she is a he/him

If you are claiming 'no one can tell you' who the fuck these vulnerable people are its because you aren't paying attention.

Is this person with LDs viciously corrected in the meetings ... if so then this is a problem that the group has to deal with better ... obviously someone with learning difficulties is going to struggle with this ... but that does not mean it should not exist or not be tried.

But anyone with brain difficulties could suffer from this ... but also others with bigotry and phobias also could join the bandwagon and hide behind real cases.

I see others have bowed out because they cannot explain themselves regarding the template letter to be sent to organisations. Or after having taken a swipe at me they can't take one back.

It seems what you are railing against is the way mis-use of the pronouns is handled ... not the pronouns themselves ... so you want to ban it all for the sake of a few people who find it difficult to tolerate being mis-pronouned in a normal situation (rather than an abusive situation).

But the original post and template was regarding emails to a large organisation and the sender expressing their pronouns.

[quote IamAporcupine]@softwaremummybear, I'll give you a simple example.

I've recently received an email from my DS school teacher. He has a standard male name, yet adds him/his to his signature. I have met him before and I know that he is male, so what's the point in including the pronouns? Whay is he saying with this? That he is male and he also 'feels like a man'? Why do I need to know how masculine or femenine he believe he is?

Now, let's say I got it wrong and he is not actually male. He is a passing transman. Fair enough, I would still call him by his male name and refer to him as 'him' because I would be non the wiser.

Or the other way around, if the teacher was a non-passing transwoman called Paula, I would still use her chosen name (and refer to them as 'her' in public).

No need for pronoun statements.

I see the inclusion of pronouns to signatures/badges/etc as a) attention seeking behaviour and/or b) a way to show adherence to this nonsense ideology.[/quote]
In that particular case ... with pairing of you and the teacher you feel there is no need ... that's cool.

But what about someone else and the teacher ... or some other person and the teacher ... we all perceive things differently ... so although you might feel it is not necessary in your shared universe ... someone else might need it in their universe ... so you are demanding the teacher stop (for everyone) because you don't feel it is necessary (for you).

You probably that important and although it's useless information to you ... it is information that causes you no harm.

@softwaremummybear the point is that there are far more vulnerable people in these situations than there are people who are going to be adversely impacted by people not listing their pronouns.
And those that insist on pronouns tend to be from the very least vulnerable groups in society.

We have not got on top of meaningful inclusion of disabled people (particularly those with LDs) but yet this issue has leapfrogged over all of that.

What about a pet issue of mine? Being called 'mum' by every doctor, therapist and medic that attends to a sick and/or disabled child?
Most of us hate it but it carries on regardless. Only now we are being asked to recognise the preferred pronouns of those staff. Its too much trouble and far too trivial for them to ask our names but we all have to learn to adhere to this nonsense.
Why?
Who exactly does it benefit and why?
Please don't trot out the tired old trope of suicide if people are validated. We know it isn't true.
And don't tell me its about inclusion. Its obvious its not because it doesn't take into account those who have been ignored and oppressed for centuries.

gender is not an ideology ... how does it discriminate ?

According to the BBC there are over 100 genders, none of which can be physically proven, unlike sex and sexual attraction. Therefore how is it not an ideology.
How does it discriminate? Well there is a thread on this board today , where those who share this belief system are refusing permission, to a group of female rape victims ,the right to a female only counselling session. I would consider this to be fucking discriminatory!

It starts with beee kiiinnd and call an obvious male she/her because it makes them happy and ends with ‘no women who have been raped can’t have single sex spaces because it might make a man sad’

No fucking thank you

The new gender identity ideology came from Queer Theory in American academia in the 1990's. Queer Theory should not be used through lobby groups to guide laws, public policies or employers into guilt tripping staff into wearing a 'gender identity pronoun badge'.

It's your right to believe in queer theory and gender identity ideology, but it's not your right to impose it across populations. When Judith Butler wrote about transgender identities, it was a musing. Queer Theorists believe that gender expression in trumps biological sex and the radical trans lobby has sneaked this belief into laws under the radar as if it is fact. An 8 year old girl who likes cars and sports is still a girl, not a boy. A 4 year old boy who plays with 'girls toys' is still a boy, not a girl. When Children are taught gender identity ideology as fact and asked to search inward to 'decide what gender they are', they are vulnerable because they're being lied to by adults.

As experts say:

"Sex categories have been reduced to mere stereotypes and any girl or boy who doesn’t “feel” like the most stereotypical version of their sex are inclined to think they’re not actually a girl or boy at all. This is especially true for those who are psychologically vulnerable. Teaching that sex is a spectrum is basically saying that everyone is some variation of trans."

The pronoun declaration we are told is 'kind' but it is actually about affirming the queery belief that all human beings have a gender identity. It’s not about trans people, it’s about an ideology

It has just occurred to me that any push, however light, for people to disclosure of any protected characteristics could be seen as an infringement of their rights. And ppl asked to put pronouns could decline saying they do not wish to disclosure to the public their protected characteristics.

Is this sound? I’m going to post on all the pronouns threads to check.

I think the first email is far too long and waffley. I need something much shorter and succinct.

One firm I work for have recently asked all staff to put pronouns on their signature. I don't want to and haven't yet.

I'm with @TreXX.

That isn't a well-written email. It's far too rambling and repetitious, makes some points 2-3 times over, obfuscates its key points with overly wordy language, and is over-emotive rather than sticking to the basic facts of the issue. If I go to the trouble of writing a complaint about something, I want to make it clear what I actually hope to gain out of the process. If you're merely asking someone to reconsider a company policy then I suspect the chances of a reply are slim to non-existent.

FWIW, never announcing my own pronouns is a hill I'm prepared to die on. I've spent pretty much my whole adult life resisting the notion that my sex or gender have the smallest relevance to the way I do my job. I've also suffered, as most women have, workplace discrimination on the basis of my sex. Any requests or pushing to share 'my' pronouns has simply been met with a flat 'no', and I intend to go on in the same way.

That said, I'm not sure that exerting similar pressure on those who do exercise their choice to announce these pointless bits of personal information is an effective use of energy. Granted some might not be aware of the more nuanced implications, but if they've gone so far down the rabbit hole as to bring this in at policy level then they're unlikely to be swayed by an email such as this.

Pronoun-banners do have one productive function. They're a useful marker of the people it's wise to avoid and save me the job of finding out for myself.

More & more people in my workplace are including their pronouns in their email signatures. It makes me cringe and also makes me feel very uncomfortable.

I was considering adapting the email to send to our Head of HR who has her pronouns in her email signature (and whose team it mainly seems to be following suit).

Has anyone done this for their employer and, if so, what response did you get?