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

Just my opinion but I would make that much, much shorter and use very professional, dry language so that the reader would think it is as likely to have been written by a man as a woman.

I also think it's too long. I think the first three paragraphs pretty much nail all the points, particularly this one:
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.
There's quite a bit of repetition after that.

I'm also not sure I'm comfortable about bringing individual workers into it. My argument is with the employers who either try and enforce it or who allow a culture to develop where it's expected.

Place marking, as likely to need this in the future.Excellent letter- firms are, of course, free to ignore, if they wish. Their response will influence my purchasing decisions (e.g. still not purchasing in M&S x3 years).

I don’t know. I’m gc but if I had staff who felt strongly about their pronouns my job as their manager would be to support them against clients. I would stand up loud and clear against mandatory pronouns anywhere I worked, but I couldn’t accept clients objecting to my staff sharing their own. I would have to explain that pronoun use is very widespread, linked in has it as an option, I don’t do it myself as I am not a big fan, but I will not instruct my staff that they may do it. I do regret if this causes you offense.

Offence

What a great email. Even if pronouns are still allowed in signatures for the reasons timeisaline mentioned, it does shift the Overton window that there is no reason to object to being asked to (or compelled to) display your own pronouns, as staff. That it's a completely neutral and beneficial thing to do.

Excellent email. I agree with others it's a little long and could be more concise. I'll be adapting to send to some companies I've been working with.

Thanks OP. I’ve copied and pasted the email into my iPhone notes for future use.

This is not a goady post, I have a genuine question as I am trying to understand the use of pronouns:

If a person with a traditional, masculine name, such as 'Martin' but identifies as something other than male, is it OK/informative to state pronouns? Equally, if someone has an ambiguous name but is a female and identifies as such but often gets addressed as a male?

Am I missing the point? Is the problem that if you are, say, female and identify as a female, you don't need pronouns?

Really trying to understand this and I am genuinely interested.

Any organisation which has implemented diversity training for its staff may want to revisit that training in light of this judgment. Staff handbooks which make reference to trans rights may also need to be revised. courtesy of Lionshead Solicitors link to full thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4387775-well-done-Lionshead-solicitors the piece is well worth a read

This piece states that companies should now be reviewing all their policies in light of the Forstater v CGD Europe and Others case. It might be that using pronouns should be reviewed by companies. If I received a letter from an organisation and pro-nouns were used, I would certainly write to explain my views and would use some of the Ops friends letter.

@timeisnotaline

I don’t know. I’m gc but if I had staff who felt strongly about their pronouns my job as their manager would be to support them against clients. I would stand up loud and clear against mandatory pronouns anywhere I worked, but I couldn’t accept clients objecting to my staff sharing their own. I would have to explain that pronoun use is very widespread, linked in has it as an option, I don’t do it myself as I am not a big fan, but I will not instruct my staff that they may do it. I do regret if this causes you offense.

But what about other political views? The email compares belief in gender ideology to statements of religious faith, or political sloganeering re eg Brexit. Would you support any and all statements of those sorts of beliefs in client-facing emails etc? Really?

The shift of the “Overton Window” is important. Stonewall et al (also eg BBC until very recently) have framed pronoun declaration as something no reasonable person could object to. But it is not a neutral act. It is really a political statement of support for one ideology. An ideology that is very controversial when the wider public are actually informed about what it means.

As I've moved up the ranks professionally, I've found senior people much less likely to read and digest long emails. I adapt and send shorter emails. I'm a bit impatient with long ones but I'm a speed reader with retentive memory for text.

I think this is true so I try to keep messages to people in senior positions as succinct as possible.

Thanks for sharing the text OP!

@TreXX

I'd say it's overstepping tbh especially the detail of how many staff do it, too personal. And it's likely to have people/companies doubling down.

Also it should be much, much shorter and concentrate on making the main points far more concisely.

The points should be:
Irrelevant personal information in the same vein as religion, politics and sexuality.

Disadvantage to female staff.

Potential alienation of customers.

Feelings should be kept out of it as they're largely irrelevant to companies and can be easily dismissed. I delete ranty emails daily in my job. I don't even bother to read them to see if I agree. Rant = delete.

The thing is though, the email is from a customer. It's a customer telling a company they may be about to lose their custom. And in this case a client rather than someone who buys your shampoo, so not quite comparable as it's probably not 0.0001% of your business but more likely and actual percentage of your business. And if they set off a chain reaction of clients reacting, you are likely to feel the impact of lost revenue really quickly.

Ok, didn't get round to hiding the thread yet so I'll nip in and just clarify

I'm not in retail, I don't sell shampoo

I work for a professional organisation. Does that make my opinion more worthy of consideration or are pp just determined to dismiss any constructive criticism?

@Calyx72

I like it but would take out the adjectives "incredibly" "extremely" "completely" They remind me of how TRAs exaggerate things.

Agreed and agree with TreXX - it's far too long and repeats itself.

@procratinationstations

This is not a goady post, I have a genuine question as I am trying to understand the use of pronouns:

If a person with a traditional, masculine name, such as 'Martin' but identifies as something other than male, is it OK/informative to state pronouns? Equally, if someone has an ambiguous name but is a female and identifies as such but often gets addressed as a male?

Am I missing the point? Is the problem that if you are, say, female and identify as a female, you don't need pronouns?

Really trying to understand this and I am genuinely interested.

It's almost, if not entirely irrelevant in an email. If I get an email from "Martin" I'll reply to "Dear Martin"

If I phone "Martin" I will either speak direct to "Martin" or leave a voice mail for "Martin" or if the call is answered by the main switchboard ask the receptionist to ask "Martin" to call me back.

I think TreXX has made some fair points.

if I had staff who felt strongly about their pronouns my job as their manager would be to support them against clients....I couldn’t accept clients objecting to my staff sharing their own.

Where is the limit on that? Support for a particular political party? Campaigning against abortion?

Companies allowing staff to push political views is common in the US but in the UK the norm is that they don't.

@TreXX

Ok, didn't get round to hiding the thread yet so I'll nip in and just clarify

I'm not in retail, I don't sell shampoo

I work for a professional organisation. Does that make my opinion more worthy of consideration or are pp just determined to dismiss any constructive criticism?

I don’t see any constructive criticism in your posts, just criticism about the original email being too long and ranty.

Maybe if you’d offered some useful phrases or a concise re-write that you deem will be more effective, that would be classed as constructive.

I like it but would shorten and add a few facts. It has been shown that emails from females are judged more harshly than emales from males, this has consequences for individual careers of women and businesses. In business correspondence the sex/gender/whatever of the sender and recipient should be irrelevant.

I don’t see any constructive criticism in your posts, just criticism about the original email being too long and ranty.

I don't think that's entirely fair. Trexx sumarises what she believes should be the key points in her post on the first page.

@Kendodd

I like it but would shorten and add a few facts. It has been shown that emails from females are judged more harshly than emales from males, this has consequences for individual careers of women and businesses. In business correspondence the sex/gender/whatever of the sender and recipient should be irrelevant.

Good reminder to set up anonymous email in a man’s name!

This brilliant. I would probably add something about increasing unconscious bias against females. Definitely saving it to inspire me in the future.

@Calyx72

I like it but would take out the adjectives "incredibly" "extremely" "completely" They remind me of how TRAs exaggerate things.

I agree with @TreXX and @Calyx72

I propose the following email/ letter -

Dear XX

I am a client of yours but I am sending this from an anonymous email account out of fear I will experience repurcussions by your staff if they knew my identity. This letter concerns the use of pronouns in your staff's email signatures.

I wanted to let you know that I see the statement of pronouns in email signatures as a political statement on a controversial and divisive issue. It makes me feel uncomfortable as I'm concerned that I may not receive fair treatment if I disagreed with your staff on this issue. This disagreement may well happen. By being so open in their signatures, they have taken the first step in discussing such matters with clients.

I would like to ask if your company supports or requires making similar political declarations? For example, statements about Brexit, lockdowns, vaccines or ones about their religion or sexuality?

When I see your staff making political statements in their email signatures, it makes me question their professional impartiality. As a client, I wonder if I would be trated fairly if they found out that I profoundly disagreed with them on this topic.

I believe my concerns about this ideology and my own beliefs as a client are reasonable. Trans activists have and do target people in their workplaces (which is why I will not reveal my identity), and some are particularly abusive towards women. Whilst I do not know if your staff agree with such tactics, as a client I feel like should be to be wary considering the often aggressive nature of activism that is related to pronoun usage.

Therefore, I ask that XX reconsider whether it is appropriate for staff to have such, or indeed any political statements such as pronouns in their email signatures and hope you understand the negative effects they may have on your clients.

**

Correction -

I wanted to let you know that I see the inclusion of pronouns in email signatures as a political statement. It makes me feel uncomfortable as I'm concerned that I may not receive fair treatment if I disagreed with your staff on this issue.