Why is announcing pronouns a bad thing?

[Puffincrossing]

Help me! I have previously spoken to Head of primary school about whole gender ideology and he was interested and in agreement but obviously we didn't cover in too much depth. He has now suggested you all sign off emails with he/him etc. I want to say this is a shit idea but I'm not sure how to. Does anyone know of a good article I could forward that would explain it more eloquently than I can please?

I don't want to draw attention to my sex while the world is still sexist.

And obviously because it signals allegiance to an ideology that I don't believe in or support, but that's harder to explain to the uninitiated without sounding like you should be wearing a tin foil hat.

www.filia.org.uk/latest-news/2021/12/1/should-you-declare-your-pronouns-a-simple-guide

I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all as long as it’s optional.
What I hate is pressure to do it and the suggestion of homophobia if you don’t and the need to justify why you don’t want to

I read somewhere that we don't expect people to announce their star-sign, so why is it the different with pronouns?

Everyone has a star-sign but only a minority believe in them, the same goes for pronouns.

It forces everyone to accept that particular belief structure.

If asked I intend to say that I don’t believe in the concept of gender identity and stating my pronouns implies that I do which is compelled speech. I couldn’t be compelled to state my sexual orientation or religion in my email signature and gender identity is a similar belief.

Poorly worded above - sexual orientation is of course not a belief

It's compulsory sexism, forcing people to subscribe to the doctrine that men and women are a personality type. I would assume that any organisation that goes in for this sort of thing has regressive views about the roles of men and women and provides an unhealthy environment for female workers and clients. Tell them they are being sexist for believing that gender is a quality that individuals possess and not just a cultural invention.

We have a book in our library about trans - full of the usual rubbish.

But it does say that no one should feel they have to state pronouns if they don't want to.

For me it's the element of compelled speech.

I spent some time as a child living in a couple of dictatorships. This has an impact on how you feel about shit like this.

And anyway, in my case its 100% obvious from my name and appearance, so I'm not wasting my time or anyone else's.

I need to vent about pronouns!

Bloody pronouns! Argh!! We've just had talks from Stonewall at work over the last few weeks and of course more of the organisation are now putting their pronouns in their email signatures. One by one, they're falling like dominoes and, every time I see that someone else has fallen for the 'be kind' mantra, I get even more deflated. It'll just be left soon that doesn't have my bloody pronouns in any of my work related information.

Do people not realise the implications of what they're doing? Do they not realise that it's a political statement? And do they row back on it once they've done it?

It's so frustrating to see seemingly intelligent people fall for this stuff.

[Gets off soapbox]

Do people not realise the implications of what they're doing? Do they not realise that it's a political statement? And do they row back on it once they've done it?

No, they don't. Stonewall and the allies placed in the organisation aren't going to tell them. People are doing this because they have an instinct to #BeKind and nobody has told them about the wider implications.

Nobody can afford to tell them about what they are really signing up to because the bar for transphobia is so low (see the letter at the heart of the legal challenge to the DofE in re: the transphobic 6 year-old) that it's implausibly difficult to have a conversation that wouldn't bring adverse consequences. See Forstater and so many other instances.

Thank you all. Very helpful. I've hopefully had a productive conversation with Head today. Will see what happens next.

Because up until yesterday humanity survived just fine without stating pronouns. And now because an ideology uses pronouns as a tool to submit others to it and to get others to validate it, suddenly everyone is forced to do it. It is not appropriate to push an ideology like that.

Trevor Phillips mentions pronouns in the Times today. I haven’t got a token though.

Share token for the Trevor Phillips column:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/6b9d197e-9289-11ec-9aec-82f0032d4cd3?shareToken=d4d42e857a45ef724a62ccc9b7687403

Should totally be a choice. I use pronouns on my emails purely as it helps me personally. My name is ambiguous and I work in a female dominated profession so to give clarity in my email avoids assumptions.

Thank you Goats
From that article:
“ The implications of this speech apartheid for those who work in the realm of creativity and the imagination are crushing. But they are even more alarming for those who operate on less exalted planes. The vogue for adding pronouns to email addresses may seem a small act of politeness, such additions to the message being sold as a courteous, inclusive gesture. But inclusion should not be reduced to a fashion statement.

Many people have perfectly good reasons not to disclose aspects of their identity. There is a reason why people called JK (Rowling) and George (Eliot) have found publishers more amenable than people called Joanne and Mary Ann. Yet the same firms that boast race and gender-blind recruitment are now requiring women to declare their sex in every communication.

The most pernicious effect of this new apartheid is that each of us is steadily being reduced to cardboard cut-outs defined by a single characteristic, forced to conform with our stereotype. This robs society of the very diversity the language police claim to be protecting. The pressure to limit our ability to speak openly and civilly, to and about each other, marks an assault on the open-mindedness of a liberal society. As we say in the Caribbean: “Every rope got two ends” — meaning there should always be more than one way to see any situation. We can all hold the same rope without being forced to pull it in the same direction.(