A simple way to explain to DH why he shouldn't* include pronouns on his email signature at work

[WookeyHole]

I really get so confused about the whole gender issue and each time I try and explain myself, I get tied up in knots. I've tried with good friends who've basically said I sound like a transphobe, which isn't my intention. I'm just not keen on women not having their own spaces.

Please can you give me a couple of sentences to explain to DH why I think it's a bad idea to include pronouns and the bigger picture it makes him a part of?

*obviously he's a grown man and can make his own mind up, but I'd like him to consider the other point of view to the Stonewall trans bandwagon he's been fed at work

I feel that it's a political statement, and that is inappropriate for individuals to make in the workplace.

It's also against Principle 6 of the Yogyakarta Principles, as it might make someone who is not ready to declare their pronouns feel pressured to do so if their entire team has pronouns in their bios they would stand out. (This is a good argument if you are in a workplace that has had Stonewall training.)

It isn't right for him to do because:

• such a declaration is inappropriate in the work-place (just as declaring your sexuality or your religion in every email would be).

• it is emphasising something (his sex) which does give him an advantage in the work place. So isn't being fair.

• it is going along with a system that is unfair to trans people who are not yet out and are not comfortable with asking people to use particular pronouns yet - nor to confirm the obvious ones.

• it is going along with a system that can cause prejudice and ill-feeling towards those who are gender-critical by exposing them in the work-place (or forcing them to pretend and go against what they believe in.)

@WookeyHole

Thanks, this is really helpful. If I play it out in my mind, I think the likely response would be 'I'm not that bothered about any of this, but what harm is it doing?'.

And that's the crux I need to get to, that it puts others in an uncomfortable position, that it reinforces bias.

Does your husband thinks he's a 'he' because he's biologically male? If so, this is not what pronouns are about so he should think twice before adding it to his bio or emails. It's an ideology based around sterotypes and I take a dim view of middle-ages men who are going along with this. Most of them know perfectly well what a male & female is.

I would also take a dim view if it wasn't so endemic and normalised. But it's been presented from a one sided view point and anyone questioning it is seen to be the difficult one.

This is why it's so complex, even though it shouldn't be.

Pronouns are actually transphobic, because it forces people to out themselves, and if you think about it you only ask someone what gender they are if you're unsure, the request is essentially "there are some people whose gender we don't know and we're asking them to state it in an email signature".

FWIW I would steer hugely clear of anyone in a professional capacity that uses pronouns, and so would most friends and family that I've discussed this with.

It signals that you are on one side of an incredibly partisan/toxic/emotive political debate. It's unprofessional. It's sexist.

It is, to use an overused term, hugely 'cringe'.

Read the Yogyakarta Principles www.oursplatform.org/resource/the-yogyakarta-principles-plus-10-yp10/ and suggest that he uses these to educate the organisation that requiring or encouraging the use of pronouns such that they become the default can be problematic for people who are struggling with their identity, not ready to come out as trans or cannot for cultural reasons. This is what I do. It makes it impossible for people to accuse you of transphobia.

On emails it can be useful if you have an ambiguous name, lots of unisex ones these days ... just saying

No issues at my work, no such silliness but my email has my title on it (Ms)

@gogohm

On emails it can be useful if you have an ambiguous name, lots of unisex ones these days ... just saying

No issues at my work, no such silliness but my email has my title on it (Ms)

If you have a unisex name and are female then it's probably to your advantage to use the ambiguity via email rather than state your sex.

This thread is absolutely insane. Comparing gender to sexuality or disability is utterly absurd.

When taking to someone/ about someone you do not need to know their sexuality or any disabilities they might have.

However people do need to know whether to write “have you emailed him/her about x yet?” You don’t say have you emailed “straight white disabled Barry” yet?

People are really clutching at straws with that argument.

Twaddle!! I dont believe in gender identify and I’m certainly not going to collude in the utter fiction that men can become women.

You don't need to know someone's sex to say anything about them

You can say he/she or they

In most case you do know, because you know them or their first name is sexed

Sometimes you don't know - if it matters then the person in question is at liberty to make it clear - but sometimes you don't know and the person in question is in no rush to let you know

Suggesting that you need to say suggests that you think they are not sex based which is buying into an ideology that many don't

It's like forcing people to say prayers before lunch

I use preferred pronouns on my work email and have been told by a few people that when others do this, it makes them feel supported and accepted. It's a small thing, takes no effort at all, and for those who feel supported by this I'd say it's well worth it
Maybe you could do an LGBTQ+awareness course?

I was the subject of some nasty, nasty (probably) homophobic bullying many years ago that culminated in a violent attack against me. The perpetrators seemed fixated on the fact that is wasn’t a ‘real girl‘ because I look butch AF. As a result i get a bit twitchy when people demand I tell them if I’m a he or a she. Because last time it really didn’t end well for me.

@CallMeDaddy58

This thread is absolutely insane. Comparing gender to sexuality or disability is utterly absurd.

When taking to someone/ about someone you do not need to know their sexuality or any disabilities they might have.

However people do need to know whether to write “have you emailed him/her about x yet?” You don’t say have you emailed “straight white disabled Barry” yet?

People are really clutching at straws with that argument.

I'd argue that someone's disability or MH/trauma needs might have a lot more to do with your response than gender. I have clients and colleagues who I variously; use larger print, call don't write, don't attach certain things because the text reader doesn't work, copy in support workers, schedule at certain times, don't knock for, can't meet in certain places, would talk as I approach, don't schedule with male workers, and so on.

With someone's pronouns, 99% of people are fine with sex-based or I use their name or 'they' if I don't. No accommodations required.

I use preferred pronouns on my work email and have been told by a few people that when others do this, it makes them feel supported and accepted. It's a small thing, takes no effort at all, and for those who feel supported by this I'd say it's well worth it
Maybe you could do an LGBTQ+awareness course?

Maybe you might do a course about brainwashing and compelled speech? Perhaps read some Vaclav Havel, 1978 who has some prescient observations about mantras and the unthinking adoption of an ideology and the true cost of the absolution that it confers.

In an era when metaphysical and existential certainties are in a state of crisis, when people are being uprooted and alienated and are losing their sense of what this world means, this ideology inevitably has a certain hypnotic charm. To wandering humankind it offers an immediately available home: all one has to do is accept it, and suddenly everything becomes clear once more, life takes on new meaning, and all mysteries, unanswered questions, anxiety, and loneliness vanish. Of course, one pays dearly for this low-rent home: the price is abdication of one’ s own reason, conscience, and responsibility, for an essential aspect of this ideology is the consignment of reason and conscience to a higher authority.

hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-of-the-powerless-vaclav-havel-2011-12-23

if you want to make this about something other than transgender identities: there is good evidence that reminding people from groups that are traditionally associated/stereotyped with poorer performance of their membership of that group actually decreases their performance for example: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9280.00111
where Asian American women performed better on a maths test when asked about race before the test (building on the stereotype that asians are good at maths) and less well when asked about sex before the test (building from the stereotype that women are less good at maths than men) - and of course all the myriad of studies that have shown women will be judged more harshly than men for the same resume/CV/essay etc: here's one: link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1018839203698

As such including pronouns actually increases his male privilege and decreases the equality of women around him.

I write as someone with a non-gendered name, the email responses I get that assume I am male are very different to those that assume I'm female. No way would I give that up voluntarily.

@CallMeDaddy58

This thread is absolutely insane. Comparing gender to sexuality or disability is utterly absurd.

When taking to someone/ about someone you do not need to know their sexuality or any disabilities they might have.

However people do need to know whether to write “have you emailed him/her about x yet?” You don’t say have you emailed “straight white disabled Barry” yet?

People are really clutching at straws with that argument.

Why can't you just write 'have you emailed Barry'?

@DomesticatedZombie On certain occasions “have you emailed Barry” would be absolutely fine. However in a protracted conversation it sounds insane.

“Have you emailed Barry yet? Barry is quite keen to receive that information. I was talking to Barry about it this morning and Barry reiterated the importance of receiving it asap”.

Clearly using he/him after the initial “Barry” makes much more sense.

@MrsTerryPratchett That clearly makes sense for your line of work but doesn’t for most.

You also conveniently glossed over the fact that I also mentioned sexuality and race, which other PPs put in the same category as gender. Acknowledging someone’s limitations because of health issues makes sense of course. They’re sexuality though?

@Sodiit

I use preferred pronouns on my work email and have been told by a few people that when others do this, it makes them feel supported and accepted. It's a small thing, takes no effort at all, and for those who feel supported by this I'd say it's well worth it. Maybe you could do an LGBTQ+awareness course?

As a woman who has been raped, and feels extremely upset at the stance taken by the transgender movement that my fear of male people is prejudiced etc, seeing pronouns makes me feel incredibly upset and anxious. It makes me feel like the person sending me the email thinks that my response one of the most traumatic experiences of my life makes me a bigot and would aggressively seek to silence me on the topic. I appreciate not every person who puts pronouns on their signature thinks that. However how am I to know? Pronouns is more than making some people feel comfortable. It signals allegiance to a movement which makes lots of women feel silenced and threatened.

At the very least you must see it’s a political statement on a very emotive topic, and not a benign way to make people feel included?

My work have encouraged the use of it but not mandated it. If they do I will be telling them they can just refer to me as my name, because being a male/female/non binary has no place in a working environment. We're there to do a job and do it well.
Maybe they could focus on preventing sexism instead by ensuring everyone is paid the same and treated equally?

*having said that though I am aware that I am lucky to have an employer that does these things so I am probably a bit blinded.

@Theredjellybean "At my job we got pressured to do this... I have Dr. As my title... When pressed for pronouns I just said "doctor"
And if someone is wanting to say "she".. I'm not the cats mother and they cab say "the doctor""

Completely agree with this, I'm a Prof, I've therefore lucked out in having a title that means I'm not discriminated against because nobody has any idea about my gender unless they've met me.

There are a few examples on the internet of people with a typical female name sending company emails and having a hard time, only to then adopt a male name and suddenly people treat them better.

It's a bit like when people say "is it miss or mrs", and I reply, "it's professor", why do I need to be put into a category of whether I am married or not, how's that's even remotely relevant to whatever service they're providing me with when a male is mr no matter what.

But to answer the original question, I find putting pronouns in emails odd, I have a friend who has transitioned, I don't think they care at all about me announcing my pronouns to the world, to me it's taking away what they've been through and trying to put the emphasis on myself. I don't need to refer to colleagues with a pronoun because everyone has a name which I use to refer to them.

I wonder if you have a title... So if I was Lady redjellybean... And I transitioned.. Or felt male... Could I just start using Lord redjellybean instead?

[quote CallMeDaddy58]@MrsTerryPratchett That clearly makes sense for your line of work but doesn’t for most.

You also conveniently glossed over the fact that I also mentioned sexuality and race, which other PPs put in the same category as gender. Acknowledging someone’s limitations because of health issues makes sense of course. They’re sexuality though?[/quote]
I didn't 'conveniently' leave it out. Nice passive aggression there BTW. I didn't mention it in my PP so I didn't mention it in my reply.

I don't think it serves women to announce their sex in a work context. The gender pay gap still exists (and in fact is huge at the company I work for).