Pronouns - sooner than expected - help

[IamAporcupine]

I work in academia, in a medical research setting, and was quite pleased with the absence of the pronouns nonsense.

We are setting up a new large research proyect (which I will be coordinating) and have a couple of organizational meetings coming up next week. There is quite a bit of information to collect from each participating centre so we decided to create a survey for them to fill in beforehand. A young male new employee was assigned this task.

He's just sent it to me to review. There, on the first page, after 'Name' and 'Email address' is 'Pronouns'. Fuck.

I was certainly not expecting having to deal with this at work so soon, and at this level. I have filled in surveys myself where I made clear I did not believe in GI, but those were either anonymised or I did not care who read them. This is different. This will likely be me coming out as GC. I have no idea what the rest of the team thinks.

Can anyone in a similar situation help me find the best way to deal with it?
Shall I simply send it back with a 'delete this' amongst all the other changes (if there are any, I haven't even checked yet) and wait?

I will be working with this guy for the next 3-4 years. He seemed nice enough. Young and unexperienced, but keen. And kind, as I will likely find out.

Yip delete this is best first step

Do a shit sandwich . Thank him for his hard work in creating the survey. Say that however, in your opinion , it is inappropriate to ask people who might be uncomfortable doing so to identify their gender identity so think it advisable to delete the pronoun request. Tell him you are looking forward to working with him on the research project and appreciate the enthusiasm he has shown so far.

Just delete without a comment of explanation. I do believe those of us who can should use our influence in our professional settings to help stop this nonsense.

Do you want to come out as GC? If not, you could ask him to delete it for the very valid reason that not everyone feels comfortable sharing their pronouns and you don’t want people to feel pushed to declare them if they’re not ready or undecided.

Stick with the basics.

GDPR and study aims, ethics etc. Do the research require knowledge of personal pronouns? What is the data being collected for? Does it have a purpose? Would the ICO consider the data being necessary?

ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2020/09/data-protection-guidance-for-collecting-customer-information/

ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/lawful-basis-for-processing/

I am guessing that the answer would be that there is no legal basis for asking; it doesn't form part of the research; you have no use for it. So it doesn't get collected.

This is how I see it too, but must admit I was not prepared to come up so soon

I see this mentioned here quite often, and understand the logic - avoid 'pronoun usage' without coming out, but I'd feel very angry with myself if I did this.

It should be deleted because:
it isn't relevant to your research
it isn't right to demand that people 'out' themselves
it is an addition that alienates some people and it isn't yet expected or standard

Just say delete it and if asked why say that you should not be asking for unnecessary personal information.

@SamphirethePogoingStickerist

There is absolutely no need to ask for pronouns. It is not part of the data collection at all. The survey will be sent to 15 collaborators to gather details of their datasets/samples to be recruited to the research project. We included a couple of 'personal' details such as name/email/institution to make sure they were correct - definitely no need to know which pronouns they use!

If he's young and inexperienced, it may be because he's been indoctrinated and doing it because everyone on social media is doing it.

But as others have said as this relates to the collection of data, this would be defined as unnecessary data collection as it has no relevance to the subject of the survey, and you would not use pronouns when contacting anyone who fills in the survey as you would communicate with them directly, not in the third person.

I agree.... its a firm rule of data collection to only require information that is necessary to the purpose of the collection. Point it out in that light.

’We don’t need to collect this data. Please delete.’

This. Simple and direct.

Can you not just remove the line and tell him it's not relevant? You are his manager, you are the project coordinator so what you say goes. Do you think that if a man was in the situation he would have any qualms telling a junior to change something? I'm not having a go at you but we as women have to stop second guessing ourselves at every step for fear of causing offence.

Either delete it or add a prefer not to say option (personally I'd quietly delete it)

Don't put a 'prefer not to say' option either. If you must put something put Not Applicable. Completing surveys with this one winds me up completely. In fact surveys which talk about gender when they mean sex now get the delete button straight off.

I'd refer them to a dictionary. Males/men are he and females/women she.

Exactly this. You are in charge, don't make a big scene or JADE it, just delete it.

Is gender relevant to the study? If not I would consider this to be an inappropriate question to have.

Gender should be left at the door to ensure it does not become an issue & everyone has an equal opportunity (is how my world works).

I suspect young people just blindly jump on this bandwagon now without thinking.

I know, you are totally right.

If you rely on participation of volunteers and don't want them to drop out, asking for pronouns might be a good idea, since you will be contacting them, or? Just put a *voluntary next to the pronouns box and off you go. If you personally have problems with the designator "pronoun", then ask them "how would you like us to refer to you - Mr, Mrs, Ms, other (please fill in)".

How would i like you to refer to me? By name, please. Siobhan will do.

You have misunderstood the nature of the research being undertaken.

Oh, I see - you want the data of the collaborators at the other centres. Well, you'll still need their cooperation through this multi-year process. When you address them, "Hi Sam" will be sufficient. Now you want to mention Sam to another collaborator. Wouldn't it be easier to know whether Sam is a woman or a man?