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.

Good point. And you'll know whether to get Sam scented bath bombs in the secret santa, or just beer.

And what was the effect of not knowing Sam's sex? Why did it matter? You managed fine for three years, presumably?

I had to use "Sam" a lot, rather than him/his or her/hers, that was grammatically awkward.

@CatherinaJTV Looks like you missed my previous question.

When you met this Sam in person, did he tell you his pronouns? Otherwise, how did you know he was a man?

They can legitimately be used in that situation and is grammatically fine since about 1300

I work with many Chinese researchers. As names in that language are not gendered (I've met a female and male Yuan, and also seen it as a surname) I never know (or care). I use their correct acadmic title and "they/their" as appropriate.

What is useful to know for a new cohort of students in this building (university STEM department) is the number of FEMALES in terms of toilet provision, as historically there have been fewer facilities for us. But this means we have to know their SEX, not gender identity or pronouns. Some of us do the boring old unglamorous admin of sanitary bin provision.

I'd go with this then, you shouldn't be collecting data you don't need.

When you met this Sam in person, did he tell you his pronouns? Otherwise, how did you know he was a man?

Perhaps Catherina can see people's souls, like that lib dem woman? After all, there is no other way to tell whether someone is a man, woman or aliengender until they tell you.

In the end he gave me editing rights to the document so I deleted it myself. I made many other changes and he did ask about some of these, but did not mention the pronouns section at all.

Easier than expected.

I have not seen him in person yet so not sure if he'll start looking at me funny!

Thanks everyone

Well done, OP. Sounds like a very sensible approach.

Has anyone managed to formulate a short, polite response to why they don’t want to declare their pronouns? I’m thinking ahead to the scenario where you have an outside speaker/trainer in work, who asks everyone to introduce themselves & give their pronouns.

I’m not particularly bothered about being seen as GC, but I would get in trouble if I was rude/hostile to an invited speaker.

I have decided that if I am asked for mine I will just say "I am not into all of that I identify as stuff, so no thanks"

If someone tells me I must use theirs I will say "I will make every effort to remember that, thank you" then I will probably forget as I would only ever use them when they are not present and I have better things to do with my brain cells. I would make a mental note to always use their given name though, easier as it would be used in and out of their presence.

If I get it wrong I would apologise. I don't want to piss anyone one off. But if I was reprimanded for doing so I have decided I will say something along the lines of "I beg your pardon! I made an error in preferred pronoun use in the absence of the person being referreed to. Hardly a hanging offence, or is it?" and would be ready to stand on my rights to be offended in return!

Until I can think of something better....

If it's just a general "please introduce yourself and share your pronouns" I'd just ignore the pronouns part then if asked individually I'd just say I don't have a preference.

Ooh... I don't have a preference being inserted into memory

I've just ignored the question so far, when asked.

"Just my name is fine, thanks".

Or "second person, singular pronouns if I am here, I don’t mind how you refer to me when I'm not".

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.

My standard reply to people asking me to put my pronouns in emails etc is that i have been working for nearly 40 years in mostly male dominated industries. I spend a lot of time "de-femaling" my emails (and previously telexes, faxes and letters) and signing off with initial + lastname to put the inevitable outing myself as a woman off to the last possible moment in a bid to stop what i say being dismissed out of hand because of "not coming from a man" reasons. However i am comfortable saying that and i have retirement in my sights so it won't have a huge impact on my career if i say this now.

Being pragmatic - if you want to continue in your position, and continue your GC beliefs and doing what you can to counter the pronoun thing then it is better to be pragmatic. And for me this would be to ask him to delete the pronoun request because it will force some people to out themselves before they are ready. He is not to know that you mean GC colleagues as well as anyone who uses pronouns that don't - er how to say it? - match their physical appearance etc.

That covers all bases honestly, and keeps you in a position where you can nip this in the bud in future.

(having said that: i have no objection to people adding their pronouns if that's what they want to do, and i have no problem using people's chosen pronouns. It's just not for me and i would resent very much being forced to do so)

I thought about it if ever it creeps in here, and my reply will be that I think
that may distressing to those who are not yet ready to come out as trans-gender to their colleagues because you are either forcing them to announce their internal pronouns prematurely, or forcing them to use pronouns that they feel doesn't match their inner selves and wouldn't it be better to just not do that?

If asked what my own pronouns are, I plan on informing whoever asked that I'm non-binary and still deciding on what they are.

If you're asked to introduce yourself with your name and pronouns, just do your introduction with your name and leave it as that. That then puts pressure on the speaker/trainer to make an issue out of it or not. If they then prompt for pronouns (so have decided to be antagonistic over it) ask "what the options are", then ask "does me/you count as pronouns?".

I think a lot of disingenuous bollocks is talked about the pronoun thing.
quite clearly it is not quite only about how people should refer to you in the third person. It is about asking how you would like people to address you if your appearance doesn't match what you would like to be called (so if you don't look like a woman really but you want to be addressed as a woman)

So all you need to say is "it might make some people feel uncomfortable and out them" and leave it at that. If you're ancient and creaky and nearing retirement (me) you might also like to point out that outing yourself as a woman before you have to might mean people don't take what you say seriously etc.

Instead of putting the onus on GC employees to erm, out themselves, switch the emphasis. Send an email saying during the upcoming event, you will be addressed using pronuns based on your sex, as recorded in your HR file. If this is likely to cause upset, please let the organiser know in advance which pronoun you would prefer.

The problem is that this nonsense is being portrayed as being the norm rather than an exception. Why should everyone be dragged into a linguistic circle jerk to satisfy a minority of people desperate to show that there really is something interesting about themselves.

This is the training location. There will be X numbet of staff participating in todays training. Most of our staff will just use their first name but some may use surnames or work role titles. We are aware of recent changes of employment case law, we here at XYZ believe that it is therefore no longer inappropriate, in a work context, to request that our employees disclose pronouns.
I have already asked everybody to
•pop their nameplate on the table
•pop on a name tag
•use their name at the start of a question.
Let me show you where your nearest toilet is. Breaks and lunch are usually at... if you need IT help with equipment...

If you are his manager always make sure that you or another senior manager has editing rights to all the documents produced by your department. Its a pain to end up reproducing a new document if your team member moves job.

That's quite disingenuous, considering your actual motivation isn't concern for anybody, but rather discomfort with trans identities being affirmed.

Disingenuous but safer than laughing.