I am embracing virtue signalling pronouns in emails

[MsFogi]

I have realised I have made too many assumptions about gender over the years. I had always assumed that Paul (name changed of course) in my company was a man simply on the basis of his appearance (well over 6 foot, well built, big beard, low voice that only someone with an Adam's apple and whose balls have dropped could have). Imagine my relief to find that I have not been misgendering him for over a decade because he has helpfully added his pronouns to his email auto signature - they are he/him/his. There is no company diktat to add pronouns on emails so clearly this is important to Paul or maybe he has been misgendered recently.

So, I thought I would ensure that Paul was not offended on a Teams meeting this afternoon and kicked off the meeting by asking everyone to note that Paul's pronouns are he/him/his and that given that he has stated these that everyone please be sensitive to ensuring that they use them. No one said anything so I think they all took it on board, no one misgendered Paul and I like to think that his move to include his pronouns at work has been embraced in my meeting. Maybe as a result others that attended the meeting will add theirs to their auto signatures too.

Yep! Endorsing pronouns means you agree that men can say they are women. If men can be women then at what point are they not women

i work with loads of pronoun staters (nhs) and I know full well the vast majority of my colleagues haven’t given it more than a moments thought other than beeee kind/it’s just the latest ridiculousness from nhs England/obviously men are not actually women

and that’s what TRA have relied on. By the time ppl wake up & go “wait! What?? I’m meant to believe they’re actual women?? Wtf??” It’s too late

im beyond bored of ppl saying “it doesn’t hurt me”. Do ppl really think we’d have men in womens prisons, refuges, sports, development programmes etc without the softening up of agreeing that Dave in accounts must be addressed as she/her & be treated like a women otherwise he’ll be sad?

Did you really though? If so I love you.

Does leave me wondering if pips has two different email addresses? Anyone know?

I guess there will be a statement at the bottom of the email signature, sort of like the ones which say "my working days vary from week to week".

We don’t know why he did it, but it might be because (like me) he wanted to normalise the inclusion of pronouns in email signatures to make things slightly easier for those who have more need of them (because they are otherwise likely to be misgendered).

There seems to be an odd base assumption that voluntary pronoun-sharers might be embarrassed about it and expect no one to refer to it. Why would they be, it certainly isn't my experience?

Ok, so if a colleague includes in their email signature that they work Monday to Thursday, it’s fine for their manager to unilaterally decide in a team meeting to announce how important it is that everyone is aware this person only works Monday to Thursday? The individual wants their colleagues and contacts to be aware of the days they work on, that doesn’t mean that want a big fuss or attention being drawn to it.

I can't imagine my colleagues who work part time having an issue with that, and yes it does get mentioned in passing a lot when talking about group work. Maybe we're terrible but no one is thinking "can't talk about this person's working pattern, they might be sensitive about it". It's just a reasonable factor in planning.

You sound like a really dreary schoolteacher.

It's embarrassing how clever the OP thinks she is.

Some people just understand women's intelligent humour 🤷‍♀️

Wow, this thread has made the fanclub very sulky!

I guess it's because OP has dared to a) laugh at them and b) be in a position of authority, and both of those are unbearable sins in women.

Just ignore the sourpussed little shites, OP! Well, I'm sure you were planning to anyway. Gentle mockery is a good way to deal with the nonsense.

I'd say robust mockery of what is utter nonsense is a requirement these days, if this culture is to regain an iota of sanity.

Ha ha ha ha

Oh you've really ruffled some feathers OP.
It's delicious

I'll be doing this from this point onwards. I feel its only right 😇

Hey womanittee, I'd like to revisit discussions last night, because I think there is a facet to this that has gone uncommented on, and it's one we need to identify and discuss.

aseriesofstillimages made various posts which I will quote here.

Post 1: The best thing to do depends on the precise circumstances. If an existing member of staff changes their pronouns their manager should ask them how they want it handled - eg whether it should be actively brought to the team’s attention, or if they will just correct people politely if they use the wrong pronoun.

If it’s a case of a new person joining the team, then it’s for that person to decide whether to announce their pronouns when being introduced to people, or just correct them if they assume the wrong pronoun.

Post 2: I don’t think I’ve ever seen that. I’ve seen people correct other people about a colleague’s pronouns if they’ve used the wrong one, but I can’t recall anyone at work just announcing another person’s pronouns for them.

Post 3: You refer to them as they/them, and correct others politely if you hear them using a different pronoun for the person.

So you can't make an announcement of the pronoun changes without consulting the person involved. Right, fine. But you can and should go round correcting junior staff on how to speak, without prior warning. You can set people you manage up to fail, by correcting them on something they had no chance to know about.

You can put people on the backfoot, and make them feel terribly awkward. You can make them worry that they missed an important briefing or email. I mean, they must have, because what kind of workplace goes round correcting people without giving them a chance to get it right first time?

Take "trans" anything out of the equation and look at what this policy actually means in the workplace. It's leaving linguistic traps in conversation and then self-righteously chastising the victims when they walk into the trap you left. It's a totally unacceptable way to treat people. It's toxic, and it's baked into the whole "transinclusive" mindset.

Stop the presses here, but employees without trans identities matter too. Some of them also have mental health issues that could be exacerbated by the behaviour of colleagues and superiors at work.

I've been doing this for a while now.

If I refer to a third person in an email and that person has advertised their pronouns, I always include them in their name.

So for instance;

'Bob Smith (he/him/his) should be able to help you with this query'.

I presumed I was being polite here, to ensure that Bob doesn't get accidentally misgendered, leaving Bob in an emotional state with him unable to complete his days work without resorting to therapy.

So Paul (a bloke) is allowed to embrace pronouns yet I (a middle aged woman) am not and if I do a bloke can complain about me doing so?

Yep. Because it isn't enough for us to use compelled language, we are mean and nasty if we don't genuinely believe in that compelled language even if we do use it.

Basically, if you're born with a vagina then you can't win.

Take "trans" anything out of the equation and look at what this policy actually means in the workplace. It's leaving linguistic traps in conversation and then self-righteously chastising the victims when they walk into the trap you left. It's a totally unacceptable way to treat people. It's toxic, and it's baked into the whole "transinclusive" mindset.

And all to force people to uphold an ideology, even if its against the person's will or best interests.

Absolutely!

Is it, aye? Is it cringe?

What else? Any more ad homs to wheel out? Do you realise women here stopped being affected by ostentatiously withering opinions in approximately 1987?

Oh that is a great idea - I'll be copying that going forward!

It’s a bit sad when posters pop on to tell us how awful we are. Are we supposed to care? Is someone telling us we’re being mean supposed to make us grovel in apology and pop off to ‘educate ourselves’ into ‘being better allies’?

I don’t mind being called a dreary schoolteacher. Also don’t see this as classic/legend/hilarious/intelligent women’s humour. It’s not actually funny.

Yes it is. It’s funny and a very clever way of showing this ridiculous ideology up for the pathetic load of gobbledegook it is.

Yes it is. It’s funny and a very clever way of showing this ridiculous ideology up for the pathetic load of gobbledegook it is

It's really not. It's actually one of the nastiest threads I've seen on munsnet, and that's saying something.

Well there’s a really cool function called hide the thread. That might protect your delicate eyes.

It's actually one of the nastiest threads I've seen on munsnet, and that's saying something.

Being amused at men announcing they use "he/him" pronouns? In what world is that nasty?

That could be enlightening in some places.

'OK, now we have the operations manager Fred, who is a white middle aged middle class man, speaking'

'Andy, you're the Finance Director and a white middle aged middle class man, what do you think?'

'Steve, as the HR lead and a white middle aged middle class man, what's your take in this?'

'Stuart, how does this impact delivery of the project - oh, I'm so sorry, I forgot, You're a white middleclass and middleaged man - in terms of our target demographics of lower income females of other ethnicities? As a white middle class and middle aged man, what do they want?'