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.

Why does it always have to be he/him or she her? If I get forced to, I think mine will be she/his/hers/himself Or he/hers/his/herself. And they will change on a daily basis.

This. Except, though Paul may be nice, he knows exactly what he's doing and his motives were self serving.

Exactly, Paul wanted everyone to know what a good virtue signalling ally he is, it's performative and done purely so he can bask in the warm glow of his own 'goodness'.

If what the OP quite reasonably did to promote his goodness and prevent colleagues saying the wrong thing burst his bubble, and there's no indication either way, then too bad, so sad, get over it.

Exactly.

As a society, we need to reacquaint ourselves with the original intentions of "inclusivity".

It's not a synonym for "centring those and only those who identify as trans, no matter whom else our behaviour drives out".

Where does it stop? Will they refrain from upbraiding Dustin about pronouns, when his first language is obviously sign language?

Some may find the example employees I have used implausible, but they are all people (identifying details changed) or composites of people with whom I have worked since I left school.

I honestly think they/them is the best. Try using those and making any sense whatsoever 😂

I have a very tiresome they/ them colleague (his email signature includes sample sentences demonstrating correct pronoun use).
He recently left something behind after a meeting and it was given to me to return to him.
When I did so he quizzed me about who had given it to me: "male or female?" I'm still kicking myself that I didn't think of responding "don't know - didn't ask" in time.

I could do all three. He/her/their/thiself. IT would be crying in a corner in a week.

Apparently you can make up your very own special pronouns, mine are idgaf/foyt.

I'll leave you to work out what they are.

Well played op 😁

The difference is that you don’t need to know the colour of a person’s skin or their ethnic heritage in order to refer to them in the third person.

You seem very sure about that @aseriesofstillimages ?

I don't need to know their gender identity, either...

And yet people insist on telling me that as last week, B identifies as fae/faer...

You can have any opinion you like, you can state it here for anyone to see, then we can if we wish take it apart. that's the nature of the boards. If you dont like disagreements, probs best not to even post on the interwebs, otherwise have at it, make your posts and if you feel like it defend it, or not.

Why, do you disagree?

twitter.com/alexstein99/status/1549770932310392837?s=20&t=yTXkROMLv57r77yGVZPPpQ

We should never mock!

It’s not really about referring to them in the third person though.

It’s about someone starting the bleeding obvious about a characteristic of theirs that bestows privilege upon them, and through supposedly wins social brownie points for ‘allyship’…. when actually everyone around them can actually see (and hear? And smell?) that characteristic, so they don’t need to be told. And then… anyone who dares to ask ‘what the bloody hell is going on here?’ Is called out as a nasty bigot?

It’s obviously acceptable to do this with some characteristics (making proclamations as to one’s (male?) sex or ‘gender’ or indeed one’s preferences as to how one should be referred by others), but not others (one’s race, or any other characteristic actually). Odd that.

Maybe it’s because proclaiming one’s pronouns is super cheap and easy, and has no negative effect on men.

What is your reasoning behind that bold declaration?

Does it have no negative effect on men though? I would think if a man had to put he/him it would suggest there was some reason for confusion or he had something to prove.

Nah. It doesn’t have a negative effect on natal men. Many, many of the ones I’ve seen are just as OP describes.

The ones that I’ve seen using it are either in denial about biological reality, or lacking knowledge about what they are buying into.

It makes me have a more negative opinion of them, so that’s a downside; I’m sure many others quietly feel the same.

And I count some of these men as friends.

i can’t raise it with them though. How sad.

The ones doing those pronouns are deliberately taking the piss, they know it, we know it and yet if anyone dare call them out on it the furies of hell are unleashed and that is why the whole preferred pronoun diktat is so insidious and damaging.

The only possible reason I can think of where it might be necessary to know a person’s ethnic heritage to refer to them in the third person in English would be if you were using their name, and the correct pronunciation of their name was related to their heritage. But if we’re talking about what information might be useful to include in an email signature in order to ensure people are referred to correctly, it would be more straightforward to include an explanation of how to pronounce your name rather than state your heritage, as most people probably wouldn’t know how that affected the pronunciation of the name.

I think this whole thread is a faintly hilarious metaphor for pronouns. Talking about someone who isn't here, no offence @MisgenderedPaul

"Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them."

Couldn't be more apt really.

Exactly @Datun .

Thanks for such a wonderfully reasoned response Datun - as always you manage to encapsulate the issues so much more eloquently than I could ever hope to.

I am genuinely interested in the different reactions of people on this thread - I posted simply to share what seems to me the logical thing for GC women to do where possible given the ever-increasing unthinking prevalence of pronouns (particularly their proliferation on LinkedIn and on email autosignatures). And, yet again, I genuinely covered Paul's pronouns in an extremely neutral way (but I understand that those on this thread are imagining various horrors) and Paul is a pretty senior, robust chap so I would be surprised if he was crying in the men's loos after the meeting. Who knows though - maybe he took a moment to think about whether there was a risk of his pronouns being covered at all meetings he attends going forward or if he should be keeping an eye on others' auto signatures/LinkedIn profiles going forward so that he can cover them when he chairs meetings (maybe it gave pause for thought to others at the meeting too).

All that said, I certainly did not intend for any GC women to end up at loggerheads given that this is one part of a much larger issue, albeit one that, as many have said on this thread, is the thin end of the wedge. That said, part of the joy of the feminism boards over the years has been the excellent debate between so many women who are much more intelligent to me (note to the poster who was embarrassed on my behalf for somehow appearing to think that I am clever - I don''t know which half of the population I fall in but I don't think any woman should be embarrassed if she is clever or even about thinking she is clever).

MsFogi (Clever/clogs)