Please update your email signature to include your pronouns

[Rosecottage888]

The email states (at the bottom) that this is optional.

I knew it was coming, saw other threads from people who's organisations asked the same. I won't do it, just wanted a moan here.

This shows just how 'optional' this is in some organisations -

www.holyrood.com/news/view,majority-of-scottish-government-civil-servants-say-theyll-never-add-pronouns-to-their-email-signatures

When the organisers of a Pronoun Pledge team use words like 'persuade' and 'educate', it's quite clear that it's not optional.

I have thought about this at length. If my workplace makes it mandatory I shall put:

Mrs Roses Hellebores
Director of HR

My pronouns are I and me; others may refer to me as she/her.

I am in the twilight of my career. If the executive team want to make this mandatory, I shall be resigning.

We have quite a lot of pronouns going on (including in a lovely educational piece from a chap who claimed he could call everyone in the room ‘they/them’ without causing offence; still fuming about that*). No hint of them being mandated yet. If it ever happens or if I’m even asked why I don’t have them, I have a variety of arguments lined up:

• The ‘people on a gender journey’ argument as above, backed up with yogyakartaprinciples.org/principle-6/ “The right to privacy ordinarily includes the choice to disclose or not to disclose information relating to one’s sexual orientation or gender identity”. I’m not keen on this one tbh but I think it’s the most likely to work on those who are really committed to this stuff.
• Stereotype threat en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat DH works for the same organisation and likes this one a lot - it’s a male-dominated, technical organisation but he works for a high-achieving female engineer.
• ”I don’t have a gender identity, therefore if you ask me to put my pronouns in my sig block you’re asking me to declare my sex. Does that sound appropriate to you? Are there any other protected characteristics you’d like me to declare every time I email anyone?”

• Calling everyone they/them is apparently fine, unless they’re clearly presenting as the opposite sex, in which case it’s offensive. So you can call me they/them even though I’m clearly female and you’re just being silly, but if my boss turns up in a dress we’d have to call him she/her (although he, sadly, does have pronouns in his sig block, so it’d actually be very confusing).

Optional where I am. It’s totally pointless, and means nothing to others reading it. It’s like virtue signalling - look at me being all woke and with it. Our boss told us to do it if possible, but it’s optional. I then judged my colleagues who immediately started doing it, because it seemed it was more for career progression and to please the boss, than actually giving a toss.

Go all Latin on them!

ea/eius/ei/eam = she/hers/for her/her

There's a great newish intro on Americast. It includes the sound bite "My name is Ted Cruz, and my pronouns are Kiss My A$$". I love hearing it every time.

Love it, thank you!

In the flesh, I'm obviously a real laydee but I'm very tempted to put he/him and tediously correct my colleagues every time they get it wrong.

I'll sit in team meetings and give everyone a big smile as they say "He did a lovely piece of work in his office" - I might even wear a tight dress to highlight my lady bumps 😀
(And the absurdity)

My gender/sexuality/age/race/religion have zero impact on my ability to do my job so I won't be adding anything to my email signature/linkedin etc.

My name is the only identifier people need.

Bloody / Obvious

Just seen a pronoun poster in my doctor's surgery. The average age of the patients is probably around 60. Made my head spin.

I work with someone in a different agency who has ‘any’. I quite like that.

Just don't do it, we had the same about 6 months ago and my very unscientific pill shows that about 80% of people just didn't do it. It's actually really noticeable when someone has.

🤣🤣🤣

They've been pushing this at my site for about a year now and almost nobody has added their pronouns (I can think of about 5 people out of 400). Globally the company uptake has been higher and now HR are focussing on our site as they are 'concerned' people cannot be their authentic self ... for context I work in a science related industry at a manufacturing site in the north with predominantly male staff and management

Would anyone be expected to put race / religion in their email signature? No.

My pronouns are Take/A/Wild/Fucking/Guess.

@StapFooterin 😂

My understanding is that trans activists generally still claim to be against the mandating of pronoun use because it might force someone to "out" themselves.

So I don't think it will count against you - they'll probably be happy to assume either the above or that you just couldn't be bothered.

We've just been given the option of pronouns in name badges but tbf to the organisation they've stressed very strongly that it's not compulsory.

M’lord suffice 🙂

Filing this for later use...might have to replacing fucking with chuffing to make it safe for work 😂

We don't know the OP's cumstances, but in mine I would use it as an opportunity to get the message out here.

I would change mine daily, after all, isn't it fluid, and can change daily, and even hourly ? Sometimes we can be in boy mode, and then in girl mode, depands on what we feel getting out of bed.

I find that when presented with a new word in this ever changing landscape, google is my friend, so I can get with the times. I am sure my colleauges use it as well.

I think my ever changing and fluid pronouns might look something like this:

Week 1
William / Lia / Thomas
Zack / Emily / Bridges
Gavin / Laurel / Hubbard
Emily / Hamilton
Giulia / Valentino

Week 2
Kathleen / Stock
Gillian / Phillip
James / Eses
Maya / Forstater
Allison / Bailey

Week 3
Dr / David / Bell
Dr / Marcus / Evans
Dr / Az / Kaseem
Kiera / Bell
Sinead / Watson

Week 4
Jennifer / Pritzker
Nancy / Kelly
Susie / Green
Darren / Mews
Jacob / Breslow

Week 5
Eddie / Izzard
Aimee / Challoner
Rosie / Duffield
Karen / White
Claire / Goodier

Week 6
Helen / Joyce
Jo / Bartosch
Julie / Blindell
Suzanne / Moore
Brendan / O'Neill

Do you like my pronouns ?

Just refuse to do it, the silence will be deafening.

Putting in silly suggestions will only lead to confrontation.

Those aren't pronouns or funny. What's the purpose?

If you mean how do you refer to them when they aren't there, you've literally just referred to them in your sentence. Why are you saying you don't know how to do it when you just have?

Lord/master ?