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.

Reading comprehension is obviously not your strong point. Old Crone asked the question obviously not having read the background. You couldn't even read the reply. Wow.

What background? I read Dragonskin's post and your reply (as well as the rest of the thread). What other background is there?

You implied that it was necessary to know someone's sex and/or gender if you were emailing them.

So you you didn't read the first two words of my reply?

I don't. I was responding to someone who said that all the emails with pronouns she had seen, matched their sex. I asked how she knew.

The first two words of your reply were 'lucky you' which was what made me think that you thought it was important to know the sex/gender of someone you were emailing.

Why else would you say 'lucky you'?

Because she said she met her colleagues in real life, or they had pictures on their emails. I am not lucky enough to have that. Which I said, in the post you must have read, to be able to respond to it. Christ.

I literally said I'd never met half my colleagues in real life and hadn't see the rest in two years, it's actually more: my office shut for Covid in March 2020 and never reopened. The half of my colleagues who joined since then have never been to the office. People make snide remarks about their privilege showing, it's obvious they have no empathy for people who don't see one human from one day to the next. Privilege indeed. Perhaps they shouldn't make mean remarks about being 'boggled' and ask me direct instead of snarking to other posters. And you had no need to join in, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt you had just not seen the background.

This to me?
You could take your own advice and address me direct, in stead of making snide remarks about 'people who...'
Anyway, your post is irrelevant to the topic in hand. Being lonely and cut off during covid doesn't mean you need to know someone's pronouns before responding to them in a work email.

This really is one case where that old MN adage 'No is a complete sentence' applies.

Just don’t do it. Many won’t. I haven’t and if anyone asks I’m happy to give them my many and varied reasons.

I just say 'that isn't a practice I follow'. I've never been pressed further on this, and if I were, would probably just say something like 'my sex is irrelevant'.

It really is frustrating. I've experienced direct discrimination in the workplace, as well as sexual harassment, in the workplace. I've taken the stance my whole adult life that my sex has no bearing on the way I do my job.

Now, this sudden preoccupation with pronouns is completely undermining those principles. I'm glad for so many here, this is apparently a hill to die on. Me, too.

It really is frustrating. I've experienced direct discrimination in the workplace, as well as sexual harassment, in the workplace. I've taken the stance my whole adult life that my sex has no bearing on the way I do my job.

same. The only time i came remotely close to being asked to state my pronouns i made a short speech like the quote above. We all moved on.

I don't make any judgements, some are compelled to add pronouns, some do it voluntarily. I try to be professional and handle things as they come. That is the extent of my engagement with colleagues. I am not their friend, i don't want to know about their lives or their politics unless i get to know them organically. And that is it.

If i get asked again i will reply "no, thank you" and leave it at that.

Hi OP, I read this article the other day that articulates very much well the arguments for not adding pronouns to your signature. I plan to use it as an inspiration if my workplace start this nonsense.

To me / To you
Grand/Pooh/Bah
Right/Hoarding/Dinosaur

Outside of the odd email from a HR/diversity person I haven’t seen pronouns becoming a thing in the City.

Sex discrimination is enough of an issue without being obliged to emphasise your femaleness on every written communication.

I would question how employers could guarantee that people expressing legitimate and lawful gender critical beliefs won’t feel they are facing discrimination if they were pressured to include pronouns.

In 1983 I drafted my first business letter in my name. My boss made me change A N Smith [ were that my name] to Mrs A N Smith so the recipient would know how to address the reply. I can understand the reasons for that then , but it was annoying as my signature was and is deliberately just the two initials first and in those days women had a harder time with equality even in law firms so my original plan had been to ensure the people getting my letters would not know if I were female or male.

I am certainly not putting "preferred pronouns" on linked in for example, although in my case anyone can google search my name and see a photo and video and articles and work out I am female anyway.

I've ignored it and also the request to update protected characteristics with what we identify as .

If they can't tell I sure as hell aren't gonna tell them .

If forced I will be writing that I identify as a fishfinger and wish to
Wear only breadcrumbs.

n 1983 I drafted my first business letter in my name. My boss made me change A N Smith [ were that my name] to Mrs A N Smith so the recipient would know how to address the reply. I can understand the reasons for that then

I have gone by Initial + Lastname for most of my working life for the same reason. One, early on [old git of a dinosaur, had connipations when i wore a smart trousersuit "you look like a mechanic"] said that he didn't approve and that the replies of "Dear Initial + Firstname" was an affront to grammar.

Lucky me, i was a bolshy twat even back then and just ignored him. But this is the main reason I'm not using pronouns.

Pity you forgot the full stop.😎

We had this at my work - put forward as an update from IT. Almost everyone has ignored it except for the junior staff. Even my TWAW colleagues haven’t done it.

I wouldn't suggest this if you're planning on omitting the ablative 😉