Declining to put my preferred pronouns in my email signature

[HowDoIGetThisThingOff]

It's finally happened, I've been "told" to put my preferred pronouns in my email signature at work.

I've emailed back saying my preference is that I don't do this. But I'm feeling a bit anxious 😬.

Please can I get some advice on what to say if they come back with questions or pressure to comply?

[midgemadgemodge]

It's not a rough example

It's asking what you actual mean

You provided an example
It fell over at the first cursory glance

You are unable to improve on it

You haven't actually got a clue have you?

[SargentSagittarius]

@janeinthewild

I'll use a rough example for this. Imagine you see a photo of an attractive male and an attractive female. As a woman, I am more likely to think 'I wish I looked like that' when looking at the photo of the woman and not the man.

It's likely not exactly the same for being transgender, I would not know as I am not trans myself. But that is the best way I can describe the feeling of knowing what your gender is.

Of course that is only a small example and everyone's relationship with gender is not exactly the same but I hope that makes it a little bit easier to relate to/understand

No, that doesn’t help me understand what ‘feeling like a woman’ means at all. And it doesn’t help me to know whether I’m a woman, nor how to describe whether I’m a woman or a man.

I used to be able to do that really easily - there was a word, and the fact that I have female anatomy and xx chromosomes all meant I was a woman.

But now it’s transphobic / hateful / bigoted to refer to any of that.

So can you help me out?

[Jetband]

@janeinthewild

@AnarchoTyrannosaurus I just think it's rather immature to kick up such a big fuss over adding two words to your email signature. Everyone has to do things they don't want to in life and adding your pronouns is really not that hard

That’s rather missing the point; I don’t think anyone’s suggesting it’s ‘hard’. Maybe read the posts more carefully?

[FatAgainItsLettuceTime]

@janeinthewild tell me your pronouns if you want to, I'll even try to remember them and will use them, because no matter what my beliefs are I have no desire to intentionally hurt anyone's feelings, particularly in my workplace. But why should everyone have to "announce their pronouns" just because a vanishingly small minority of people want to announce theirs?

Me telling you that I am biologically female and you can refer to me as such, does nothing to validate your identity but it does make me uncomfortable.

I am as uncomfortable with the idea of putting pronouns in my signature as I would be if I was asked to put my religion or my ethnicity in to my signature.

I don't see why it's ok to tell me I should do that.

[TWETMIRF]

@janeinthewild

@AnarchoTyrannosaurus So are we condoning mockery now? Is that really the best idea

Men saying they are women is mockery

[SargentSagittarius]

@janeinthewild

@AnarchoTyrannosaurus So are we condoning mockery now? Is that really the best idea

Have you seen Dylan Mulvaney………………………………?!

[SwordToFlamethrower]

"I'm not willing to out myself one way or another. Thank you"

[Mixedberrygenderfluidmuffin]

janeinthewild · Yesterday 22:22
@AnarchoTyrannosaurus So are we condoning mockery now? Is that really the best idea

The ideas of ‘preferred pronouns’ and ‘gender identities’ are ridiculous.

The appropriate response to ridiculous ideas is to ridicule them.

I don’t ‘condone’ this mockery, I applaud it.

[midgemadgemodge]

Isn't it rather immature to think that it doesn't matter ?

Just two little words eh?
If those little words are so insignificant then why do you need them?

[AnarchoTyrannosaurus]

*I don’t ‘condone’ this mockery, I applaud it., 😁

[Lolapusht]

Mockery = literal violence!

Another clear case of being genocided 🙄

So the whole pro-nouns thing is allegedly to make trans (inc enby, agender/sexual etc, etc, etc) feel included and welcome. How many trans people are people working with? If you’ve got an office of 50 people all being voluntarily required to use pronouns in email sigs to score DEI points, how many trans people are there in that office? Are there not a lot of offices where everyone’s wearing their 🌈 lanyards and stating pronouns with 0 trans members of staff?!

[Jetband]

@DumboLives

Felix will explain all this (the one in pink) https://talk.tv/news/12128/no-im-not-going-to-tell-you-my-preferred-pronouns

Great example of gender announcement redundancy. Who’d have guessed Felix would be ‘the one in pink’ if it hadn’t been stated🤔
‘Gender-bending’ (as it was known in my youth) is nothing new; why does this generation want to make such a big fuss about it? It’s always been de rigueur in certain walks of life, from ‘30s Berlin to ‘80s Bowie to ‘00s Antony (now Anohi); the nightclubs of (well, my) youth; any creative tribe. At art school in the ‘80s half the students dressed as the opposite sex, Boy George or spares from a panto production; nobody blinked. There were usually a couple of people undergoing complete transition (ie hormones and surgery); we knew they were and addressed them accordingly. No big deal. And no one demanded ‘the straights’ (ie everyone else) get a badge announcing their (way more obvious) preference. Can’t we let those who want to cross gender boundaries do so without demanding everyone else unnecessarily accede to strict categorisation? It’s hypocritical and divisive.

[maltravers]

Hear, hear Jetband. Just live your lives but leave me out of it.

[panodod]

@janeinthewild

@AnarchoTyrannosaurus So are we condoning mockery now? Is that really the best idea

It's a good idea to mock silly things, especially when they have potentially bad consequences if taken seriously.

People, likewise, @janeinthewild.

All this pronoun schtick is really, really silly. So, yes, a very good idea to mock it. (Although 'condone', perhaps is not an appropriate choice of words, as it connotes wrongdoing, which such mockery certainly isn't.)

[Perhaps the best idea would be something else? - L. Wittgenstein's Investigations §258, perhaps? Best idea of all? Hmm?]

[JacquelinePot]

Different question, but I think this answer is perfect

[SirVixofVixHall]

@janeinthewild

@AnarchoTyrannosaurus I just think it's rather immature to kick up such a big fuss over adding two words to your email signature. Everyone has to do things they don't want to in life and adding your pronouns is really not that hard

So if you had to put “Jane, who believes that the earth is flat and the Royal family are lizards “ at the end of every email, you’d be fine with that ?

[MzHz]

@SirVixofVixHall

So if you had to put “Jane, who believes that the earth is flat and the Royal family are lizards “ at the end of every email, you’d be fine with that ?

Absolutely this.

[MavisMcMinty]

Where do all these drive-bys come from, bleating “Why do you CARE?” “What skin is it off your nose?” “Oh, MOCKWORTHY is it?”? Is there a klaxon on their social media “ALL HANDS TO MUMSNET, ALL HANDS TO MUMSNET, EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY!”?

[AmuseBish]

@janeinthewild

I'll use a rough example for this. Imagine you see a photo of an attractive male and an attractive female. As a woman, I am more likely to think 'I wish I looked like that' when looking at the photo of the woman and not the man.

It's likely not exactly the same for being transgender, I would not know as I am not trans myself. But that is the best way I can describe the feeling of knowing what your gender is.

Of course that is only a small example and everyone's relationship with gender is not exactly the same but I hope that makes it a little bit easier to relate to/understand

So jane you think a woman has something to do with being female, and a man has something to do with being male?

When GC people make that assumption we are called transphobic.

Do you think you are conflating sex and gender here?

[ArabeIIaScott]

@JacquelinePot

Different question, but I think this answer is perfect

Not seen that in ages. Bloody brilliant.

[Oblomov23]

I just haven't. No one has yet said it's compulsory.

[SargentSagittarius]

@MavisMcMinty

Where do all these drive-bys come from, bleating “Why do you CARE?” “What skin is it off your nose?” “Oh, MOCKWORTHY is it?”? Is there a klaxon on their social media “ALL HANDS TO MUMSNET, ALL HANDS TO MUMSNET, EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY!”?

And then they disappear into the ether as quickly as they appeared, when they’re made fools of.

[Empowermenomore]

And I’ve been thinking ‘gender identity’ is such an important thing for people who don’t identify with their ‘sex’ but then they refuse to acknowledge their ‘gender identity’ and prefer to be known as the sex they are not. So where is the ‘gender identity’ gone? Lost and supplanted by a completely different concept that is sex?
Identity becomes unimportant and hides behind other concepts, so why be so proud of your identity if you don’t want people to know you have one that is different to the sex you were born into?

[deepwatersolo]

The original poster did the right thing by stating her preference is not to declare her pronoun preference. This should settle the matter. After all, it is all about free choice, isn’t it?

I‘ve got a rather rare first name, and as a consequence I‘m quite often misgendered in email exchanges, when there has been no other contact. I ignore it as it is simply irrelevant. At work they’re now giving us the option of adding pronouns to our profiles - which I ignore. If my profile pic doesn’t give a clue, so be it.
Should the pronoun thing ever become compulsory, mine will be Dr. / Dr.‘s - thank you very much.
What meanings do pronouns that one can change arbitrarily have, anyway?

[GailBlancheViola]

I'll use a rough example for this. Imagine you see a photo of an attractive male and an attractive female. As a woman, I am more likely to think 'I wish I looked like that' when looking at the photo of the woman and not the man.

It's likely not exactly the same for being transgender, I would not know as I am not trans myself. But that is the best way I can describe the feeling of knowing what your gender is.

Of course that is only a small example and everyone's relationship with gender is not exactly the same but I hope that makes it a little bit easier to relate to/understand

No it doesn't.

Sexist stereotypes - how progressive.