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?

I'm still thinking about it. I don't know how long it will take for me to decide what I'm comfortable with. Right now, I'm most comfortable not having any pronouns. Is that okay?

The woman she misgendered identifies as non binary, not as a psychiatric ward!

What if you don’t ‘want’ any of them because you don’t care? What if you don’t ‘want’ to play their dumb games. Who is going to use them anyway? I got a letter recently with the signature including in brackets (she/her). Why should I care that this person who I’m never going to meet is a she/her? When am I ever going to need to know that? What the heck does it matter to me what the Dept head of a council prefers as a pronoun on their letters? I thought this shite was stopping!

I prefer the option of refusing to do this (saying 'not comfortable' etc). But, I do think that if every middle age woman started putting ridiculous pronouns in their bios/signatures etc etc this would die a death pretty quickly. Companies are desperate to be seen to be supporting 20-something women who id as non-binary or trans and over 50s men who decide they are women. But they are less keen on addressing 49 year old Julie from accounts, who has a bit of middle aged spread and loves Gary Barlow, as ze/zem and even less enthusiasm about her coming into the men's loos.

My pronouns are Emporess/Majesty .. FIGHT ME!

At least everyone now knows what a pronoun is.

You just tell the boss or the do gooder in HR that it's incredibly triggering for you, and that the question and expectation of an explanation is causing you anxiety. It's not a lie!

I was asked to do this and I very politely declined for “personal reasons”. It was never mentioned again. I have since noticed that I am not the only person in my office to not display their pronouns. Not by a country mile.

I like any of the above. Or Bencooperssupportwren’s idea to say “I don’t feel comfortable at this stage” or Ptooshe’s suggestion “I don’t feel safe” — all excellent replies.

or…. Just say “my pronouns are “I/me”

Oooh you've drunk the cool aid...

Assuming the op is female, there is a body of research that shows drawing attention to their sex has a detrimental effect on women's career progression.

While that's as good a reason as any, she also doesn't need any reason more compelling than she doesn't want to.

Although I recently had an 'inclusion' training session (interestingly all about trans, no reference to inclusion of older women etc) where one of the first slides was 'Get comfortable being uncomfortable' !!! (So many red flags)

My plan if when I am asked to put pronouns in my e-mail signature is to say that I am concerned that this will put pressure on people to out themselves when they may not be ready. I know that if I mention my real views I will be ignored (at best) as a TERF

Yeap or images

I was nearly forty when I learnt what a pronoun was. Unfortunately they are now taken as sacred

PMSL. Too right. I really want to put myself down as Zoop! and then aggressively force people to use it.

I would put " Her Royal Highness/M'lady".

Beat me to it but you missed the essential punctuation
Pronouns: fuck/off

I am also in a university in Ireland. Apparently, we have a target of getting a minimum of 60% of staff to attend an LGBTQI+ awareness training. I'm still waiting for the answer my question asking about our target for staff attending training for disability awareness, race awareness, religion awareness etc.

I am on the school EDI committee and interestingly, other than one brief presentation accompanied by a glossary of terms and the suggestion that the SU LGBTQI+ officer come and talk to us sometime, we have completely ignore any trans discussions. We're going for AS though so I expect some requests for pronouns soon.

I'd think, from a diversity/equalities/discrimination pov, they can't make it compulsory.

Of course that's ok, it's your choice and if you are unsure about what pronouns you would like people to use then that's fine. The reason that you would put your preferred pronouns in an email signature is so that the people who you work with know how best to refer to you, obviously if you don't include your pronouns then you're asking them to assume based on things like your name and appearance.

I think preferring not to say what you prefer is a bit petty, to be honest. It's only so that people get it right.

I am OK with people using any pronouns for me. I have a foreign name so I am quite often misgendered. But I live with it.

But what exactly am I asking them to assume about me if I give a specific pronoun?

Like historically it was a simple if unnecessary reflection of sex - something simple and unarguable

But now I am being asked to chose - what exactly ? What is is ok to assume about someone who puts say "she her" in their pronouns ? What aspects of social interaction might I get wrong by not understanding this ?

I don’t want to force speech on anyone. That’s my preference. I want them to use whatever works for them.

But you are basically forcing speech onto someone. You don't have your pronoun used at you, only about you. So in what world is it ok to police what others are saying when they arent saying it to you?