Pride Month: Workplace have asked for anonymous feedback on "how can we be more inclusive?"

[Bornin1989]

I work for an SME who are big on their inclusive ethos (a good thing) but for the last couple of years have made a habit of asking staff, esp. new starters, to "State your name, role and pronouns". We are also "encouraged" to put our pronouns in our e-mail signature, to help trans and non-binary staff members feel safe and included. As part of pride month they've created an anonymous form to collect feedback on how to make the company more inclusive.

I used it as an opportunity to tell them about gender critical feminism, asked them to stop asking people's pronouns in company meetings (pronouns in e-mail signatures are non-compulsory thankfully!), told them that GC beliefs are protected in law and why GC is not transphobia. I also said I was happy to work alongside, love and respect trans and non-binary colleagues, including the use of their preferred pronouns, the same as I do with religious colleagues despite being an atheist.

I hope it will help senior staff realise that gender identity theory is an ideology that not all staff align with.

Has anyone done similar? How did it go?

Pronouns don't belong to anyone. They're just a part of grammar.

I think that if you believe pronouns are based on sex, then that’s great.

Pronouns are entirely based on a person's sex, not a dubious, disputed ideological concept which has only existed for five minutes. Hope this helps.

No, nobody owns pronouns at all.

Until very recently, the way the English language worked was that we used masculine third person pronouns for male people and feminine third person pronouns for female people, and the singular "they" when talking about an unspecific person or someone whose sex is unknown.

What gender ideologues want to do is force everyone to use third person pronouns in a different way, to signal that we agree or are willing to pretend to agree that a male person is female, or a female person is male, or someone is neither male nor female.

It really is the equivalent of expecting atheists to say the Hail Mary in order not to upset Catholics. I don't see why anyone should be expected to do it. Especially when their polite pretence is then taken to mean consent for men in women's spaces and sports.

Pronouns don't belong to anyone. They're just a part of grammar.

Indeed. They're not "your pronouns" they're the grammatical term for addressing a person of your sex. Absent gender ideology there is zero to argue about. I find this need to compel belief and speech concerning.

@HadalyEve
PPs have dealt with the silly notion that people "own" pronouns.

I am refusing to use ideological, ungrammatical language in defiance of people like you. I am not claiming ownership of pronouns or any other part of speech, nor am I forcing anyone to use compelled speech of my choice. English grammar operates as it has always operated - pronouns are sex-based. Everybody follows the same rules of grammar. You might as well claim that using English words when speaking English is "compelled speech".

Ignore & disrespect their beliefs in order to impose your beliefs on to them.

I don't respect workplace pronouners.

The beliefs indicated by being a workplace pronouner are not worth respecting, quite the opposite in fact, the sooner it gets dropped the better to save them the embarrassment of looking gullible.

@HadalyEve Can you define gender for me not using stereotypes or reference to sex?

Presumably you can do better than 'a woman who is anyone who feels they are' ? I mean that's not a good enough definition for deciding on prison segregation for a start is it?

Or is gender really a collection of personality traits and dress style?

Why should we care?

@TeenDivided
Can you define gender for me not using stereotypes or reference to sex?
...
Or is gender really a collection of personality traits and dress style?

Why should we care?

Precisely. A person's gender - whatever it is - only matters to the individual, or possibly his or her loved ones. It has no wider significance - no relevance to sporting categories, ability to do a job, etc. It's utterly trivial to everyone else. Yet society is supposed to go into upheaval for this nebulous self-contradictory nonsensical idea that no-one can objectively detect, locate or define.

@HadalyEve
I believe that males claiming to be women are not women. Are you prepared to add that to your posts in order to respect my beliefs, in the sense you use "respect"? You can write TWANW, if the whole phrase is too long.

In other words, we only own our pronouns, we do not own others pronouns.

Nobody owns pronouns, FGS . That sentence makes no sense at all.

PPs haven’t really made a case as to why they should be able to impose pronouns of their choice on others.

I thought you were sockpuppeting on both sides of this debate for a second before I realised you meant that you feel GC people are imposing pronouns on trans people rather than the other way round.

There no real justification to not only own your pronouns, but to also own the pronouns of everyone else you meet.

No-one owns pronouns used to describe to them any more than they own the adjectives people use to describe them.

Like many nowadays, I tend to substitute someone's name each time I refer to them if I think they might be sensitive about their pronouns. I'm autistic and it's a much easier for me to remember a specific name attached to a specific person than to navigate the mental gymnastics involved in recalling what that person's latest conception of their own inner feelings are. It's hard enough for me to keep track of people's emotional states about stuff that enables me to do my job, so I don't have the spare energy to expend on keeping track of every colleague's current sense of self, as that requires a level of working memory that I need to save for my actual job.

Brilliant!

The second paragraph is particularly hilarious. What would I recommend for someone who is baffled by the undefined and indefinable concept of gender?

Well they’re 100% sane. No recommendations required.

Later posters:

Can you define the the undefined and indefinable concept of gender then please?

Follower of the one true faith:

This mysical concept is beyond my powers to define. Your faith in the gods of identity and gender are for you to explore. You must find a guru to help you to define them for yourself.

Ah! I now see why @HadalyEve said 'i believe you' - they have misread my post and are now (I assume sincerely but incorrectly) claiming I said they "hat I might think they weren’t telling the truth". I didn't - I said the following, which they presumably misread:

The fact that you believe someone might need counselling to truthfully answer a question suggests that maybe the question isn't as straightforward as you keep saying?

My point was. I care about answering the question 'what are your pronouns' truthfully and honestly, which involves understanding what the question is asking.

You said I need counselling if I don't understand what gender is, and some people answer the pronouns question with a gender-related answer, so as I said there is a big risk of misinformation.

All I was asking for is a definition of gender identity that is clear enough for me to ascertain what mine is, and @HadalyEve can't provide one, yet claims it's both inconsequential and important enough to require the question from everyone.

@HadalyEve can't provide one, yet claims it's both inconsequential and important enough to require the question from everyone.

It's a feature of these discussions.

@HadalyEve I am confused. How can anyone have “no pronouns”? Or did you mean to say “my pronouns should be obvious to you by looking at me”?
More to the point: Asking for pronouns una meeting is not only potentially offensive, it is also useless. People rarely refer to each other in the third person in a meeting. When responding to what a colleague has said, most people would say “I agree with Sally…” not “I agree with they” or “I agree with zie” or whatever pronoun the person might have announced.

I've got some up on ebay right now. £5 'boy it now'.

How can they be more inclusive?

Try to get them to express support for the pegging community.

Also finding this suggestion confusing. If I introduce myself with 'My name is Warbeck, no pronouns', couldn't that potentially be taken as 'do not use pronouns for me' - so no he/she/they at all. More linguistic gymnastics!

Or does 'no pronouns' = call me by my blindingly obvious sex-based pronouns. But I thought we couldn't assume this because there's apparently no way to tell...

Also, the suggestion to go for counselling to explore gender is like being told to go for counselling to gain a better understanding of astrology. I don't believe in it. I 'struggle' with astrology in that sense. In no way would it be helpful to my life to brainstorm my lack of belief in astrology/gender-woo.

Get counselling to explore your gender = talk to a priest about your soul.

HadalyEve can't comprehend that atheists exist, let alone that they exist and are happy

Well this thread has had some gems. Counselling to work out whether you have a gender? You have to be fucking joking. As others have pointed out, would the same poster recommend going to counselling to workout if a person was atheist or not.

And the English language and its rules is a ‘shared’ language. It is not owned by anyone. You don’t own the words that describe you or anyone else. You use a commonly understood and defined framework to communicate accurately.

‘owning’ pronouns? I am sure that some people who are fully immersed in their own individualism feel they can ‘own’ the words that describe them. It must be very worrisome to realise that in reality, language never has worked like that unless you live in a totalitarian society and others dob in those who step out of line for rehabilitation or punishment.

Owning pronouns that people use to describe you? Getting counseling for working through whether you have a gender? (Because it is so very important, of course!)

If those reading along hadn’t worked out how ideologically driven gender as a concept is before, by now reading this thread I suspect they have worked it out.

But there are only two pronouns and they correspond to the person's sex. There are only two sexes. Pronouns have got nothing to do with how you're feeling

I'm yet to read the responses fully after a busy weekend, it's definitely been an interesting skim so far.

Just to clarify - I'm not asking to ban asking for pronouns, I'm just requesting we stop doing it staff meetings - if someone wants to ask someone else face-to-face, crack on. You are also free to add your pronouns to an e-mail signature if you do so wish, it's not like I'm advocating for removing that (although I would not advocate for compulsory pronoun statements).

To those that feel asking pronouns in a meeting is more inclusive, then why aren't we saying to people "and what reasonable adjustments can we make to help you in your job"? There will no doubt be more people this is applicable to than are trans/nonbinary... Maybe it's because that information is personal and for the person to share with HR, or share on a more individual basis than in an entire company meeting. It doesn't matter whether you can decline to answer or not, the mere question is uncomfortable for many.

My 2p on the "ownership of pronouns"... If anyone owns pronouns, it's the other people talking about you, given they're the ones using them 100% of the time.

Case in point; I just referred to the "other people talking about you" as "they", and "they" had no choice over how I referred to them collectively. I hope I didn't offend anyone 😇

(and just because you can ask "what are your pronouns", doesn't mean they then automatically become yours... I can't think of anything else that entitles you to ownership just because someone else refers to it as "yours")

This has actually happened to me! I just left my pronouns off my badge at a conference weekend, and a complete stranger welcomed me as a fellow member of the "non-binary no-pronoun gang" and was visibly disappointed to be told, "Sorry, no, I just don't care".

Brilliant @uglyswan 👏

This thread is all kinds of illogical bonkers. It's like bad argument bingo.