New member of team at work and pronouns

[Ihopeyoudance]

I've recently recruited a new bloke to join my team, and in correspondence agreeing a start date, I can see he has pronouns in his email signature (as does his female current line manager).

He's joining a team of mostly women and we don't do that. I find it quite offensive in all honesty for a middle aged white man to be drawing attention to his privilege. I also think it's inappropriate in the workplace to make that kind of statement. I'd much rather judge him on his work performance but he's bringing in his political stance about gender identity and I do judge.
Anyway, from my conversations with him, I get the impression that he has them as those around him do and he thinks it makes him liberal and inclusive. I could be wrong though.
I really want to suggest he reconsiders this and highlight the negative perception it may evoke. He may be mortified and not have considered the alternative.
I'm the manager and don't really care about people's beliefs that don't impact work. I'm starting to put my head above the parapet though at work and don't want this kind of nonsense in my team as I find it really exclusionary. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to broach this?

Honestly I’d just leave it. You want to build a great team if you’re the manager and this will be a bad start. Establish to him that you are a genuinely inclusive caring team who support each other by your behaviours. Then if it comes up at some point you can say something like I get why you do but I’m not clear it benefits anyone from having it compulsory and I don’t think it necessarily benefits women declaring them either. I think everyone should be comfortable declaring theirs without that putting any pressure on others to also.

and by that stage he should hopefully respect you enough to listen.

My best advice would be do nothing- it's not all that unusual to see these on an email signature these days. Sometimes I've found it quite helpful where someone has a foreign name and works remotely to me and I don't know whether it's a male or female name.
The only potential leg you might have to stand on is if your work has a strict email signature and you feel they are deviating from that by adding that line. In which case that would be a query for HR. But I'd be surprised if their answer wasn't that the Company was ok with it.

In my experience, there is a very small number of pronoun evangelists, who introduce this to their companies and push for it to be given space in the email signature template.

Then there is a larger group of people who then go along with it, just because it's there. They see a pronoun box, they fill it in. They maybe have a vague sense that this is the done thing, they don't really understand it but they don't want any bother.

I suspect your guy is in the second category. It sounds like his current workplace have pushed this. If your company doesn't have a place for pronouns in your email signature template or guidance, the odds are that he won't say or do anything about it. He might even be relieved.

Isn’t there a standard template for e-mail signatures in your workplace?

There might be one in his previous workplace.

I wouldn’t necessarily assume, because he has pronouns on his e-mail in a different company, that he adheres to all things gender. Maybe he’s moving because he doesn’t have much choice and feels uncomfortable with it!

Give him a template for an email signature, explain this is the agreed branding for comms and cannot be deviated from. We have this in our team, with a style guide for the exact font, size and colour on each line...

If he adds Pronouns after setting it up, say oh we don't include Pronouns in the template that's just the rule here. He will probably drop it. If he makes a fuss you know to be on your guard...

I don't see why this is an issue? He isn't saying you have to have them. It's pretty standard now.

I think you're making something out of nothing. If his manager has her pronouns he's obviously done the same. Maybe you need to be busier at work!! (I personally think they're dumb if your name is obvious, but many males also do this probably to not stand out, ironically he probably thinks he's doing the right thing).

I'd agree with the suggestion that you leave it and see how it goes after he joins, particularly given that his current line manager also has declared pronouns.

Chances are that his current email signature is due to "no skin off my nose" compliance with his current workplace practice and culture, and he'll similarly comply when he reaches your workplace without a fuss.

Then rethink your approach only if and when he does turn out to be a pronoun enthusiast.

Are these in his personal email address or a work one?

Do nothing. As long as your workplace doesn't force pronoun use, he's juts followed the herd. I don't see that anything needs to be pointed out to him.

You might find he was encouraged to do it in his former workplace but actually thinks it’s a load of nonsense.

I'd leave in it until he joins. If he added it to his work email I'd tell him to leave his politics at home.

He will probably think it's a good thing to be so progressive and aware.

But in fact It shows he has bought into gender ideology.

I might just tell him in a friendly way that 'we don't do that round here'.

Maybe he’s trans. He’s not hurting you by doing it so leave your prejudice at the door

Take him as he is. You can get a bit battle hardened but be open hearted, give him a good start and a chance. Surely the aim is to not allow one world view to be imposed and to be accepting of others. He exists within our culture, will want to conform or challenge depending on his personality, and will also have his own opinions which is ok.

Is this from him current work address, if his LM's is the same? If so, it might be standard practice for that business rather than personal choice.

Compelled speech and the big pharmaceutical company profit driven push for gender ideology to be adopted in the workplace is hurting society.

The sterilisation and mutilation of healthy young people and the normalisation of surgeries to remove healthy body parts is harmful.

Religious people don’t promote their beliefs in their email signatures and expect others to state theirs so why should gender ideology be given an inroad?

You wouldn’t say an atheist was prejudiced because they don’t believe in god so stop calling people who disagree with pronoun use prejudiced. They shouldn’t be forced into going along with this ideology anymore than for them to believe in, for example, Catholicism.

People are still allowed to think for themselves, just because many don’t is no reason to adopt this practice.

@AngelasAirpods

But the person in question is not forcing their ideology on anyone. It is a simple matter of letting colleagues know how to address them. Surely, you would be just as much "forcing" your own beliefs on them by being so determined to not use pronouns? Both parties are entitled to their opinion but that doesn't mean the one who doesn't believe has to be personally offended and so upset as to go and post about it on a public forum. OP hasn't even talked to the person at length it seems, so the vitriol seems a little overkill just for putting pronouns in their signoff.

Give him a template for an email signature, explain this is the agreed branding for comms and cannot be deviated from.

This is great if true @DipsyLaLaPo

I would do this only so long as it is true. If it is challenged and it turns out that this is actually not an official policy you would be on very tricky ground.

All our official policies are published on the intranet for everyone to refer to.

on the whole I agree that people shouldn’t bring their religion into the workplace but if an email signature is the extent of it I think that can be ignored. If he starts pushing it on to others then you will need to take action.

I find it quite offensive in all honesty for a middle aged white man to be drawing attention to his privilege.

This bit is ridiculous and clutching at straws. He didn't put "he/him, white, middle aged." You arent offended by it because of that. Just say you hate the pronoun stuff and move on. Jesus, and I just read a thread poking at gen z and their lack of resilience.. offended at man being man... that's a new one.

Quite a few respondents here seem to be missing the point. Pronouns on an email signature are not just a harmless quirk but indicate that either someone has bought into gender ideology or that their employer has. Or, possibly, that they've cluelessly added them to look all modern and cool.

Gender ideology is a massive issue, opening up the door for the transing of children, insecure teenagers being herded down a path that ends with mutilation and sterility, men taking the medals in women's sports, men in women's prisons and so on. God knows, there are enough threads on FWR discussing all of this.

In OP's shoes, I'd tread very carefully. See what he does when he starts work and go from there.

I agree. I think maybe you should talk to him beforehand, I'd want to know if I was working for someone like you (and I wouldn't want to! Extremely judgemental imo, I bet this is just the tip of the iceberg).

The reason they are sometimes necessary is so people who get assumed the wrong pronouns can take the hassle of correcting people.
This could be any reason, from Sam/Leslie Bloggs, Xing Du, or non standard gender pronouns.

If Sam, Leslie or Xing Du are concerned that replies will be addressed to Mr when it should be Ms (or vice versa), they can include their preferred title in their signature. I used to do this until I eventually stopped caring about receiving mail addressed to 'Mr' and realised it was sometimes to my advantage if people thought I was male (research has shown that people often take men more seriously than women).

Third person pronouns are for when others are talking about you, usually in your absence, so you'll never know about it.

Everyone is male or female, so nonstandard pronouns are an affectation, and expecting others to use them is a power play.