Pronouns and unrelated times you are asked for them

[AmenAmin]

I’ve seen this twice now on Facebook, asking for pronouns when there’s just no need. For example a group on cat sitters, the joining questions ask for your pronouns.
I put mine was ‘I/me/you’ and got rejected.
I quite like not being obviously female in some contexts, at work I was by email just ‘intial.surname’ and I was more than happy to deal with replies from suppliers I’ve never met and had brief contact with who presumed I was mr surname. It was easier.
I’m fed up of the declaring gender and being forced, often in environments that have certainly not done away with sexism. Or on social media where I’m gender neutral with my name/ photos to avoid the creepy DMs being female gets.

I’m a little bit miffed that I haven’t actually been asked for my pronouns (have had other people shove theirs down my throat though).

It is a shame because I have a number witty responses (thanks to MumsNet) and a lengthy lecture prepared on the subject. 😔

Just make something up - fuck/off might not be acceptable tho 😉

'I put mine was ‘I/me/you’

Love this! And it's correct - they are YOUR pronouns. Third person pronouns are for others to decide based on whether you are male or female, and theyre normally used when you're not around anyway

Thankfully I've never been asked directly for my pronouns, but my answer would be 'no thank you'. If pushed, 'thats not a practice I follow'. I don't have pronouns in my email signature, but around 40% of my organisation do

I bet none of these idiots even knew what a pronoun was 3 years ago 😁

My personal favourite so far was the online form to book a bulky waste collection from the local council. I asked why they could possibly need to know my preferred pronouns to collect a broken sofa from outside my house while I wasn't there, and assured them that while collecting said sofa they were free to use any pronouns they liked, since I wouldn't know about it. I didn't get a reply (though they did take the sofa so I guess they somehow managed without the crucial information of whether I prefer they, xie or fae).

I do online surveys. Sometimes it asks for gender and among the list are "ciswoman" "transwoman" and a box for other.

I don't tick either and type woman in the other box.

Applying for a course -

GENDER:
Male (including transmen)
Female (including transwomen)
Other
Prefer not to say
Not known

Does your gender match your sex registered at birth?
Same as birth
Different from birth
Prefer not to say
Not known

I like the mystery of a good "prefer not to say" aka "fuck off".

I'm also doing a biology course at the moment and half the students and lecturers - for an advanced biology course - have their pronouns listed. 🙄Academia is broken.

Pronouns in email footers are a little disappointment every single time.

It just screams to me of a lack of critical thinking or imagination. And a clear lack of concern for how women and other minorities are impacted.

So many of them are so clearly doing it because they think they should and it's such surface level virtue signalling it makes them look stupid.

I quite like that they’ve added “Not known” because usually there is no truthful answer for me as I don’t have a gender.

I freelance for an organisation set up by a complete boffin, really complex, clever stuff they do. But the founder has pronouns in his professional profile. It makes me respect him quite a lot less 😢