Responded to work email about the importance of pronouns - it's my first (sort of, quite discreet) outing

[Whoarethegrownups]

I work in a university and it's welcome week. We've just had an email sent round the whole school to remind us how important it is to greet people in a friendly and courteous manner - including a reminder to include our pronouns when introducing ourselves and in our email profiles. I responded - just to the person who sent the email, not the whole school - about the issues around conscious/unconscious bias and stereotype threat when asking women to preface every conversation and emails with reminders that they are part of an oppressed group, and that whilst I understand these issues are tricky, we need to consider the whole community. It was very mild and polite and only to one person, but I'm still feeling anxious about having explicitly brought up gender critical issues at work. I'm waiting to see if I get a response ...

Fingers crossed they understand that this is a tricky and diverse issue so it isn't something that a blanket 'rule' can be applied to!

Well done!

The other one to use is that you could be asking people to out themselves before they're ready...

Well done 💪🏼

I couldn’t do that with a straight face. ‘Hi kids! I’m Baby and my pronouns are tee/hee’. Just no.

I've got a really nice and considered response already! He mentioned that he asked three women before he sent the email out (not sure that's very helpful ...) but was asking my views on what I thought would be better. So I explained about the evidence and how it's not clear to me how it benefits anyone for women to do this, and how focus on gender is unlikely to lead to a more equal society. So it's amicable, which is great. Not sure it will lead to any changes, but I'm glad I raised it at least.

Oh and I forgot to mention - we have a temp who copied and pasted his email footer from the last (female) person doing his job. It says ‘(persons name) / she/her’.

He is a huge hulking bloke and very obviously a man, married to a woman, uses mens facilities… I did do a double-take when I first saw it but we are waiting to see how long before he clocks it.

If I was starting Uni and was greeted by someone who stated their pronouns I would feel uneasy. I think my children would too. Maybe I just say ‘Hi I am Tiny and I’m an atheist’ in response. Then it covers religion and gender ideology in one.

I’m not sure it’s lawful to encourage or require employees to participate in sharing their pronouns

We did uni tours with DS and only had one person with a badge and cheery ‘hi! I’m x and my pronouns are…’.

I have to admit I did guffaw (it was like a Fast Show skit) and the rest of the tour group was mostly looking amused/confused by her announcement.

OP that’s lovely. How nice to have a grown up conversation about it too.

I’ve been thinking. I was just at the physio and got the appointment details, name of practitioner etc. his name (for it was a man) was a name I didn’t recognise so I really had no idea of it was male or female. I had to strip to my undies (I wasn’t too bothered because I was in pain) but I’m sure some women would certainly have felt uneasy:unable to do this.

Would his pronouns have helped? No certainly not but ‘Mr X’ may have - and that would be for MY benefit and not his. Pronouns are for the be benefit of the pronouner. It’s ego.

I always want to ask pronoun proponents why it always has to be two pronouns, i.e. she/her, he/him. I mean, how many women using "she" want you to use "him"? And it you have to have two, why does it stop there - why not he/him/his?

I have seen profiles on twitter with he/her or she/him or she/they etc. it’s exhausting.

Worryingly there are a heck of a lot of she/they, he/they type combinations. 🤦

Which I guess they feel they have to announce, due to it being a load of nonsense that they're asking of you.

There's no guarantee that she/her would be female though.

Well done! There are at least a few of us but as it's so dangerous to speak out in this place it's hard to tell... As I said to one like-minded colleague, in response to this email, at least now that the instruction is clear we can feel cheerful about all the people who do not comply, e.g. don't appear with pronouns in Teams etc. It's a pity about the pronouns in the new Head of School's signature though. (Now I've definitely said enough for you to tell whether we're in the same school...). Also, I've had one of those polite conversations with the sender of the mail, and it made no difference, evidently.

In the UK, universities are as woke as they come. They are scary places to speak out on this topic. I have been shut down by people because they just don't want to hear an opposing view.

It's such bullshit isn't it? I've just started a new job and my new boss has He/Him as do half the company. I'm so pissed off with it all. Well done for putting your head above the parapet.

I see more and more people using they for everyone, including in daily speech. Often without even realizing it.

So I wonder if many of those individuals are thinking, I can be she, or if people call me they it is ok too.

Perhaps they should make it clear whether they are asking for gender-based or sex-based pronouns?

I think it's important to know whether people are going to assume you're telling them your sex or your gender.

If I say 'call me "she"', people might think I identify as having a 'woman' gender, which I don't. A bit like if I say I have a male partner and people might think I am straight, if I was bi - the 'easy' response actually obfuscates the relevant detail sometimes.

Re: she/they, he/they
This is sometimes used about a familiar/formal difference. A bit like tu and vous in French. So she/he to their friends, they to everyone else.

We don’t have formal/informal on English though! So we have to learn a whole new set of circumstances - what next? Monday pronouns Vs Tuesday ones?

So what about the them/her/him bit then, @StripeySuperNova ? Are people still expected to guess and hope they don't cause offense for someone it seems to matter to?

Oh, I wonder if this is the same one I received today, too! Congratulations on getting in a good response, hope you have been heard. Being in a subject that already has a high level of stereotyped expectations based on sex, I think asking people to put their sex front and centre in every introduction is a bad idea for all involved. Bah.
The mail I had also suggested stating your age when introducing yourself "in an inclusive way". Which I found bizarre in gratuitously invoking yet another area of stereotyped assumptions, where bringing it into the conversation will only engage those biases more strongly.