Mandatory pronouns on work email signature

[SamW98]

Morning all

Can one of you ladies point me in the right direction of the wording I can use to fight against this? I do remember seeing links but just a quick reference will be appreciated

Basically my very laid back non political company is as taken over last year by a huge US corp and since then very bit of training is revolved around DEI and being told the ‘correct’ way to think. Email pronouns were rolled out on a voluntary basis with the vast majority of the UK based staff not partaking. This hasn’t gone down well with the big cheeses in the US and they’re bringing in an AI email tool where pronouns are a mandatory field.

Now this is 💯 a fight I’m prepared to take on and my entire team feel the same - none of us want this nonsense. So just really looking for wording to use to put on a team pushback against this unnecessary compelled crap.

Any links/wording/examples to quote would be very much appreciated - this really is a hill we’re all ready to die on. Thank you

I've got it! Hindi (which I could make at least a bit of a case for).

Non-Roman alphabet; 1st and second person inflected for number, case and 3 levels of formality, but not for gender; and no third person pronouns at all.

Ginnyweasleyswand · Today 11:53

Completely brilliant. I really like the idea of having two sets of pronouns: those for people who believe in gender ideology and normal English pronouns for those who don't. I would love for the former to be in a non-roman alphabet! I'd like to Id out of the English language please!

You could try Russian: Твой / Мать (Tvoi Mat) - Your Mum!

I don't understand why ANYONE GC would ever quote the Yogyakarta principles in this way, I think it's hugely counterproductive.
The YPs have ONE point that (albeit for different reasons) aligns with ONE GC argument (that we shouldn't be made to state pronouns). However the REST of the Principles, particularly in the updated version, are full-on 100% gender ideology of the most extreme and misogynistic sort, to the point that even one of the original authors has now disassociated himself from them, saying when he was first involved he hadn't fully thought through/understood the negative impacts on women, in particular. (I seem to remember there was stuff about eunuchs in there, too... but may be misremembering!).

The danger in quoting them to back up a point is that you're effectively giving the message that "Here's this great set of principles, that sets out how we should deal with gender issues and trans people - we (as an org) should be following them to be kind and inclusive!". Honestly, the LAST thing you want is for your employer to start taking these as gospel.

If the point you want to make is that it is not fair/kind to force trans-identifying people to "out themselves" - then fine, just say that! But please, please don't use these bonkers "principles" to back it up, unless you're ready for the potential consequences!

Thank you.

Now I need to decide, non-roman alphabet or mirror pronouns?

I can't help but feel whoever made up mirror pronouns must be secretly GC!

And I still don't know what you're supposed to do if 2 or more mirror prounoun people interact among themselves?

On the other hand, I love this 😂 Imagine the sheer bogglement this would cause any genderist who has to refer to her!
What on earth do they do? - can't ask, as she's said it's private, can't default to "she", as they'd then have to be able to justify making that assumption (when they tell everyone else not to...), can't just use some other random pronoun - it's quite delicious!

Thank you all - I’m doing this on behalf of my team who all want to say no to pronouns so I said I’d do the prep in advance.

We haven’t actually seen the tool yet but knowing our company it’ll get rolled out at very short notice with very little time to push back but we will

We’ve been any the examples of how AI standardised email sigs will look and quite frankly as well as the pronouns nonsense it’s Americanised corporate BS.

And the comment is that everyone’s email signatures MUST be standardised across the worldwide business to ‘empower employees to unlock the power of communication’ - oh fuck off it’s an email not life saving surgery.

This is a good response, I think (with the small caveat that I'm not convinced yet that gender identity would qualify as a protected belief, but you could say "may qualify as...").

There was some proposed new Civil Service guidance in the news recently I think, that said in effect that people MAY put pronouns in their signatures if they wish, but must not be required to, and that people should not be treated differently/unfairly based on whether they had, or had not, stated them. That seems to me to hit the right balance - people who WANT to (either because they identify as something else, or because they have a neutral/foreign name and don't like people guessing wrong, for example) can give them, but no obligation for anyone else.

Can you go down the route of asking that there be both gender-based and standard English (i.e. sex-based) pronouns in the signature? I don't know what your business is, but in my job we have clients from all over the world and from countries where culturally imposing gender woo would be extremely insensitive and inappropriate.

I don't understand why ANYONE GC would ever quote the Yogyakarta principles in this way, I think it's hugely counterproductive.

This. They were created by a bunch of human rights activists at least one of who now say that women weren’t considered at all in relation to the gender identity issue. They have no basis in law and they have caused harm to women and girls. We shouldn’t be using them.

So... If a pronoun person is talking about someone who uses mirror pronouns, and they get it wrong, are they effectively 'misgendering' themselves? 😅

Wasn’t there a survey last year regarding putting pronouns on CVs/Resumes where it was found that those who added pronouns (specifically they/them I believe) were less likely to be selected. Seems like the ‘power of communication’ doesn’t always work as intended.

They was a study that compared similar applications with both they/them, she/her and he/him, versus applications without a pronoun section. The study found that putting she/her and he/him also damaged your application, but the effect was less pronounced than the impact of adding they/them.

I will have to find it to see if the author separated the impact of he/him on a CV versus she/her. I suspect not...

Are you in a union? If so they would be best placed to advise. If not, maybe speak to an employment lawyer

It could be worse…a friend of mine has her pronouns in her email display name so every bloody email she sends me shows as “Jane smith (she/her)”…i grind my teeth every time i see it!!! Apparently it’s company policy and they all had a lovely discussion about how supportive it is to the special people - clearly without thinking how the rest of us would feel!!!

Thank you for explaining mirror pronouns to me.

What a load of old shit. That has peaked me yet again.

What happens in a meeting if all the mirror ones all start talking at once

Hmm. Beware that doesn't get you into a discussion about Epistles and St Paul's infamous "Women should be silent in church." Not very gender critical I would have thought, unless you also identify as a feminist theologian and know the perfectly valid countet-arguments inside out.

A male member of Green Party Women, whom I shall not name, now stipulates mirror pronouns. I am agender and am as of this thread, currently exploring what it's like to use he/him pronouns, which means I had better use he/him.

He used to stipulate the neopronouns fae and faer, so this is a lot easier on me!

I find it unlikely that would happen. Who expects Christians to follow Paul's prescriptions these days, apart from fundamentalists? Surely you must have noticed the ordination of female clergy?

The Catholic church haven't relented on female priesthood yet have they?

If I were asked to do this I’d say something like:
My understanding here is that I’m being asked to give some information about my gender identity. My understanding of gender identity is that it relates to an individual’s relationship with the roles and expectations placed on them in their society based on their biological sex. For me personally that relationship is far too complex to be distilled down into a couple of pronouns to be used all the time.
Secondly, I consider that aspect of my identity to be entirely private and do not wish to be forced to give information on it to anyone in a work context unless I choose to.
(I’d also say that I have many aspects to my identity - eg relating to being a parent, my age group, where I grew up, what football team I support etc etc - and for me personally gender identity is no more important than any of that, especially not so as to become the only aspect of my identity that gets included in my email signature. But that seems less likely to be listened to).

It has not, but over the centuries it has existed, intelligent, enquiring and academically curious women have balanced Catholic faith with academic study and philosophy. There is no case for posters to tell women that they should be fearful of stating that they are Christian and gender critical. It's only being claimed here to intimidate gender-critical women from stating their philosophical position.

What kind of workplace grills anyone about their attitude to particular Bible verses?

So not just fundamentalists.

Or the capitalized German Sie/Ihr which is formal and gender neutral.

I wouldn't die on this hill as they can be helpful when a colleague has an unfamiliar foreign name or a neutral name or a name that is often given to the other sex eg Charlie Lesley Ashley etc. so you know what to call them. (Them, ha).