Encouraged to use pronouns in email signature

[dillydallydaily]

So there have been a few conversations and emails lately from colleagues letting us know how to add our pronouns to our email signature. It's all mentioned in the context of inclusion and diversity. I personally don't want to, my personal reasons, but I feel that I may be in a minority or frowned upon if I don't. What are your thoughts/experience on this?

Here's how I responded when I was told that we should now add our pronouns to our personal page on our intranet, so that they could then be added to the public website.

Boss had clearly not considered that anyone might not be thrilled about doing this. Instruction was rephrased. Pretty much everyone else has filled out the pronoun field in the internal template, but the suggestion of adding them to our public information seems to have been dropped.

> I don't do pronoun statements. I won't be adding preferred pronouns to my staff page, and I do not consent to pronouns being added to my online staff profile, email footer etc.

I'm uncomfortable at this being introduced as an instruction with no opt out or acknowledgement that this may not be something that everyone wants to do. Compulsory pronoun announcements are not inclusive of people who are uncomfortable about their gender and do not want to make public statements about it, and are equally uncomfortable for people who do not consider themselves to have a gender identity independent of their sex and don't want to make statements about that either.

In addition, conscious and unconscious biases about women's voices and authority mean that drawing attention to a woman's sex in the workplace may make their work harder by activating and reinforcing unhelpful stereotypes. I don't want to be forced to do so when sex/gender should be irrelevant to my job.

This is a sensitive area, and I've no wish to cause friction or be forced to make some kind of stand in front of the team. I have no objection to other people sharing their pronouns, and I will do my best to courteously respect people's wishes about how they're addressed, but stating my pronouns is something I will not do, just as I'm sure you would not agree to recite the Lord's prayer before a meeting.

Very sensible as research shows women are cited less than men. Sadly I didn't know that when I started publishing so used my name. On the plus side it is an Irish name so many people would not know it was a female name.

That's an excellent email.

I would not do it. As someone else said further up, there'll be people who won't want to do it either, and people who can't be bothered, and others who won't be able to work out how to do it so I doubt you'll be in a small minority too. I think a lot of people who do it are sheep who don't really understand the ideology that they're inadvertently subscribing to if they do add theirs.

If anyone ever spoke to me about adding mine, I would say I don't subscribe to gender ideology and am not prepared to add my pronouns to work/social bios.

This would also be my response if asked to share my pronouns in a meeting which, thankfully, I never have been.

My organisation has not mandated the use of pronouns but they have issued a guide on their use. Anytime I see someone with their pronouns included on something, and these are usually sensible people, I think 'idiot'.

This is amazing! What a fantastic reply

Thank you everyone for all your replies and comments. I definitely do not want to put my pronouns but wasn't sure how to articulate it, but so many brilliant examples and opinions here to know I am not alone in feeling this way!

I had this for a university module once, we were encouraged to introduce ourselves and put our pronouns on a forum. I went first and put she/her out of fear and then no other bugger bothered. So then I looked like a gender zealot.

I say just don’t do it.

I think the same, especially when the heterosexual men at work do it as I know they don't agree but are just doing it to fit in.

This is why this nonsense has such a hold. (No offence meant for you @TheMarzipanDildo )
People are afraid to appear hostile and with good reason, when mostly women have been forced out of jobs for defying the gender ideologists.

It sums up the whole movement as not having anything to do with kindness or inclusivity, or even coping with unfamiliar names, it is about compulsion and bullying.

Have you considered that a lot of women deliberately use unisex names precisely because they don’t want to be treated ‘as women’ ie discriminated against?

Did you get a response @WhatAMessWales?

Wondering how it was received

Op don't do it. Agree with pp

We are encouraged (less often than we used to be though).

I don't. I'd estimate fewer than 50% of staff do. Maybe 25%. It depends on area though. A lot of HR staff do, so might be more pressure there.

I would ignore if it's not mandated.

We were encouraged to do this, along with introducing ourselves at meetings 'I'm Pink, my pronouns are she/her'. We were also told not to use the term 'Ladies and Gentlemen' in case we offended anyone. The suggested replacement was 'Hi y'all'. I didn't do any of it.

I know I will need to look for a job soon but I'm enjoying being away from that shit!

HR are going through all the motions but no hard charge from management (thankfully). It is very much a preference of the individual. I find colleagues who use pronouns are ones whose teens are going through this phase and think it is being supportive of them.

If anyone asks I simply reply I prefer to be known by my name. If my sex or gender preference is critical information related to my role let me know and we can discuss. Also, how is initiative for female specific PPE going?

Why do you need pronouns for someone you are talk with in an email?

I had a colleague who put "mrs" in front of her name so clearly she did care.

It's fine if you don't. Not sure why people are giving this headspace. If you want to put your pronouns, do. If you don't then don't. It really is that simple. If asked just say you forgot/don't care.

I've never been asked to, although it has been encouraged / something colleagues have done. My answer is simple - I don't want to disclose my gender 🤷🏻‍♀️ i have a name that could belong to either sex and i think this protects me from sexist assumptions when communicating in writing - why on earth would I want to give that up? It seems as unnecessary to me (and as counterproductive) as telling people my skin colour, marital status, or sexuality in my email signature .

I have a unisex name and I think this argument is up there with 'did you know your bathroom at home is gender neutral' in terms of irrelevance and banality.

DH got a new senior role and had his HR team make the compulsory pronouns fields in the email system optional. I've never loved him so much.

We were originally told it was mandatory but then it was downgraded to ‘strongly advised’

For a few months anyone not adding pronouns was sent a reminder to add them but that’s stopped now

We actually counted out of 72 in our office, only 8 actually added theirs

We are a small branch of a multinational US owned company and it seems far more widespread in the US and our India offices.

We are "encouraged" but only about 50% of people in my area have bothered

When getting my latest name badge I was asked and I said I rather not have anything to show my pronoun, but make my actual name bigger. My actual name is unusual and I would rather people see it, rather than my pronoun. My name is so unusual around 75% of people pronounce it wrong. I don't mind as long as the word they say is close to it.

@WhatAMessWales that is an excellent response! Do you mind if I copy that and use it for my work? All of my new team have pronouns and I don't and I'm getting pressurised.

@INeedAPensieve Copy away! :-) If I wrote it now though I'd leave out the bit about using people's pronouns out of courtesy. I've worked with a trans-identifying colleague for over a year now and have managed to avoid using any pronouns at all thus far.

@EasternStandard Boss responded immediately to say that he hadn't realised it had come across as a directive, and posted on the original slack thread to clarify that it was optional. It was probably obvious that it was me who had said something (small org) but not obvious enough for anyone to follow it up. Noone's mentioned it since.

Since then I've been in several external online meetings where we've been asked to share pronouns and I just haven't. I am invariably followed by several other people 'forgetting'. I'm in a lot of Zoom events etc and I'm definitely noticing the proportion of people with pronouns in their Zoom 'name' is declining. I'm hoping that the Fife case in the news this week is going to lead the penny to drop for a few more of the 'be kind' people that you start with pronouns and end, quite quickly, with a 6 foot bloke in the women's changing rooms, claiming that 'everyone accepts me as a woman' because they use a female name and pronouns...

We had an optional space for them when I ordered my work ID badge - I left it blank and so far I've forgotten to add them to my email signature and will continue doing so.

The only people who do it are either senior management (and usually shit at their jobs) or suck-ups to senior management so it's quite a handy twit-indicator.