Labour council tells staff to announce pronouns before meetings

[IwantToRetire]

Wandsworth says adding the <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/HIdDV/www.telegraph.co.uk/family/life/ze-guide-modern-gender-pronouns/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pronouns such as ze/zir/zem to email signatures and announcing them at the start of meetings is a “simple step” towards this.

The memo says: “Up until recently, the only pronouns most people had heard of he/him/his and she/her/hers.

“However, as the non-binary community has become more visible, more people are becoming aware of non-gendered pronouns such as they/them/theirs and ze/zir/zem.

“Adding our pronouns to our email signatures, MS365 profiles, social media profiles and saying them at the start of meetings is a simple step cisgender people can take to enable those from the non-binary and transgender communities to feel more seen and recognised.”

“Ze/zir/zem” are all gender pronouns and are used by some transgender, non-binary or gender-non-conforming people.

From article at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/15/labour-council-tells-staff-pronouns-before-meetings/

Can be read in full at https://archive.is/HIdDV

Meh. My employer tried to get us to do this a couple of years ago. The ones that wanted it were already doing it, the vast majority of us ignored it with absolutely no consequences.

I've never seen a neo pronoun in any of the sigs, it's almost always she/her with the occasional he/him and once a they/them.

Have they fallen down a time hole?

Isn't it considered "outing" to someone who may be questioning their gender to ask them to announce their pronouns?

Let's stop saying 'neo pronouns'. Neo means new, they are merely newly-invented rubbish words that don't actually exist in the English language. 'Made up' pronouns is much more accurate. Should other people be allowed to force you to use made up words?

If someone told me they called Mondays 'Floggib', Tuesdays 'Bwagpee' (etc) I wouldn't play that game, I'd stick to Monday & Tuesday etc, thank you. I agree that personal pronouns are just that - personal, while days of the week are not, but personal descriptions are also clearly personal. If I'm dark haired and short but if I insist on being described as blonde and tall, should colleagues be obliged to say 'Rightsraptor is that tall blonde over by the photocopier'?

Beware of people who try to dictate speech.

I thought this type of nonsense was on the way out? 🙄

Pronoun signatures are so 2024.

Labour continuing to prove they are more concerned about misogynistic ideology than doing the job they were elected to do.

Didn't they try stuff like this during the French revolution and in Cambodia under Pol Pot? As I recall, despite copious amounts of bloodletting and terrible suffering, they didn't stick.

Ter/terf.

😆

The language mangling. Tell them it’s inaccessible and against the Plain English campaign.

None of this helps those employed by the council who like many of us are probably worried about losing their jobs.

That is the issue.

That people in a position of power are enforcing their view point on employees, and telling them what they can say and what they should think.

How many of you if you were reliant on not antogonising Council leaders would challenge them to their face?

This is happening all over the country, and only in a few cases do we hear about it.

Ah, Labour. Always a decade late and a milk on dollars short.

Institutions are slow and cumbersome and once a practice is established it takes a long time for it to change. There are most likely staff whose job or role is to implement or encourage this nonsense.

Exactly. Falling over themselves to be inclusive when in reality they're anything but as they're alienating people who believe in biology and the law and reject regressive stereotypes and also anyone who believes in gender and non binary but might not feel ready to announce it to the world.

How can this be legal? Maya established the right of employees to believe men are men. Supreme Court confirmed nobody can change sex. It is as if a flat-earth cult has gripped power, and is forcing people to pretend the globe is a disc...........

’Ze/zir/zem’

Is that the German version?

One could ask "Where are the unions?" But, we know.

Does anyone know the legal position on this for employees who refuse to participate in this blxx?

The pronoun I use are I, me and myself

The organisation Sex Matters may well be the place to look.
The stream of Court findings provide case law to confirm that men are not women and nobody should be forced to pretend they are.

I am sure you do not have to be an employee of the Council to complain about this. So if anyone reading this is a resident of the said borough, make a complaint, then adopt the escalation process, and then if you are without a sensible outcome, the Local Government Ombudsman.

An alternative could be an FOI request to see the instruction to staff.

There are plenty of reasons you can use as to why no-one should be obliged to state their choice of pronouns.

Nonsense. It is not fair to out people in this way.

There can't possibly be a sanction against anyone for refusing to state a preference. If you simply politely respond "I have no preferred pronouns, you can choose whatever you think appropriate" what policy can you have breached?

Also worth writing a letter to the local paper (if there is one) as it helps keep it in the public domain.

Once you get into local council enquiries, let alone complaints sytem, you may not emerge for years!