They know at work that I am a woman, so why this?

[EmiliaBassano]

I bought a new phone yesterday and rather than make a total pig's ear of doing the job myself, I asked my work IT department to help me set up the work email access as it didn't work last night when I tried it at home. They logged it as:

Emilia called to ask for help with getting access to their emails as well as getting MFA setup for their new phone.

Just why? I don't identify as anything other than what I am and I don't have pronouns on my emails, which I refuse to do. But I have worked here for 10 years.

AIBU to be irritated?

Yes you are.

'Their' is just a word that's in very common use.

I don't imagine anyone sat down with a cup of tea and a sausage roll and thought the whole thing inside out.

Far more likely they just fired off a quick message 🤦‍♀️

'Their' is completely neutral and fine to use in a professional setting.

It was just a brief, internal file note, I wouldn't get worked up about it or assume it had some underlying bias or meaning to it.

The use of "their" is perfectly correct and descriptive in this context.
You are reading far too much into this and seeing a problem where it simply doesn't exist.

I would be annoyed too. "Their" is a plural possessive pronoun.

It's fine to use it as a singular pronoun when the sex of the person being referred to is unknown (eg "Oh look! Someone has dropped their glove.") but stupid virtue signalling to use it for someone whose sex is known.

I think you’re reading way too much into this, ‘their’ in this context is grammatically and factually correct, it’s a complete non event.

I thought this was going to be about pronouns in email signatures!

Quite like the use of neutral wherever you can , reduces promoting for bias

Because it will be a standard note that they just add the name to. This saves them having 2 to select from.

I think in this context it’s also commonly used where a support dept are dealing with loads of people all the time and it’s totally fine in the singular.

I bet it's because no one wants to commit themselves to identifying a sex.

Even though they know you're a woman, it's so ingrained to avoid sex based pronouns altogether. So they're just not doing it.

For a long time on this very site, we were not allowed to correctly sex people, and I found myself automatically using they, them, their, to avoid deletion.

After HQ got over it, it took a bit of time for me to get used to nailing it down correctly, to be honest.

I bet it's habit, based on fear of reprisals, getting it wrong, etc.

I’m about as GC as you can get and I really can’t get wound up about this.

I think you’re possibly reading too much into this. I’m GC, don’t have preferred pronouns and don’t care much for tripping over myself to get pronouns right. I use “their” a lot though as I deal with lots of different people during a day. If I write all my notes, handovers, correspondence using their I just get to use less brain space remembering where Alex was a male or female. And I can copy and paste a lot more easily without creating confusing by “misgendering” obvious men and women, as accidentally using She to refer to Bob would make people wonder who the hell I was talking about.

A lot of my work also gets anonymised. Using their means I can take names out and it can be updated to any other name instead of the next person replacing gendered pronouns thoughout.

yeah same

I can't imagine getting upset over this. They will be opening tickets for multiple staff members and probably have a generic ticket template that they just add the name to. Would you be equally het up over them using He/His in this situation if they made an error copying from a male employees ticket? If so that's probably exactly why they use their for everybody. I'm surprised you even noticed this tbh. Most companies outsource their IT tickets to providers dealing with thousands of tickets for multiple companies, using their is probably the most sensible option.

Generic ticket report
and
Grammar isn’t central to the IT outlook. IME

It'd be a pre-written copy with a place holder for your name (e.g. [username]) that they use. They wouldn't type it new every time, so "they/their" makes sense as the username/gender would change.

Well, they've used your incorrect pronouns. Can you imagine the hissy fit if they failed to call a male identifying as a female by the wrong pronouns?

Your knickers are in a twist for no reason. When i first read your post i had no idea what was supposed to be wrong with the message that had been sent i had to scroll down to see what other posters responded with.

This.

I think we’re all now supposed to pretend that ‘their’ has never been used like this.

Did you do GCSE English?

I did O and A level English and agree with @Changingplace 'their' is a perfectly normal usage in this context particularly if it's a template message.

I don't have pronouns on my emails

Slap on She/Her if being referred to as ‘their’ gets you in a flap 🤣

I think you’re possibly reading too much into this.

Always a possibility !

But even the fact that you're considering 'misgendering somebody by accident' as a concept makes me think people do it for fear of getting it wrong.

And whereas, the possibility of people getting it wrong was always there, there wasn't as much as stake as there is now.

And, it's entirely possible that both things are true.

That people do it as a convenience, without thinking much about it, and other people do it out of convenience whilst thinking quite a lot about it.

FFS! Seriously, your pronoun means that much that you’re prepared to have such a hissy fit over the word ‘their’ being used?

Email the CEO now and tell them how life impacting this has been for you! 🤦‍♀️

I think OP is an example of why people don't want to use the wrong pronouns (not to do with trans but calling a woman he for example) if she's had this level of reaction to their.