Pronouns in Signature

[TragicMonkey]

Seriously to answer the OP.

Your preferred pronoun is your business, as is whether you choose to put it in an email siggy or not.

This rather reminds me of when I was attached to the US Navy back in the 1980s. I do not have a second Christian name, I have a first name and last name, and that's it, so when I had to fill in the paperwork to be allotted a room in the BEQ and a temporary account at the PX, the form had a box for my second name, and since I didn't have have one, I left it blank.

When I handed it in, some jumped up, officious little admin clerk gave me the third degree for leaving a box blank. I explained that I have no second name, just first and last. I could see this annoyed him, and quickly told him that there's no point blaming me - my parents didn't give me a second name! He just thrust the form back into my hands, and said... "write NMI in there". I asked what it meant, and he looked at me like I was a piece of something he needed to wipe off his shoe. He said, curtly "No Middle Initial".... at this point, I just laughed, and that didn't do a lot for his demeanor... I thought he was going to have a seizure!

I have since found out that this use of NMI is quite common in the USA... it's not even thing here, which is why I had never head of it.

I've never heard of using NMI that way. At my current employer, they put in "X" for employees' middle initials if they don't have one, because they use three initials as part of our internal IDs and logins. I was here a month before I found that out, I just thought a lot of my coworkers had really cool middle names like Xavier or Xena or Xanthippe.

 

[attempt5001]

I share my pronouns upfront (and by the way they're not "preferred" pronouns, they're just pronouns) because I want to contribute to a culture where sharing pronouns is not considered unusual or uncommon.

I can understand that and that's certainly consistent with what I see of your personality from your posts Arth. I think for me, one thing I'm aware of (particularly having reconsidered a lot of assumptions of my upbringing fairly recently), is a lack of a strong sense of culture. I think that leaves me sensitive to perceived attempts to change or remove aspects of my remaining sense of culture that I appreciate and that give me a sense of familiarity and comfort. For example, I like that I can see someone wearing a Maple Leafs jersey and assume they'll appreciate a good joke making fun of the Habs. And I like that if I do the same, someone might strike up a similar conversation with me.

I like that people can tell from my name or my appearance that I am a man and I like that it's typically easy to discern that about others as well. I find it helpful and orienting and familiar. I understand that's not always the case, and that's no problem at all. But I don't like the idea that we should expect to assume or discern nothing about someone else until we have specifically inquired. As another example, I am inclined to strike up a conversation with a stranger under the assumption that they are not hearing impaired and I am not eager to contribute towards changing towards a culture where the norm is to check first. That feels unnecessarily arduous, formal and ingenuine to me.

 

[attempt5001]

Seriously to answer the OP.

Your preferred pronoun is your business, as is whether you choose to put it in an email siggy or not.

This rather reminds me of when I was attached to the US Navy back in the 1980s. I do not have a second Christian name, I have a first name and last name, and that's it, so when I had to fill in the paperwork to be allotted a room in the BEQ and a temporary account at the PX, the form had a box for my second name, and since I didn't have have one, I left it blank.

When I handed it in, some jumped up, officious little admin clerk gave me the third degree for leaving a box blank. I explained that I have no second name, just first and last. I could see this annoyed him, and quickly told him that there's no point blaming me - my parents didn't give me a second name! He just thrust the form back into my hands, and said... "write NMI in there". I asked what it meant, and he looked at me like I was a piece of something he needed to wipe off his shoe. He said, curtly "No Middle Initial".... at this point, I just laughed, and that didn't do a lot for his demeanor... I thought he was going to have a seizure!

I have since found out that this use of NMI is quite common in the USA... it's not even thing here, which is why I had never head of it.

I have two middle names, which has often caused me trouble on official forms.

 

[Cavemonster]

We're at a sort of a liminal point in history.

For the first time in the modern western world, it's starting to be socially acceptable to be a trans person publicly. For most of our history that wasn't the case.

And we're not fully there yet. People who come out as trans still get disowned or abused by their parents for it, or mocked by their peers, or accused by politicians of faking their identity to try to get into the wrong bathroom.

In order to transition, the general recommended route is to consult with a mental health professional, who will normally recommend that a person shift into living as the gender they are transitioning to for a significant time before begining any medical steps. This will begin with things like changing pronouns and mode of dress.

This is all to say, you can't always tell by looking at a person, and that people who are transitioning can sometimes be in a vulnerable place where they're not assured of respect and support. And that sucks.

I empathize with your discomfort with change. It's nice to know things, it's nice for things to be simple. I don't like things that were previously simple becoming more complicated either.

But maybe take your own psychological discomfort as a starting point and think about the psychological discomfort of people who don't know if introducing themselves with a new name or different pronouns than they had before is going to get them harassed, or labled as crazy or perverted, or even attacked. Hopefully you can see that their potential distress around these issues is probably more fraught than what you saw in yourself.

One small thing that can be done- by normalizing pronoun listing, it sends a message that this company, this space is welcoming of people whether their pronouns match what one might traditionally have expected ot not. And it allows those few people to communicate this difference without having to bring it up out of the blue, or correct someone or do it in another way where it might just be scary.

 

[arthwollipot]

We're at a sort of a liminal point in history.

For the first time in the modern western world, it's starting to be socially acceptable to be a trans person publicly. For most of our history that wasn't the case.

And we're not fully there yet. People who come out as trans still get disowned or abused by their parents for it, or mocked by their peers, or accused by politicians of faking their identity to try to get into the wrong bathroom.

In order to transition, the general recommended route is to consult with a mental health professional, who will normally recommend that a person shift into living as the gender they are transitioning to for a significant time before begining any medical steps. This will begin with things like changing pronouns and mode of dress.

This is all to say, you can't always tell by looking at a person, and that people who are transitioning can sometimes be in a vulnerable place where they're not assured of respect and support. And that sucks.

I empathize with your discomfort with change. It's nice to know things, it's nice for things to be simple. I don't like things that were previously simple becoming more complicated either.

But maybe take your own psychological discomfort as a starting point and think about the psychological discomfort of people who don't know if introducing themselves with a new name or different pronouns than they had before is going to get them harassed, or labled as crazy or perverted, or even attacked. Hopefully you can see that their potential distress around these issues is probably more fraught than what you saw in yourself.

One small thing that can be done- by normalizing pronoun listing, it sends a message that this company, this space is welcoming of people whether their pronouns match what one might traditionally have expected ot not. And it allows those few people to communicate this difference without having to bring it up out of the blue, or correct someone or do it in another way where it might just be scary.

Nominated. Very well said.

 

[shemp]

I've never heard of using NMI that way. At my current employer, they put in "X" for employees' middle initials if they don't have one, because they use three initials as part of our internal IDs and logins. I was here a month before I found that out, I just thought a lot of my coworkers had really cool middle names like Xavier or Xena or Xanthippe.

Why must we have only first, middle and last names. Why can't we also have upper and lower names, and front and back names? Why must we even be restricted to three dimensions? Why can't we have past and future names as well? I want to have names in all spatial and temporal dimensions!

 

[gabeygoat]

We're at a sort of a liminal point in history.

For the first time in the modern western world, it's starting to be socially acceptable to be a trans person publicly. For most of our history that wasn't the case.

And we're not fully there yet. People who come out as trans still get disowned or abused by their parents for it, or mocked by their peers, or accused by politicians of faking their identity to try to get into the wrong bathroom.

In order to transition, the general recommended route is to consult with a mental health professional, who will normally recommend that a person shift into living as the gender they are transitioning to for a significant time before begining any medical steps. This will begin with things like changing pronouns and mode of dress.

This is all to say, you can't always tell by looking at a person, and that people who are transitioning can sometimes be in a vulnerable place where they're not assured of respect and support. And that sucks.

I empathize with your discomfort with change. It's nice to know things, it's nice for things to be simple. I don't like things that were previously simple becoming more complicated either.

But maybe take your own psychological discomfort as a starting point and think about the psychological discomfort of people who don't know if introducing themselves with a new name or different pronouns than they had before is going to get them harassed, or labled as crazy or perverted, or even attacked. Hopefully you can see that their potential distress around these issues is probably more fraught than what you saw in yourself.

One small thing that can be done- by normalizing pronoun listing, it sends a message that this company, this space is welcoming of people whether their pronouns match what one might traditionally have expected ot not. And it allows those few people to communicate this difference without having to bring it up out of the blue, or correct someone or do it in another way where it might just be scary.

Pretty much this. Well said

 

[smartcooky]

Why must we have only first, middle and last names. Why can't we also have upper and lower names, and front and back names? Why must we even be restricted to three dimensions? Why can't we have past and future names as well? I want to have names in all spatial and temporal dimensions!

That would be at least 11 names then!

 

[arthwollipot]

That would be at least 11 names then!

But seven of them are curled up too tight to see.

 

[HoverBoarder]

I received notice of a new work policy recently that requests employees include their preferred pronouns (e.g. he/him) in the email signature line. My initial gut response was "I don't want to do that" and I've spent some time pondering why that was my reaction. I think the main reasons I responded that way are:

Intense, it sounds like they are pretty serious in forcing that move rather than making it a preferred action. I would be afraid in that case to even voice any discomfort or hesitation at all to anyone in the company, even close friends, and would just follow it without mentioning anything.

If they are that serious about requiring that, they certainly would be ready to fire people who did not fall in line with their directive.

 

[HoverBoarder]

Why must we have only first, middle and last names. Why can't we also have upper and lower names, and front and back names? Why must we even be restricted to three dimensions? Why can't we have past and future names as well? I want to have names in all spatial and temporal dimensions!

If you make a move that mocks the accepted list of gender pronouns, you could definitely be fired for prejudice. A lot of the pushback for Gina Carano started when she put Beep/bop/boop as her pronouns, and she was widely accuses of being anti trans because of that.

 

[arthwollipot]

If you make a move that mocks the accepted list of gender pronouns, you could definitely be fired for prejudice. A lot of the pushback for Gina Carano started when she put Beep/bop/boop as her pronouns, and she was widely accuses of being anti trans because of that.

I don't know who that is, but yes, that is mocking those who specify their pronouns, which I don't think is particularly nice.

 

[Sherkeu]

Voluntarily- a good thing!

Mandatory? Problematic.

First, for anyone who is not 'out' at work they would have to out themselves early or have the wrong pronouns displayed on every email. If they want to add their correct pronouns at a later date, then it's great if it is already normalized even if not everyone chooses to do it.

Second, in my old job in a very male dominated field (injection molding), I sometimes just signed with my first initial and last name to companies I had not yet worked with. They might assume I was a man, but that was fine with me! If we ended up doing business, they'd find out soon enough.
I would want to keep my 'ambiguous' options open.

 

[Pixel42]

I'm old enough to remember when men started wearing their hair long, much to the annoyance of many. When I heard one of the latter complaining that he could not tell whether the people he passed in the street were male or female I wondered why on earth that mattered. Why would he need to know the gender of people he passes in the street?

So my question would be: why does the person who wants to know your pronoun need to know it? Are they going to treat you differently depending on what it is, and if so why?

If it's just a case of knowing how to address you, why not just use your name?

 

[cullennz]

I get a bit confused about this stuff some times.

If I am talking to someone and mention someone else I use their name. As otherwise it is a bit stupid.

If I happen to not mention their name after pointing out who I mean I say "they also mentioned" or whatever, which if someone gets stressed about, sorry.

a) Grow a pair
b) They isn't sex based.Get over it.
c) They arent even there, so who gives a ****

If the person in question is actually there, then I don't use third person pronouns. I say like "What was it you said Dave?" or whatever.

With regard to making it your signature, I am in a probably lucky country, with proper employment laws where I can say no. That is utter bollocks and not get sacked over it.

 

[Darat]

When I was younger - 40 years ago - I always hated the intentional misgendering that many of my friends and acquaintances and others went along with (the use of “she/her” to refer to males), it always grated even though I knew why it happened and the history behind it.

For those who feel this is the world coming to an end - it ain’t, it is an example of society and culture changing which has always happened, and as Cnut the Great demonstrated you can push back as much as you like but you can’t stop the tide.

This is becoming the new norm, but don’t worry revenge is sweet - in 30 years time the ones pushing for this change will be up in arms about the changes happening in their society and cultures!

 

[cullennz]

When I was younger - 40 years ago - I always hated the intentional misgendering that many of my friends and acquaintances and others went along with (the use of “she/her” to refer to males), it always grated even though I knew why it happened and the history behind it.

For those who feel this is the world coming to an end - it ain’t, it is an example of society and culture changing which has always happened, and as Cnut the Great demonstrated you can push back as much as you like but you can’t stop the tide.

This is becoming the new norm, but don’t worry revenge is sweet - in 30 years time the ones pushing for this change will be up in arms of the changes happening in their society and cultures!

That is fine. But if they are that worried about it, then there should be a law saying everyone with odd pronouns should have to have it worn on a t-shirt every where they go, or everyone else is excused from getting it wrong.

 

[angrysoba]

I think it is fine to do voluntarily (reveal your preferred pronouns), but I think it is not a good thing for an employer to demand or strongly request it because it then demands of people the very thing they may be uncomfortable doing in order to, ironically, make people feel more comfortable.

That said, I think it is praiseworthy for those who do so if their intention is to make people feel more comfortable by normalizing the practice.

 

[angrysoba]

That is fine. But if they are that worried about it, then there should be a law saying everyone with odd pronouns should have to have it worn on a t-shirt every where they go, or everyone else is excused from getting it wrong.

Ah! Good idea. Maybe have a colour-coded star or triangle system as well.

 

[cullennz]

I think it is fine to do voluntarily (reveal your preferred pronouns), but I think it is not a good thing for an employer to demand or strongly request it because it then demands of people the very thing they may be uncomfortable doing in order to, ironically, make people feel more comfortable.

That said, I think it is praiseworthy for those who do so if their intention is to make people feel more comfortable by normalizing the practice.

Agree

Kind of think of it the same way as I think about religion in publicly funded schools

(bit of a left field connection)

Should be opt-in and not opt-out.

You insist on it, cool. No one else has to bother