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Pronouns in Signature

I…snip…

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.

Doubt it. A company can ask you to do many things as part of your job, can’t see what legal reason you could use to say no to such a requirement. Many companies have very strict policies in regards to emails and signatures and whether you think they are bollocks or not you still have to abide by them.
 
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.

Who is this “they”?
 
Voluntarily- a good thing! :thumbsup:

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.

I think you are confused here. There is zero chance of this policy outing anyone against their will. It gives people the opportunity to specify the pronouns they want people at their company to use when addressing them. They have no obligation to change those pronouns until the exact moment they would like their coworkers to begin using different pronouns.
 
So nothing to do with the “they” in the opening post.


I have no idea what your post means.

In this case "they" means hyper sensitive people who actually care what they are called when not in the same room.

And no I am not gong to read the whole thread again to work it out if it is some fringe thing.

Just answer the question.

What do you think the punishment should be in the 0.01% times someone uses the wrong pronoun, because basically you would be screwed here trying to make it a big issue.
 
Some trans people I know are super sensitive to pronouns. It's symbol of their new self, and the old pronoun is symbol of their old self. But they also signal this in all possible ways already.
Normal people, and even some trans people, simply won't care if you use wrong pronoun. Unless you do it on purpose, and in that case, signature will hardly stop you.
 
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.
This is an excellent summary of my position, better than what I was going to post.
 
Don't worry. It won't be long before employers "request" that you include this information, and more, as well.

First they came for the sexist jokes, but I did not speak out for I was not a sexist.

Then they came for the racist jokes, but I did not speak out for I was not a racist.

Then they came for my pronouns -- and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Pouring one out in remembrance to workplace reactionaries that no longer can inflict their ****** personality on their marginalized colleagues with impunity. Lost but not forgotten, RIP
 
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.

That's a helpful and well-articulated perspective that I will try to consider carefully. Thank you.

However, there is a prevailing thinking that this is just a tiny thing (adding pronouns) and even if it only helps a small number of people, why not do it since it costs you nothing. What I'm trying to express is that my gut response made me aware that I felt this was costing me something. And I'm trying to explore and understand what I felt it was costing me and why that is valuable to me. Some may well feel that something as small as this is not too much to ask for the benefit of those who may be vulnerable and feel very strongly about their pronouns and gender identify. However there are also those who feel strongly about the value of their current cultural norms and for whom the change (particularly mandated) makes them feel vulnerable.

Also, as I have mentioned, I think choosing pronouns as a "priority of the day" is odd/arbitrary.
 
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I think you are confused here. There is zero chance of this policy outing anyone against their will. It gives people the opportunity to specify the pronouns they want people at their company to use when addressing them. They have no obligation to change those pronouns until the exact moment they would like their coworkers to begin using different pronouns.
To people who are not yet comfortable sharing their gender identity with others, or are not yet sure of their gender identity, being forced to explicitily state their preferred pronouns can be more stressful then having others wrongfully assume them. A "preferred pronoun" mandate is a policy that is profoundly hostile to transgender individuals.
 
To people who are not yet comfortable sharing their gender identity with others, or are not yet sure of their gender identity, being forced to explicitily state their preferred pronouns can be more stressful then having others wrongfully assume them. A "preferred pronoun" mandate is a policy that is profoundly hostile to transgender individuals.

You know what that's fair.
I've generally experienced normalized pronoun sharing as opposed to mandatory pronoun sharing and I've been thinking more of the opposition to the former. An absolutely mandatory policy could be a bad idea. Preferring not to say should be an option.

That said, I think normalized sharing of pronouns is still a positive thing.
 
Also, as I have mentioned, I think choosing pronouns as a "priority of the day" is odd/arbitrary.

As others have mentioned, pronouns are something widely used by people who interact in a business setting. Everyone in a meeting is going to say "I agree with what she said before" etc. Pronouns are going to come up. Many of those other issues you mentioned in the original post don't require any action or acknowledgement in the large majority of interactions.

And in the cases where it is relevant, there generally isn't a comparable stigma. Blind people aren't thrown out of their parents' house because they told their parents they were blind. There aren't messageboards and politicians going around saying that all blind people are faking it and we should just keep ignoring that they say they're blind and refusing to accomodate them.

There isn't a comparable level of everyday relevance (Everyone uses pronouns) and potential hostility/stigma around other issues at this moment in history.
 
It's important to point out that jurisprudence in the US is moving towards making workplace hostility and discrimination towards trans people unlawful. There's probably a very good business reason to start adopting these kinds of policies, and I wouldn't be surprised if gender identity non-discrimination starts showing up as explicit corporate policy in the near future, even for mainstream companies. Coming to a long, tedious yearly corporate compliance training near you!

HR is getting out in front to mitigate the risk of sex discrimination lawsuits filed by trans employees. Given how rabid the transphobes are becoming, I suspect this is going to a be a recurring and expensive problem, just as anti-women or anti-gay discrimination have been.

personally looking forward to more bigots that get ****-canned for being a bigot at work. Those are always fun stories with top-tier discourse.
 
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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.

What is the basis for the highlighted?

I read "request" in the OP. Did I miss something?
 
If you make a move that mocks the accepted list of gender pronouns, you could definitely be fired for prejudice.

I have found that mocking coworkers is not a good long-term strategy for employment. Maybe that is a recent change. Maybe it is a good thing.
 

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