Out of curiosity, how often have you encountered this explicit discussion of pronouns in contexts totally separate from trans issues? I mean, if you are going to a discussion of trans issues it makes total sense, but I’ve never encountered it at just a random board game night, or work retreat, or what have you. I’ll be curious to see if it becomes standard practice going forward. My guess is it won’t, at least explicitly, just because the number of trans people in the world is so small. But I’d also guess that “ok, let’s go around the room and everyone say your name” will more and more often be understood to implicitly include “and if the pronouns you’d like us to use are not the ones we’d guess, please let us know”.
I think I would agree with this. I would feel uncomfortable with the latter but not with the former. Asking people to state their pronoun is too hippyish for me. I would feel the same way as if they asked me to state my spirit animal or something. The former is more like asking me to recognize that sometimes gender isn’t a binary simple situation. I’m perfectly fine with that, and I can see that a clarification can be helpful.
By saying “Speak up if there might be a problem” we are putting people into a bind. Only people who are trans or who otherwise may not fit neatly into a gender-identity box would be potentially forced to speak up, while most cis people would not think to. So, it would be like saying “Okay, who here is trans? Raise your hands.”
Having everyone speak may make some feel goofy at first, but that’s very temporary.
No love for “yinz”? 
I may never find myself needing to ask someone what their preferred pronouns are, but if I did and that was your reply, I’d have absolutely no fucking clue what you just said.
I encounter it pretty frequently in contexts that aren’t explicitly trans-focused, but that’s usually because the organizers are trans themselves, or have a lot of friends and acquaintances who are trans and are likely to attend.
I dunno… if we go around the room and 19 people say “I’m Bob, I go by he/him/his” or “I’m Jane, I go by she/her/hers”, and one person says “I’m Pat, I go by they/their/theirs”, they still stick out, and are still just as outed as the only non-binary-gendered person in the room.
(And it’s not the same as outing people as trans… after all, a fair percentage of trans people “pass” as their newly chosen gender just fine. So transwoman Jane can just say “I’m Jane” and everyone will do the default of using standard female pronouns for her.)
There are plenty of characteristics a human have which make them not one whit less valuable, less human, less worthy of respect, but which are unusual. If you have life-threatening peanut allergies you might want to mention that to people upon meeting them in some contexts. That’s no reason to add “and I do NOT have life-threatening peanut allergies” to the standard introduction that the majority of people give.
I’ve run into it several times, and while it is obviously an accommodation for trans people in the group, it’s never been “about trans people”.
The first time I encountered this was at a Quaker meeting. We all introduced ourselves, and were invited to give our pronouns. About half of those present did so.
I am in a dance club that has a lot of trans members. We wear permanent plastic name tags. (Like employees at a retail place might wear.) And we recently invested in a pile of “pronoun dangles” that people can wear below their name. About 2/3 of regular attendees wear a pronoun dangle. The vast majority of those read “he/him/his” or “she/her/hers”, but we keep “they/them/their” in stick, and order others as requested.
When our most recent class began, the registration form asked for name, “name for badge”, contact info, how you learned about us, and also preferred pronouns and which gender role the student wanted to learn.
Not familiar with it. Sorry.
If we go around the room and 19 people give their preferred gender, it’s going to be difficult at first to remember them all until people become familiar with everyone else’s preferences.
Ask Guin. Or Nother Yinzer. They can tell you.
Pronouns maybe, but the “something else” is hard to grasp for somebody who’s accustomed to two genders. The accusations don’t help either. He’s not going to be more readily acceptable of the new gender identifications by shaming.
Is there some sort of list of pronouns that I can pick from if I attend a meeting where this is asked? Or is it just He/she/they?
We let people type whatever they want into the form.
Just out of curiosity (I’m not being flippant–I really do want to know), why does the statement so often go like this:
BOB: Hi, I’m Bob, and I prefer ‘he,’ ‘him,’ and ‘his.’
as opposed to:
BOB: Hi, I’m Bob, and I prefer ‘he.’
Is there any case where Bob might use 'he" but not ‘him’ and ‘his’? If not, why the extra words?
I’d guess the “extra words” make the statement more informative. It’s not that “he” is frequently paired with a feminine or neutral possessive, it’s that mentioning the whole trio helps the listener absorb the meaning. It would be reasonable to assume “I prefer he”, meant “I prefer the traditional masculine pronouns of English”, but “I prefer he, him, his” makes it obvious.
In fact, there’s a serious pro-trans argument opposed to insisting people give their pronouns. Often trans and non-binary people aren’t completely “out”, or may not be completely certain of what they prefer, and being put on the spot can be uncomfortable. But when pronouns are being offered up, the trans people I know appreciate cis people offering their pronouns, too, and feel it’s generally supportive.
Some of the novel pronouns differ in different cases. For example, last year, our class had people who gave their preferred pronouns as:
Zie/Zir/Zirs
Zie/Hir/Hirs
Ey/Em/Eirs
Along with more common choices. (like She/Her/Hers) Just the Zie would have been incomplete.
And yes, it’s hard to remember all that, and I don’t think anyone who didn’t already know them actually DID remember all the pronouns. In fact, a lot of the younger members called all of them by “They/Them/Theirs”, which put me in the unusual position of correcting the folks who usually remind me to say “they”. 
Somewhat regularly when I’m on campus, outside of campus often in political action meetings, etc. But then they’re all liberal/left meetings, which likely has an influence.
In the business world, never. But then out and proud LGBT persons are kinda rare in business in any event.
This is true.
In other words, “You were just about to convince me/them/the masses of the merits of your position, but you didn’t do it in a prescribed polite enough manner, so tough titties.” In SJ, this is the “tone policing strategy.”
It just seemed strange enough to comment upon, that someone on a board that is supposed to have “the sharpest knives in the drawer” would not understand what it means to give the pronouns corresponding to their gender. Especially considering that likely 99% of people on here are going to be strictly binary-state/cisgender/non-intersex anyhow.