I’m no transgender activist, but I do support including pronouns. For example, my former manager was European and had a first name which would likely be considered feminine in the USA. Just makes it easier when you’re in a professional environment and don’t want to embarrass yourself
I’m sorry if it’s been covered already, but why do people use “she/her/hers” instead of just “she”? (Or just “he” or just “they”). Seems if you get one pronoun right you could figure out the rest on your own.
This page says you can use one or several:
I have seen “she/they”, though – meaning either is acceptable. For example, actor Elliot Page says either he/him or they/them is OK for him (them).
This is in no way an accommodation issue. A workplace accommodation is any change to the way things are usually done in order to allow a person with a disability to perform the basic functions of their job. So far as I know, not conforming to gender norms is not a disability as defined by the ADA. And even if it were a disability, having employees put their preferred gender on their profiles isn’t going to help the non conforming employee perform the basic functions of their job.
I would look at this through the lens of the company’s diversity, inclusion, and equity plan. It’s a good idea to make sure employee’s can be as much of who their are at work as possible and allowing employees to put their preferred pronouns in their profile might help with that. But I don’t think you should require it because some employees are not going to be comfortable putting that information there. It doesn’t bother me when other people out they/them or whatever in their preferred pronouns but I don’t want to put he/him. My gender is not at all ambiguous and it seems weird that I would pretend like it is.
I think you should do whatever makes you most comfortable.
Why would it remove an opportunity for discrimination? If anything, a bigot would be able to see “they/them” and instantly have an opportunity to discriminate.
I don’t see why. The majority of transgender people I know go by he/him or she/her rather than something gender neutral. When I see they/them as a pronoun I don’t think “transgender.”
You’re using “accommodation” in the technical ADA sense. I’m using it in the common usage of the word, such as definition 2a or 2b here.
If only transgender people posted their pronouns, whether they were he, she, or they, it would be instantly obvious who they are. I don’t know why you’re keying in on they/them, although that is a case where you could never guess the pronouns by looks.
Well, they are the ones with the most vested interest in being treated as their preferred gender (or pronoun). If it’s not obvious, we need their help/direction in that respect. I don’t know how not to draw attention to their needs while trying to not make that need obvious.
Because the likelihood of misgendering is higher in some cases than others. Some people are just transitioning, for example. For some people it is literally the first day of identifying with a particular pronoun. And for others it’s just a fact that they’re likely to mistakenly be perceived as a different gender from how they identify.
For some people, there is not a likelihood of confusion, because their name and appearance means that people are going to assume the correct gender, and in those cases, this doesn’t apply as much. But for other people, it does. In those cases, a codified system that answers the question “how should I refer to this person” removes the first line of attack, which is often playing dumb and acting Very Surprised about a person’s gender. Particularly in a workplace context, there is a pretty heightened sense of what you are and are not allowed to do. Even if people are only not harassing people to not get fired, these kinds of practices make a difference to the experience of the people who would otherwise be getting harassed.
I’m aware of that. Within the context of the workplace, accommodation has a very specific meaning. So when talking about employee relations issues it’s important to my little HR heart that we’re clear on what an accommodation actually is.
Why do you assume that when given a choice it will only be transgender employees who post their pronouns? Why should another employee who doesn’t want to list their pronoun preferences be forced to do so just to make another employee feel comfortable?
I’ll just skip ahead. Should all of us put our preferred pronouns in our signature/professional profile? No. Not all of us are comfortable doing so and I think we’re deserve of just as much respect and consideration as the gender nonconforming employees who do want to put that information out there. Employers should encourage their employees to do what makes them comfortable not put any kind of pressure to encourage them to put their preferred pronouns down.
In that case, you left out religion.
If pronouns should be anywhere, it should be in the company directory. I don’t need to use someone’s pronouns when I’m in an email exchange with them. Unless I work closely with this person, I’m going to quickly forget whatever they had in their sig. If I am working closely with them, I will very likely know their pronouns without their sig. What I need is a way to look up someone’s pronouns when I’m talking about them at some random time (e.g. “Give the doc updates to Quinn. She’s the writer for that section.”)
It would be weird if the workplace said we should list religion in our sigs as well. And maybe sexuality, too. So my sig would be “Filmore, he/him, straight, atheist”. It could be argued that this will help us relate to our coworkers better, but it seems more personal than I would want to share at work.
I’m not sure this analogy will work but I’ll give it a try: My best friend of many many years did not ask me, nor anyone else, to participate in demonstrable shows of solidarity with gay rights when he came out all those many years ago. All he wanted was friendship and acceptance, and he got it.
Isn’t that ultimately what trans-gender people want? Do they really need/want the rest of the world to join them in the practice of specifying preferred pronouns in social media bios and corporate e-mail sigs?
I did because religious accommodations are a whole different ball of wax. For religious accommodations, an employer is generally not required to make one if it incurs more than a de minimis cost for them. But I’ll bite. Do you think this is a religious accommodation? I’ve certainly heard people cry religious freedom when it comes to desire to misgendered trans people.
Maybe we should put our job functions in our signatures here on the Dope.
RS
Not in HR
Providing preferred pronouns has been normalized in my part of the US. I don’t think of this as a transgender only issue. Many of my teenage daughter’s prefer they/them, for example. Many are non-binary, but some just don’t want to be boxed in. Both she/her and he/him come with societal expectations: girls do this and boys do that. I believe they perceive that as limiting. They/them provides a neutral space to define themselves.
I do also see the value in providing pronouns in other settings, such as online interactions. As noted, names can be confusing. Maybe it doesn’t need to be in every email, but having the option to check a user profile is helpful.
Overall, I don’t understand the concern about doing this. Society changes, and people adapt. If you don’t want to do it, then don’t. I think the practice will continue to be adopted, however, and will become the norm.
For emails at least,
- It’s a minor inconvenience
- It is counterintuitive
- It looks ugly (IMO)
- It looks unprofessional OR it looks professional and conscientious *
- You will be branded a liberal snowflake OR a person who is reasonably aware of modern social trends *
* Depends on the situation, could be desirable or not.
I personally have a somewhat gender neutral name, it has never bothered me. If someone guesses wrong I correct them. Putting pronouns or gender in a profile or v-card is fine (I put “he/him” on my profile here), and I’ve seen people put Mr. or Ms. on stationary and emails which is also fine and relatively common practice. These seem like much more reasonable alternatives than listing the preferred pronouns in the signature of an email- you’re making waves with that, which may not be desired.
For a person who identifies as transgender I see no reason to treat emails any different than any other person. If I email a transgender person there would be zero reason for me to assume they are transgender, and zero reason to include pronouns in that medium. If the name is gender-neutral then it is exactly the same situation as an individual who is not transgender.
Social media and some email extensions are a bit different as they allow for pictures. In these cases either the contact card or the profile bio should contain gender or pronoun info, if the person doesn’t ‘pass’. I have nothing against encouraging everyone to fill out gender/pronoun info there. Click on my name or icon for an example.
~Max
The debate isn’t about whether people should have the right to opt-out, it’s about why they might want to opt-out, or why it should not become the norm.
@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness mentioned something similar in another thread. It will be interesting to see how many of them persist with this practice through their young adulthood and beyond. We all did things in our formative years that were trendy, cool or common for our peer group. Most of us grow out of it.
This may need its own thread, but I’d like to push back on this. I don’t believe that teenagers (or even younger children) are nonbinary, or trans, or pan, or ace, etc, because it’s trendy. It’s patronizing at best to assert that people don’t understand their gender simply because they’re young.
The teenager in my household mentions plenty of lesbians in soccer, but even to her transgender is a rather foreign idea.
And I was a teenager only a few years ago… nonbinary was not a trend anywhere near me.
Just one anecdote.
~Max