Government contractors cannot do business with anyone on the DPL and that list changes daily. Fear-based inaction just underscores that there are injustices to be fixed, and they won’t be fixed by cowering from action. Being related to the person, but not work specifically. Legally, we are not allowed to stay there…”. But, I have non binary and trans coworkers and clients. That’s actually kind of the point- to foster an environment in which your identity as a she, he, or they is matter of factly disclosed up front to prevent any future misunderstanding or hurt. Nor does it make them uniquely culpable when they act in ways that protect themselves. I’m not sure how I would have handled it. But I will pay for certifications and education that will benefit me NOW. I’m not in a country that has a significant Jewish community so I can’t speak for Rosh Hashanah, but surely the concept of non-Christians having holy days isn’t new in western society either. Also for clarity, I was apparently was typing in the wrong field so Deplplte = Dete = Dee. Sigh. And of course all of those problems should be fought. But absolutely no one would blink if I added them today. If Terry had responded to one of my e-mails with some iteration of “Don’t call me Ms. I’m a MAN” it would have come across as more than a little sexist, IMO. That said, I think the aim of the pronoun “movement” is to make it more normal to have non-cis and non-binary gender identities. Professional =/= traditional, but it’s often perceived that way. Its good to know to whom you’re speaking and how to adress people.” Please help me to write an email with ask my boss for mobile phone. Can I ask my employee to remove his pronouns from his email signature? I mean, most signatures have the person’s name in it, which is going to lead to people assuming gender anyway unless they have ambiguous name? I just chalk it up to being tall and not dressing as girly and it doesn’t bother me being misgendered. There’s one young person who regularly attends our events who doesn’t have a particular set of chosen pronouns so they just make it clear that people can use whatever because they’re fine with it. Fashionable Pumpkin.” said that you need to process the order”. When talking to folks who don’t “get” including pronouns in email sigs. Dear ying please forward this document to porfessor o connor for his signature at your earliest convenience thank you in advance and appreciate your help. In my country, “Dana” would be a female, so when the customer service rep at our vendor was a “Dana” with a rather male voice, I didn’t think much of it and pictured a chain-smoking, middle-aged lady. I’ve never worked anywhere that forbade using certain hotels so find that’s a bit unusual to my way of thinking. Since this was not even considered as option for the Jordans and Taylors of the world previously, I can understand that it feels like someone trying to push an issue rather than make clear conversation easier. You can customize various security settings for your message before sending, and send files to internal or external users. I think it’s awesome that you work for a place that even thinks about employee development during a pandemic. My manager and I have a friendly relationship. An online signature can serve this purpose, too. LOL loan processing having Catholic iconography up. So instead of “she said X”, “Jane said X”. A sample letter requesting your boss for a staff replacement? Still awkward, and by the time you get a bit further in, you’re back the all the linguistic pretzels. I think the reason that someone might consider pronouns unprofessional in an email signature is because it assumes interest on the part of the recipient. Perceived as too feminine, perhaps? Thank you for this. So I’m skeptical of a whole industry where it is unprofessional. It’s just that you are in a position where the pronouns people assume the should use for you based on their assumptions about your gender are OK with you. It set my teeth on edge. For my 2c, I can 100% understand why a nonbinary person might want or need to make sure that they are identified correctly by others. That was the first thought that popped into my mind. It’s a small part of your wording but important so I wanted to comment – cis people can use they pronouns, just like nonbinary people can use he and she. Thank you. I worked for a construction trade association with 2-4 employees at any given time; there was no HR department, no cultural competency, no D&I, etc. What if the intent was to just be inclusive and to communicate that they are accepting of all genders so people need not feel uncomfortable or feel like they have to hide that part of themselves when they talk to this person? I do wonder if you’ve tried though. They way to protect your job is to get this on the record – which is so much easier with a formal diagnosis. And the minion in your accounting office is a jerk —. Make your pronouns something normal.”? It prompted me to think a lot harder about my gender and ended up some years later with me realising I am actually non-binary, and had been uncomfortable with “she” since I was a small child. Ohhh, that is a good point. It’s a hill I’ll die upon because I and many of my peers are mis-gendered. Everyone I’m close to is aware of how bad I am so they are used to me saying ‘I don’t remember’ on repeat. I’m a woman in a male dominated field, and I’m often the only woman in meetings or on email chains. And even if you did that, they should still reimburse you whatever amount they normally would have paid. Best way to ask my boss to leave early from work to attend my son`s christmas concern? A few years ago our HR sent around an email about adding pronouns to your email signature (instructions on how to do it, a website with more info about pronouns) and 99% of people did. My name is pretty obviously female, but if I were adding in “she/her” in my signature, it’d almost be yelling “Hey, I’m the only woman here! * That doesn’t mean that no one they email needs to know their pronouns and it certainly doesn’t mean I get offended or think it’s unprofessional for them to be included in the signature. It’s really, really obvious when someone is using your name to avoid using your pronouns. We have a gender neutral named child as well who is often misgendered, not just by doctors. I don’t think that’d what you’re going for at all, but it’s easy to not give that impression by just saying you would serve people the same regardless of gender. My knowledge of psychology is part of my semantic memory but it doesn’t change the fact that I am incredibly slowed down. Urt – I’m not sure what your name is, but my name is Susan, and people get it wrong. There’s sort of a trailing edge as one diagnosis gains awareness and acceptance that it’s a Legitimate Medical Thing where it’s always on the verge of authority figures deciding it’s not excuse enough (migraines, but see also: ptsd, anything nerve related) and everyone else with a lesser known diagnosis going “fine, I’m going to tie myself to this boat rather than justifying my diagnosis to every third person I talk to about accomodations.” It makes it easy to blame the people who are undiagnosed / misdiagnosed / clinging to the raft of “THIS slight lie is how I finally get accommodations” when someone decides that it’s no longer a sufficient excuse for being a human with medical problems in a work environment because “too many people” need accomodations for it. I pressed on this issue when I was significantly younger, and my career suffered significant setback. EDs actually have very little authority and what the dues-paying board of directors says, goes. Send email to boss requesting to leave office 2 hours early? At that time, I got a lot of questions about it from people in other industries. Wouldn’t “she” be sufficient? Having an amazing boss and/or coworkers is the cherry on the sundae. Position Title If it sounds grammatically awkward, keep doing it until it starts to blend a bit. It’s not necessary and can just fuel nosy people theorizing and guessing. I’m perfectly happy to write “to whom it may concern”. Maybe we need updated prefixes so people can just use those. Oh yes, flashback to 9th grade Keyboarding class, of which half the semester was learning how to format business and academic documents. In my organization it generally looks like: First Name Last Name, PhD (they/them) What Koalafied said feels sadly very correct. If you want to make things very clear, tell them, “I’ve been having a medical issue that’s been making it hard to work and I need to see what my options are for accommodation.” My company would then provide a letter explaining the process and a form for the doctor to fill out with a summary of the medical issue and requested or suggested accommodation; after review and discussion with the employee, it would all be documented and signed by HR and the employee, with a copy to the supervisor so they know the accommodation. I’m just pointing out that if you’re a relatively junior person in an industry that refuses to treat people like humans (which is a succinct and accurate way of stating what I was trying to say, so thank you for that), you should be aware that including pronouns in your signature would come across oddly and would likely not work in your favor. Meanwhile, all the straight parents are coming in as couples with the actual fruit of their sexual endeavors in tow . Your company should reimburse you 100% unless you purposely chose something like the Ritz-Carlton when the Doubletree was available. I have to homework on sending an email to a boss informing them i made big sale with grammar and all i should i write the email? I have an unusual first name, in addition to a commonly misspelt surname, both of which are given in full in all emails. I’m a cis woman with a very female name. We have standard form signatures we all have to use because this got out if hand. Will you go around and tell everyone under your watch to stop? Loads of people from the academic side have their pronouns in their emails and it’s no big thing. I don’t think it’s effective to argue for minority rights by showing how it would benefit the majority; that just further entrenches stigma against the minority. What I really don’t understand is why it is SUCH a big deal to acknowledge that there is actually a PERSON at the other end of the transaction. I can’t think of a professional context in which putting your pronouns in your signature would be unprofessional. Pat Smith (they/them) isn’t going to be Mr. or Ms. Smith. When they are in the office, we are required to allow them to leave the premises during the 30 minute lunch break, so when we have all-day company meetings where they feed us but we’re expected to stay in the room and watch a presentation during lunch, I find I have to remind the organizers that we need to give the hourly employees a minimum of 30 minutes without a scheduled presentation so they can leave if they want. You didn’t sign a blood oath to this company forever. If the company had a policy of being super anonymous to the point that pronouns would be too revealing, then why would the first name even be allowed on the signature? It’s not new. My point was, many of us support the goal of inclusion and there are lots of ways to do so, but it’s not fair to be written off as transphobic just for not understanding or agreeing with the pronoun thing. OP1: I work for one of the biggest credit agencies in the world. title, department At the same time, I present and act 99% like a straight cis white woman, so I feel like adding “they/them” would be appropriation? Oh, this! Love this, and if I were still teaching it’s what I’d go with. It’s far more passive. Sometime last year there was a slack thread where someone asked, basically, “are we allowed to put pronouns in our email sigs?” and dozens of people replied to say “I have no idea, but I’ve been doing it this whole time and nobody’s told me to stop”. Someone who has had a hysterectomy is not necessarily a woman! should I report to someone with less education than me? Fast Approval. I clearly empathize that it’s hard to find the words/phrases that you feel comfortable with using, but I implore you to think about the consequences of your status quo in addition to using Alison’s language. It’s one of the many reasons I want out of both this specific bank and banking as a whole. Set the default signing method. I was directly responding to the comment saying that being misgendered was no big deal. (I’ll be honest with the coworkers I trust, but putting they/them in my email signature is not something I’m ready to deal with.). Whenever I say the sentence “I go by ‘they’ pronouns,” I’m variably met with “huh?”. etc. But if you are a woman at work mostly emailing with people who already know you or if you have a name that will make people assume you are a woman anyway, then adding pronouns isn’t going to change anything. Thank you for asking this question. I could be a valuable asset to them in the mean time, and who knows what the timeline really is. :). So just as it’s polite and helpful to sign your email (so that people who email you can avoid spelling your preferred name wrong – if your preferred name is not what is in the phone book) I feel that it’s polite and helpful to include your pronouns, so that I can address you correctly when I have the opportunity to do so. I like that analogy, it seems simple and clear. (This doesn’t apply to you, but I also don’t allow transphobia, nor will I allow TERF or TERF-adjacent comments here because I’m not going to host that content in my space or on my dime. House of Lunch Unfortunately “preferred pronouns” has become a problematic usage because of the way the word “preferred” was used by TERFs to imply that trans and nonbinary people’s identities are a preference rather than a reality. I do understand the conflicted feelings about a work place. I’m used to it now, but when people being open about LGBT was becoming more common it did make my mind go to “oh they’re having sex with…” when if it had not been mentioned I wouldn’t have thought about their relationships or personal life at all. But after receiving my first email, I noticed on his reply to it that he had added his pronouns! A very good example of how two usages work. Like, nothing that hints at the existence of any of the rest of us would be okay to them. Almost everyone I correspond with has pronouns in their email signature or Zoom/Webex/Teams display name. In a place where we’re supposed to be exchanging ideas, it’s just not helpful when only certain, narrow views can be expressed. This information may have changed after that date. My family has a set of friends who are both Kim Taylor. If you find it more offensive for someone to specify how they want to be addressed because of their gender identity than someone changing their name/title due to marital/educational status then the problem is your discomfort with their gender identity and/or variations on gender identity. It’s not just anecdotes and stories. This is the world now. I assume they are referring to some of the things I’ve read about comparing how people are treated in email correspondence with women versus with men (I know I remember in particular one that was like “I am a man who pretended to be a woman on email and was shocked at how much less respect I got!” or something like that). Many of my coworkers meant well but were afraid of messing up and got in their heads about it, coming up with all kinds of weird constructions, like using “they” instead of second-person or first-person pronouns or using “they” instead of “them” or “their” (e.g., saying to me directly, “hi anone, I like… they?… hair today??”). Yep! Putting she/her pronouns next to my signature also makes me sad, but I don’t want to deal with the hassle of educating people about they/them at work, so I don’t include any pronouns and just go with what people guess. I still have an amazing career. you accept another position, etc. I’ve never really come across this before and I’m finding it rather perplexing. So if a behaviour isn’t common at your company, then you shouldn’t do it unless you can justify it reasonably. Need your help to get your boss signature asap. I’ve been considering how include pronouns in my email signature and other work communications. I once got a rebuke from someone high up with infinitely more authority than work to do for converting our address to a Google Maps link. Characterizing “don’t be transphobic” as somehow nasty is nasty in and of itself. “I have MJ’s file here, so can you go tell them it’s ready so they can pick it up before close of business”? But, that is how they like to do it. But I think a reality check is in order her. Dear Mr? Forgot to say LW1 but actually a response to comments. But when our cis allies do it, too, the process becomes normalized AND shows trans/queer folks that you are a safe person. . I’m so sorry. I’ve come across a lot of people who really don’t see the point and who have an immediate negative reaction to pronouns in signatures because it’s a deviation from the norm. 1) I love it when we start off the week with ~*~controversy~*~. There’s still plenty of important doctors in their fields out there that don’t actually believe in mental health or who approach being overweight with “Well stop eating, skip a few meals.” [Things actual doctors have said to me and my loved ones, I’m not even joking.]. #1: I wanted to point out that there are mixed feelings within the queer community about the convention to include pronouns in professional signatures and bios. However, I got an email from an old colleague and she had them, so I think it’s evolving quickly. how do i put this in a email to his boss? It’s a great way of saying ‘it’s optional, but whatever you say will be cool’. LW #5 – so much sympathies. I know other enby folks who feel similarly. +1 Initially it was just the folks who worked in more public-facing, social service-type work, but it’s expanded to other, internally-faced positions. Foreign namescan ne hard to categorize. My name, for example, is technically gender-neutral, though mostly used for women now. Can anyone tell, at first sight, whether the names ‘Özséb’, ‘Ger’ or ‘Filio’ are originally supposed to be for male or female people?