Comment by Azeralthefallen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Azeralthefallen | Hacker News Reader

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Azeralthefallen

Honestly the person running the seminars was very very strict. Several people said "I don't really care what people call me by", or can I just leave it blank to be what people want. The person explained how that attitude is disrespectful to people who do care about these things, and how it can foster an environment of hostility towards people who put them. Which in turn marginalizes those people etc.

However in January the entire sales team removed them after apparently a customer reacted negatively to the inclusion. Which lead to other external facing teams removing it to prevent the same issue. Most people have removed it from emails, and honestly many people just don't seem to care, and HR doesn't seem to be enforcing it.

The funniest thing of the whole "thou shalt list your pronouns" thing is that the actual trans folks I've talked to tend to be opposed to those policies. It paints them into a corner - either state that you want to be misgendered, or out yourself as trans.

Mandatory pronouns are a pure shibboleth in the culture war. Trans activists don't want it. Anti-trans activists don't want it. The only people who want mandatory pronouns are the folks wanting a cheap signal for how much of an ally they are and an easy way to identify and ostracize people who aren't in-line with their politics.

"It paints them into a corner - either state that you want to be misgendered, or out yourself as trans." Huh? What do you mean? How would not listing pronouns help?

What if they don't know their pronouns yet (gender neutral/fluid) or don't want to list them because they don't want to come out yet?

That's awfully strange they would have a problem with that, because there are some non-binary people who do welcome the use of all pronouns and even discourage people from using only one, or only the one they were initially using.

If someone is really okay with all of them and wasn't just saying it to be disrespectful, then it's fine. If they said it just to devalue someone else who did care (but really cared themselves all along and in no way would actually be okay with it), then it is wrong.

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