VP of Bitwarden fired for using ‘Assigned By God’ as pronoun sues employer | Hacker News Reader

VP of Bitwarden fired for using ‘Assigned By God’ as pronoun sues employer

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56 pointsedandersen106 comments

Pronouns are generally used to refer to someone in the third-person. Most of the time they are used when referring to a person not present in the conversation.

Why should I be dictated or forcefully compelled to refer to a person by a pronoun that does not match my interpretation of them?

And how far does this go? We've already seen the emergence of neo-pronouns, i.e. frog-self, bunny-self, kitten-self, etc. The cultural shift in the past 10 years gives credence to previously dismissed slippery slope arguments.

And lastly, why is the neoliberal and corporate world supporting this so fervently?

> why is the neoliberal and corporate world supporting this so fervently?

Because a large chunk of the modern corporate world is trash that relies on "growth & engagement", thus extremely vulnerable to public opinion, which a vocal minority is successfully exploiting - some with legitimate beliefs, but I'm sure a lot of it is virtue-signalling.

If you don't explicitly embrace it (thus even having a merely neutral opinion is not enough), you are therefore considered one of the bad guys and deserving of ostracism.

Worse, this stuff is contagious, and those who are risk-averse better at least pretend to embrace it (and virtue-signal to prove how "inclusive" and "supportive" you are) lest they be mistaken for a bad guy (even if their genuine opinions are internally supportive of the cause, but they'd rather keep politics and beliefs outside of work/business for example).

> And lastly, why is the neoliberal and corporate world supporting this so fervently?

Because of the insane amount of power this behavior confers. In this story it escalated into a VP getting fired. It's a given that if there's that kind of power to be had, it's going to be pursued.

Disagree completely. It’s pridewashing - hey ignore our bad corporate behavior or poor product strategy - we support LGBTQ!

It’s the same schtick they use when greenwashing.

Firing the VP for such a transgression is a good way to virtue-signal about how much they "support LGBTQ", so I'm not sure how much this actually disagrees with the parent?

Firing the VP isn't the goal, in fact it's detrimental to it. The goal is to make others think that the company is doing "good" by its employees and society, so we ignore the company's mis-steps.

I work with a few people that you may be referring to and have friends like that too. I use the pronouns that they request. Why? Because I'm not a jerk.

Sure, if I wanted to make a stink, I could. Do I have my own opinions? Yeah, of course.

But making a stink is not going to help anyone. Putting my own opinions aside (whatever they may be) and being kind is the only path forward that keeps communication open and honest.

As to your last question, it's all about the $$$. Deflect attention to culture war problems and pick the pockets. That old LBJ quote, but they've figured out how to do it for the progressives as well as the racists.

I think like anything in life, it's shades of grey.

If someone wants to swap gender, or I suppose go by "they" sure whatever. Good for them, or bad for them, honestly I don't really care, you do you.

If i have to walk around the office saying "oh kitten-self is over there" that's a tad extreme.

In the same way companies have a sensible approach to say swearing, they need one here too.

No sane person demands the latter, but failing to do the former is just being a shitty person.

As always, people take shit to extremes. We should not throw out the idea itself just because those extremists.

Today, you can say that people who think themselves kittens aren't sane and most people won't disagree with you. 20 years ago you could say that men who think themselves women aren't sane, and most people wouldn't disagree with you. Who can say what the future will hold in store for our culture. I know it seems unlikely now, even farcical like an argument being made in bad faith, but that's how it always is.

"No true Scotsman" ... But then you do it again, based on what? Why the first is sane and why the second is not? Who decides that?

I believe it all stems from ESG investing principles: firms are incentivized to pander to these ETFs who have mandates indirectly trickling down from the biggest players in the market (who have taken on the moral obligation to establish and distribute our system of ethics via capital allocation).

So then what is behind this ESG investing movement? Probably something sinister. nbd.

This has nothing to do with accommodation or tolerance and everything to do with the power it gives people over others. I don't know why people go along with this nonsense. It's way worse than any mainstream religion at this point.

> Additionally, Scharf received a reprimand for not using preferred pronouns in notes related to an interview he conducted with a job applicant whose preferred pronouns did not align with their biological gender. Scharf argued in the lawsuit that he refrained from using any pronouns during the interview and only used the applicant’s biological pronouns in internal notes.

It is so easy to just always write "the candidate" in your interview notes, and never need to write any third person pronouns. Certainly he was making a stand, rather than just non-confrontationally abiding by his beliefs. Obviously one wouldn't use any gendered pronouns in the interview since we only have "you" in English - though I imagine "refrained from using any pronouns" is a misreporting.

He should have known he was going down a dangerous path doing what he did, but it was bound to happen somewhere. Someone has to die on this hill. Now let's see if the courts are going to stick to the letter of the law or succumb to culture war pressures like so many other institutions have done

What does the letter of law say?

As far as I know you can't change your gender without going through an administrative process at the government, which at least means changing your identity card.

I don't know about U.S., but in my country there's an administrative team that has to approve gender change (operations are not required by law).

Have you ever taken notes during an interview? If I wrote "the candidate" every time, I would just lose track of what the candidate is saying.

On top of that, I don't know how it works at Bitwarden, but interview notes are only supposed to be used by you to later synthesize, so it shouldn't matter if you write "the candidate", "the dude", or whatever else is the most efficient when taking notes.

Lastly, it wouldn't even come to my mind to ask a candidate's pronouns in an interview, so it's already unreasonable expectations for me to even know them.

Have you ever shared interview notes with anyone? I type mine up... and 'TC' is just as useful in my shorthand as he/she would be.

I agree with you that if these were his personal notes from which he then composed his evaluation of the candidate it wouldn't matter - but I bet you that's not what this was, and I would further bet you that he was informed of the candidates pronouns and did know them.

Hey what do you know, I found the lawsuit: "That same week, Bitwarden tasked Mr. Scharf with interviewing a potential employee whose “preferred pronouns” were in contradiction to Mr. Scharf’s religious beliefs. Mr. Scharf conducted the interview in a professional and respectful manner, avoiding the use of pronouns all together. Mr. Scharf assessed the interviewee favorably and recommended that the interviewee advance to the next stage of the interview process. Because of Mr. Scharf’s religious beliefs, in his notes regarding the interview, which were shared internally and not with the interviewee, Mr. Scharf did not use the interviewee’s requested pronouns."

Using “they” & “the candidate” or “TC” has been standard practice for interviews at my employers.

Being an ass, or ramming their religion down peoples faces tends to annoy people. He could have been secure in his beliefs, chosen he/him or whatever pronouns were appropriate and moved on. Most places in North America, I thought, was at will employment.

Which pronouns are allowed and which aren't? I forgot.

This shit isn't freedom, its requirement to demonstrate loyalty to ideology. This person used the prescribed methods to demonstrate loyalty to a different ideology, and the cult came after them. That is all that happened here.

Rewind to 1999 or 1976. There was always workplace-appropriate communication, say the title on a corporate business card. Using that as a medium to advance personal views was and is inappropriate.

Yup, and if someone tried to leverage corporate communication to force their coworkers to appease their ideology that would have been a pretty big deal.

Using pronouns on business cards in 1999 or 1976 was also inappropriate. If you did that in 1976, people would consider you are a lunatic, according to my parents that did have business cards at that time.

Instead we used Mr, Ms, Mrs. I don't know why listing one's preferred pronouns are somehow worse

Allowed: "The part of speech that substitutes for nouns or noun phrases and designates persons or things asked for, previously specified, or understood from the context."

Not allowed: Everything else.

It's how words work.

Oh it's how words work huh? Well while we are discussing how words work, I'd like to point out that you get to pick your nouns, not your pronouns. Males are designated "he", " him", a male adult human is a "man" etc. The grammatical rules of the english language don't have any allowance for self selecting pronouns, that's what proper nouns are for. Since we are talking about how words work.

So it’s between ramming preferred pronouns down someones throat vs ramming religion down someones throat.

What’s the difference?

It's an interesting question, but as far as I understand it no one is ramming pronouns down anyone's throats? You don't even need to use them if you don't want to, just refer to people by name. Plus realistically no one is going to make you use any given pronoun, there's no council of pronouns.

By contrast forcing religion on people has a long history of real harm, it isn't just a social nicety. The worst that comes out of "pronoun policing" is arguably just rudeness, the worst that comes out of forcing religion is a known quantity, and it's as bad as it gets.

I only did a cursory read, but Chard (the former VP) listed “Assigned by God” as his personal pronoun, and (over simplified) that lead to his termination.

I understand that Christianity has gone out of favor in the workplace, but it’ss odd that corporate policies for inclusion seem to still alienate Christian beliefs (I say that as a Heathen).

Like having preferred pronouns in your email signature is valid, but listing you walk in the light of Christ would not fly.

Christianity is the biggest religion in the country. It’s not “out of favor”.

If this guy wants to protest “pronouns” then he could leave them blank.

To actively antagonize management decisions is career limiting behavior.

The article implies he was pressured not to leave his pronouns blank, so his move was a petty escalation.

The VP added pronouns in good faith, but was unceremoniously terminated when management didn't like the ones the VP believes are accurate.

He tried that, if you had read the article

Is it so hard to segregate personal and work activities? Do the personal stuff, hobbies, religions, ... on your own time in your own place with your own group. When in the work environment, do work things and play well with others who probably aren't the people you'd prefer to be with. If their behaviour is that uncomfortable to you, you'll move on. Similarly, if your behaviour is that uncomfortable to them, you'll move on.

I agree with you that's an option, but then it should go for "pronouns" and other identity stuff too then. Why should certain things get a pass? As it stands now, there's all this "bring your whole self to work" nonsense, but it really means "as long as your whole self conforms utterly to an extremely narrow set of dimensions along which you can pretend to be nonconforming". Either accept differences of opinion and don't hassle people for not actively prostrating themselves on the alter of your religion, or keep personal life out of work entirely.

So no wearing crosses in the office? No praying towards Mecca, or wearing a headscarf, having a beard, eating spaghetti is pastafarian and cramming religion down my throat!

Also plants and fish offend me, so I don't want to see them in the office. And population is anti-environment, so no photos of kids either.

I think the only solution is to work on cubicles with separate entrances.

Excuse the sarcasm, but having a small push back against mandatory pronouns and being fired is just another step to a really damn bland office environment.

Crosses are fine, just don’t badger people about crossism. Same with meccaism, scarfism, beardism and spagism. Do it, don’t badger or bother people about it. We get you’re into those things and we’ll return the favour and let you do them in peace.

Although I should point out that there are hard rules in Quebec that govern some of these behaviours in a rather discriminatory way.

> Like having preferred pronouns in your email signature is valid, but listing you walk in the light of Christ would not fly

That's false equivalence. Listing you don't believe in God or insults against religion are also not valid in email signatures. Pronouns are valid because you may need to refer to them in the third person.

> no one is ramming pronouns down anyone's throats?

From TFA: "...the correspondence indicates the company insisted on completing the gender field on Scharf’s employee profile, rather than it being an initiative initiated by Scharf himself."

As far as workplaces go, I don't think you can get more forced to go along with it than "Do it or you're fired."

What’s next, they will be forced to enter their first name?!

Come on, just enter he or she and get on with your life. Will you get upset on being able to choose Mr or Dr as well?

The worst that comes out of "pronoun policing" is arguably just rudeness

Or now in this case you get fired because you're not a "culture fit"

What if we refer to them based on the grammatical rules of the English language, is that OK?

There's nothing interesting about the question, it's cut and dry, youre just pretending it's not.

Article states it happened to its subject?

If I meet you in person, I'm going to ask your name. You can tell me exactly what's on your birth certificate, or you can tell me what you want me to call you (I assume it won't be balls187 but maybe Jack instead of John, etc). Or you can tell me it's "Assigned By God" and it will become apparent that you are somehow offended by the question itself and think names are a stupid concept all together.

"Preferred pronouns" is a question on a form. If you answer with anything other than pronouns, as defined in the dictionary, you're being an ass. That's the difference.

That is only equivalent if your pronouns are he/him or she/her. Any other answer, like “Asigned by god”, “ze/zer”, “they/them” makes you an ass.

I’m not all that fond of being called “it”, so yeah, I have a pronoun preference. There’s a vaguely similar choice of prefix (?) such as dr mr mrs miss ms etc. I don’t like the miss/mrs distinction and use ms unless it pisses off the recipient. Another preference. They could have just filled in the form, and left it at that. They’re probably claiming to be a Christian and the big guy wasn’t into judging or false actions. Live as an example, surprise people by helping out (big guy liked that also) and don’t make their lives worse because of your insecurities.

You don’t know their problems. Nobody died and made you king.

Oh, as someone who creates computer applications “Use the default” is a common action. People looking at me or most others make all sorts of assumptions and accepting the default works in most cases. I can leave those blank.

The difference is that one religion is approved; the other, rejected.

Yes, I agree. Ramming idiology down someone’s throat in an environment whose purpose is to make $$ is uncalled for. So why did Bitwarden do it? They could have made it entirely optional.

> He could have been secure in his beliefs,

This is perfectly in line with many people's belief. Pronoun selection is intended to be arbitrary to serve your own identity...except when someone objects to a specific selection.

The Jedi religion evolution in Australia, at least gave a line (that Jedis were able to cross) for what constitutes a religion. I have little faith that a more comprehensive ruleset for pronouns will come out of California.

I thought he had put it as a joke ("Assigned by God said that Assigned by God's tickets need to be triaged before Assigned by God's holiday") and firing him was a huge overreaction, but did not at first consider that someone might be so entirely serious about that. Though still sounds weird to me, both that you'd fire someone for just that (or maybe there's more going on) or that if you knew you could be fired for just that, that you'd do it anyway.

"ramming your religion down people's face" is what a LOT of religion are doing. Take for example hidjab (muslim scarf). We even have a law at some point in france to prevent religion from intruding special places like school, but i was under the impression that was considered discriminatory in the US..

I suspect misogyny underlays much of the “ohh, teacher in hidjab” bs.

Yeah, being required to cover your hair because you're a woman is very misogynistic.

>prevent religion from intruding special places like school

With a rather conspicuous exemption for crosses.

there are no cross in public schools, only private catholic ones.

Not sure about Quebec, but there are public Catholic schools in Ontario. Bothers the crap out of me...

i don't know about quebec either, I was actually only speaking about france.

I have the feeling france really has something unique with its relationship to religion ( and multi-culturalism in general) that could really benefit a lot of modern western societies. Unfortunately for now the influence goes the other way, we're the ones being influenced by the craziness happening in the US..

Except the ones worn on one's neck. The ban specifically allows for them, but not for kippahs or the hijab.

yes , it makes sense i think. Those necklaces are barely visible and very often are hidden by your shirt. They're hardly comparable to something that covers half your head.

Kippahs cover a very small portion of your head; I work daily with a guy who wears one and rarely notice it. Hijabs are more conspicuous, but like...so what? The intent of the 1905 law is abjuring the promotion or the degradation of religion, and simply wearing something on your head is not promoting anything, any more than being gay or, god forbid, indicating that gay people exist, is promoting homosexuality.

That sounds like such a disingenuous argument, he could have just selected he/him as his pronoun and be done with it. That is actually the gender he identified as. Instead he wants to use a pronoun that makes a political statement specifically targeting others he does not agree with.

If the whole "pronouns" thing is about being whatever you want to be, then "assigned by god" is as valid as "xe/xer", "dino/dinosaurs" or whatever some people want to call themselves nowadays.

Yes, both cases are something that a lot of people might consider stupid or childish, but the whole pronouns trend is that people should be "inclusive" and accepting of things they personally consider stupid or disagree with, so they should accept it.

Human culture can’t be put into boxes. You can in many places legally name your child AHH43Z, but the grand majority of people will not take it as a joke and choose a same name. It’s the exact same here, 99.9% of people will go with he/she - the important part is that you don’t misgender someone deliberately as that is just rude (the same way calling John who hates being called Johnny that).

The intent is what counts. The intent here was to troll, not request accommodation. Employers and judges don't take kindly to that.

> The intent here was to troll

How do you know? There are plenty of pronouns out there (basically all of them except the two genders and "they") that I still can't see anyone actually using seriously and not as a troll to make a statement - no different from what this guy is doing. The validity of a pronoun is a subjective concept at the end of the day.

However, even in the absolute obvious case where he himself would've admitted that he is trolling, the right thing to do would still be to accept his troll pronouns and not give it a second thought, otherwise you're not only "feeding" the troll (by giving him a reaction) but kinda validating his point that the whole thing is BS and that in reality only certain pronouns that fit the current groupthink are allowed despite the claimed "inclusivity".

Using "Assigned by God" is as immature as filling in "Yes please" beside "Sex" on a form. Anyone with a scrap of professionalism would not do such a thing. It is clearly a case of malicious compliance.

This has nothing to do with groupthink, it's just being a crap employee/colleague. I, for one, wouldn't want someone prepared to make an overt challenge to authority about something so petty to be in charge of security at my security product organisation.

If being asked to state your preferred pronoun is the final straw for you, then I suggest you have it better than 99.99% of people in the world and should grow up.

Making this argument is advocating for a registry of "valid" pronouns and a governing body - who should be in charge of that registry and how should disagreements be handled?

I thought the whole point of the pronouns thing is that having a static list of 2 sets of pronouns was not enough. If you believe this then I think you should also accept "assigned by god" as a valid pronoun no matter how stupid or trollish it sounds to you (and of course if it is indeed a troll then ignoring it is the best way to deal with it and make the troll go away).

If a gender-fluid pansexual wants to identify their sex as "Yes please", who are you to say they can't? Hmmm.

I’m other words “I want to impose a certain political morality in the office and I don’t see why this man can’t simply just go along with it”

You don’t seem to get it. Being told to do this is itself a political statement - one they openly admit to.

It’s quite sad to hear that basic human decency is a political statement.

Next time one should also write informally business emails?

The requirement to list pronouns is a political statement, hazing, a thinly veiled requirement to show allegiance to the orthodoxy of a cult.

So, exactly what they do?

How rude: "found himself in hot water when he chose to list “Assigned By God” as his preferred pronoun on his employee profile,"

Really if someone has a preferred pronoun, it should be used.

That paragraph above should be: "found Assigned By God in hot water when Assigned By God chose to list “Assigned By God” as Assigned By God preferred pronoun on Assigned By God employee profile,"

Since there was only one preferred pronoun listed, I must assume that it is the same for all pronoun usages in the English language.

He was free to chose his own pronouns and keep his gender ideology to himself. The company is also free to chose the policy that maximizes the well-being of most employees. Instead, he decided to engage in proselytizing at work, well deserved imo.

That's not how I read it. He was "pressured" or forced depending on how you interpret the article to play that game and couldn't leave it blank. So he lashed out a bit when provoked. At least he took a stand and didn't just capitulate and play that stupid game. I wouldn't say I agree with putting something inflammatory, but it's way more respectable that just letting something absurd get forced on you. I would have just quit. (Same as I would quit if I was asked to affirm I believed in the principles of any religion, as sometimes comes up).

Something absurd like asking someone how they want to be referred to in the third person?

If someone feels that's a critical piece of information to share, nothing is stopping them. My understanding is that he was being coerced into doing that himself when it wasn't relevant to him, and in fact he found it offensive to be aksed. So yes it's absurd.

(I'm not sure I should have replied, I consider the whole issue too stupid to spend time on other than to say "piss off, adults are talking", but anyway)

> If someone feels that's a critical piece of information to share, nothing is stopping them. My understanding is that Assigned by God was being coerced into doing that Assigned by Godself when it wasn't relevant to Assigned by God, and in fact Assigned by God found it offensive to be aksed. So yes it's absurd.

FTFY.

Is "referred in the third person" something flexible, like a preference? If yes, where is the limit, if any limit exists? Or is it like a nickname, where you can chose anything? Then it is no longer a pronoun, but a nickname or alias.

A man has a right to be offended by somebody asking him if he is a man. (Woman too, for that matter.)

Asking everybody their pronouns by default is an overtly political act, meant to re-engineer society to be more accommodating to people who's preferred pronouns do not match their visual appearance. The idea is that if everybody lists their pronouns, those people who's pronoun doesn't match their appearance will seem less conspicuous when they specify their preference. Since this listing of pronounces is a fundamentally a political act, you shouldn't be surprised when you encounter people who don't wish to participate in this sort of political action. Furthermore it is clearly inappropriate for employers to coerce workers to participating in such activism.

If he was free to choose then "assigned by god" is just as valid as any other pronoun.

"the policy that maximizes the well-being of most employees"

Of most?

> The lawsuit further mentions that two employees in Bitwarden’s human resources department complained of feeling harassed by Scharf’s religious statements.

I am an atheist but my best friend from college is a devout catholic and he tells me similar things about having to keep his religion under wraps at work because he'll get coworkers going on a vendetta against him otherwise. I believe him. Others have confided all manner of discriminatory and hateful remarks aimed at the religious to me, knowing that I am an atheist and therefore believing that I sympathize with their anti-theist bigotry (I do not; being an atheist is not synonymous with being an anti-theist.)

This industry has a real problem with tolerance. It's all sunshine and roses if you fit the mold, but if you dare to be a little different all the knives come out.

No, there is no problem with tolerance. I grew up in 2 cultures with 3 different religions and I am extremely supportive with people having whatever religion they want, but not tolerant at all with either them trying to convert me or trying to assert something just because one of their books said so.

If you have a discussion and the only argument they have is "it is written in <insert religious book here>, so this is the way" then dismissing their argument is not intolerance to their religion, but to their lack of rational thinking. Religions are not collections of scientific facts to be used as arguments.

My friend doesn't proselytize. He knew I was an atheist the first day we met and not once has he ever proselytized to me. He conceals the very fact that he is a catholic at work because he has reason to believe (well founded reason, I think) that he would face discrimination should that simple fact become known around his office.

It's less about fitting the mold than letting hyperpartisans walk all over you with their ideology. I think it's particularly bad in tech because lots of people want to keep their head down and not bother with politics so they just go with the flow, and next thing you know we've got nonsense like this where religious nuts are firing people because they don't conform. Try this on a construction site and see what happens.

Why does this article have a photo of a random woman? It's not the VP, it's not the author and it's rather unlikely that it's the VP's lawyer.

It is the lawyer. I was confused also and looked up the filename of the image and it says something like "first_last_lawyer.jpg".

So it is! Good job finding that. They should have captioned the image like regular media does.

Having recently attempted to move from LastPass to Bitwarden, only to have to abandon it due to sudden changes that broke third party integration without consultation or a sensible solution, I'd say this whole drama on brand.

Why is this flagged?

You know why: there's a lot of transpeople here that don't want this stuff questioned/discussed in any way, shape or form.

Mandating pronouns is absurd and stupid and its advocates resort to censorship by any means necessary to stifle reasonable discussion.

These are evil people and they deserve everyone's maximum contempt.

The good news is everyone can move the needle on this! It's clear in the comment section sees just how pathetic and fragile these ideas really are when put under the microscope.

[flagged]

Lol, really?

Yes, not the first incident either. There was a flagged article (I assume since vouched for) about a kid getting arrested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34935780

I love that someone in this article about pronouns is using the wrong proper noun: presumably it's Chad or Chard (like the leafy vegetables?), but not both

"The Epoch Times reported."

Hmmm...

And?

Is this article false information or not?

It's entirely fair to at least withhold judgement if not to just presume that yes, a pathological bullshit artist is bulshitting you.

Yawn

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