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Comment by EA-3167 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

> 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?

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