Federal employees told to remove pronouns from email signatures by end of day
abcnews.go.com
abcnews.go.com
0: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/722
Here's part of the document (emphasis added):
> Make Your Support Visible!
> • Include “pronoun:” under “name:” in name tags and introductions in groups as an opportunity for participants to make their pronouns visible. At the beginning of the semester, educators can call out students by their last name instead of their first name in case a student has not been able to change their name in the Student Information System or legally. Let students know that after class they can let you know what name they use if it is different than what is on the roster.
> • At the beginning of the semester, educators can pass out 3x5 notecards to students and ask them to add their name, pronouns, and whatever information you feel is necessary to know about the student that they might not want to share out loud.
> • Have pronouns be added to all email signatures, and link the word “pronouns” to this guide or another reference for people who are new to this practice: ‒ Sincerely, Mx. Marvel Pronouns: They, Them, Theirs
Granted, part of the document talks about not having to share your pronouns, but we don't know what kind of internal policies they had that employees either needed to follow or at least felt pressure to follow.
My preference is that people would understand that personal rights are social obligations and I think we would be better off to phrased it that way.
And for goodness sake, stop using loudspeakers when you're walking the wilderness trails. I don't want to hear what you consider music
I won’t do it, but don’t care if others do in email signatures. I find it odd when it’s done in a meeting but I still won’t offer them up even if others are. I have been asked for mine a couple of times (and this irritates me…if you want me to respect that your pronouns are important to you, respect that “my” pronouns are unimportant to me). I respond with something akin to “your best guess will be fine with me”.
I can respect this if and only if it's actually true. If your going to be offended if someone uses a pronoun for the wrong gender, or uses "they" then I don't respect the performance, and in my experience most people who are resistant to giving their pronouns would indeed be offended by either of those.
If you actually don't care, great, no problem. If you do I can't respect being unwilling to put in the miniscule effort to state your preference instead of being offended when someone doesn't default to it.
Before about 3ish years ago such a thing was never expected of me and I can’t think of a time prior or since where someone didn’t manage to correctly figure it from apparent social cues of their exposure to from me. Why all of a sudden should something that was a non-issue for decades would society now require me to spend a “miniscule of effort” or frankly any effort whatsoever to state something that should be completely obvious to you and has been by literally everyone who managed to encounter to me prior to now.
That I don't feel any need to respect.
You need to go read my comments again because I literally said no such thing.
Sorry, I don’t believe that this is the real reason, but I realize it’s the reason that is often given as justification. If it was really “out of respect for everyone” you wouldn’t make a big deal out of it when people don’t offer them up. You could just do what people did prior to 3 years ago (and frankly even now among us folks that don’t put emphasis on pronouns) and just let social cues lead you.
If someone isn’t offering up their pronouns to you in 2025, my guess is they aren’t going to get butthurt if someone accidentally uses the wrong one in conversation.
For example, the Swastika was/is a religious symbol to billions of people. But became a political symbol and is a trigger point today
Now, if it were the government telling citizens to not use pronouns in their emails, that of course would be overreaching.
2 milion federal employees, lets say half of them has email and each of them spends 1 minute on this.
It costs then 1 milion man-minutes, thats 694 man-days or almost 2 man-years. So this will cost at least 60k dolars, presuming 30k a year is a minimum salary. It isn't.
Money well spent ! Lets start THE cost cutting :)
Oh, I forgot this is gov, so it will costs at least 10 times more then what I'm counting. And I was very optimistic, employee forced to do unnecessary things will easily spend half a day on this.
“The x is intended to stand as a wildcard character“ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mx_(title)
Meaning not exactly the same, but closest relevant title.
Here is Webster's Dictionary where they agree they are nouns
Just with the simple trans stuff, estimates are about 0.5% of people fit that description. So about 11,500 employees. Not all of them are fully out, so you're looking at a lot of people that don't fit that bill.
Some people really do not want to be a Mr. or a Ms./Mrs. I think it goes back to bad childhoods.
Some people really do not think that they are a Mr./Mrs. anymore, that they are Dr. or Col. or Rev. now and just reject the Mr./Mz. out of hand.
I have older people in my life that are super particular about the Mrs. thing and just use Mz. and always have.
Also, you still have a lot of women, especially older and in the south, that will take their husband's name as their formal title (Mrs. Dr. John Q. Doe). And those that I've met that do this are very particular about it.
Again, there's a lot of people here and I think leaving it up to the particular person on the other end of the conversation is the only workable method. It's a 2-way street afterall and you have to respect that other human on the other end.
In the very least, you've gotten a lot of info about them and their personality that you can then use to your advantage.
People should do what they want with pronouns in email signatures. But I don’t understand why you can’t string these together.
"Mr. Doe is my father. Call me John"
And yes, even the 70 year olds still do this around me, and yes, I find it really weird too.
Vietnamese names are gendered but Westerners have no idea which genders go with which names. (Is Duy male or female? How about Duyen?) So, at least in my experience, they've always just put Mr/Ms in their email so people know which it is.
Something like that?
What's going on with all the censorship, next we will now is people thrown to jail for their ideas.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/30/health/bird-flu-mmwr-paus...
I really want less divisiveness. The world has plenty enough already.
At present we're all stuck on this rock together.
Like all the brouhaha they manufactured about trans people, a vanishingly small part of any population.
Said the person who started his comment by erasing all distinctions.
If this was a serious rationale, the agencies would have some time to make a plan and implement it (say 30 days). This is exactly to sow division and chaos, to find out who the enemies of this administration are, and who will comply without complaining to ridiculous wasteful demands.
But maybe I've just never understood what people mean about "pronouns".
The same logic is employed in both cases. The difference is that telling someone your name has no political charge to it.
You can dislike the practice of listing your pronouns, but it's perfectly ordinary to tell people how you'd like them to refer to you.
Unless someone can rile up a mob into trying to embarass a large corporation or a small business into canceling you. You have a right to free speech, but you don't have a right to be sane when there's a low-intensity riot of unhinged individuals threatening you with destitution and terror.
As is their First Amendment right.
> you don't have a right to be sane when there's a low-intensity riot of unhinged individuals threatening you with destitution
Sounds snowflakey
It's not clear that this is a protected first amendment right. You're not allowed to commit fraud just because the mode of fraud is one of communication. The words you speak may be protected, but not the outcome (fraud). Why would harassing people and ruining their lives be any more protected?
>Sounds snowflakey Sure, if that helps with your butthurt. Call me names. You think people haven't been doing that my whole life? It's been 30 or 40 years since that hurt my feelings.
If someone sets expectations or boundaries at work, and you disregard them, sure, you could be fired. Working at a particular place is a privilege, not a right. Professionalism necessitates going along to get along with people who may be from different cultures or subcultures, who may have different expectations of how they should be treated, different political views or values, who you may find annoying or frustrating. That's life.
> Sure, if that helps with your butthurt.
I think you should take a step back and reflect on this remark. You are the one who came to this conversation with complaints.
Yes it is, actually
This is how the marketplace of ideas actually works. You have bad ideas and say stupid shit, people stop listening to you, associating with you, doing business with you, enjoying your company, inviting you over, and so on. They'll sometimes even call you mean names!
All of that is the marketplace in action.
No, it's the opposite of that. Third-person pronouns are the ones people use to discuss third persons among themselves. The person who "wants their pronouns used" isn't party to the conversation. They're attempting to put their own non-name words into other people's mouths. One might make a case that you could choose your own second-person pronouns, but at least in the English language that's egalitarian, everyone's just a "you".
>or whether you'd like to be called Mr., Ms. or Mrs.
I call men "mister" out of respect. My other word for people who don't merit respect is "asshole". If you don't like the first, I'll use the second one. I don't even use "sir" if I can help it... no English lords in this country.
>You can dislike the practice of listing your pronouns,
I can do more than that now. I think I can ignore it without getting fired.
>but it's perfectly ordinary to tell people how you'd like them to refer to you.
It's not ordinary. At no point in human history, in any human language I am aware of, has anyone ever gotten to choose their own third-person pronouns. It's absurd and bizarre. I'm not required to acknowledge the existence of imaginary friends to anyone over the age of 7, I'm not required to play into other people's schizophrenic hallucinations, and I don't have to try to overcome my 50 years of habit in how English is spoken.
That's also how names work, though. As in, "Are you coming to Billy's barbeque?" when Billy is not in the conversation.
> At no point in human history, in any human language I am aware of, has anyone ever gotten to choose their own third-person pronouns. It's absurd and bizarre.
What's the realistic difference between pronouns and nicknames? Like a "Richard" going by a "Rich", or "Rick"? That's their decision, right? Or someone choosing to go by their middle name rather than their first name?
I believe this to be the actual root of the issue. You have decided some people aren't worthy of your respect (I presume because you feel they are your adversaries in a political struggle). Anything they ask of you from that point, you take issue with and blow out of proportion. They aren't people to you, they're "assholes."
You don't have to like people to respect them. You don't have to agree with them either.
> I don't have to try to overcome my 50 years of habit in how English is spoken.
Language changes. Culture changes. They don't change because people are "schizophrenic," they change because they're part of an ongoing conversation.
You don't have to like it. You don't have to change. But if you choose to resist it, you'll come off as out of touch and you'll upset or offend people. And consequently they may not want to work with you or spend time with you. You've every right to do that. But those are the consequences. And they always have been. You can accept those consequences or you can make room for the way the world has evolved, but those are your options; time waits for nobody.
Take a step back and look at how patronizing your language is. Comparing people to children. Implying they're delusional. Insisting you've got it right and refusing to budge. Doesn't that sound like the way older people have always patronized younger people? Don't you remember being younger and people talking that way about your generation?
This is where conversations about pronouns or gender always go off the tracks… If I don’t agree with someone’s concept of gender, you’re saying I don’t respect them. How do you respectfully disagree with and not use someone’s preferred pronouns? You can disagree, but not out loud?
I think you need to double check your assumptions. This isn’t a younger generation vs older generation issue. It’s mostly US (w/ Canada) and mostly a side note in politics.
How do you respect someone you disagree with? You find a way to live and let live. I'm not going to be more specific, because thinking through how that would work and coming to a decision is part of the process.
And to be clear, it goes both ways. Eg, if you look at my comments in this thread, you'll find my language is respectful if firm and that I don't make insults. That's not because of a lack of frustration. It's because I refuse to respond if my response would be disrespectful.
— who now has a personal vendetta against everything left-leaning because he was "robbed" an election
— for whom everything is now about using his power to punish and retaliate against his perceived enemies as well as securing for himself some sort of a "great man" legacy
— who, having learned from the last time when there were some adults in the White House, has now been careful to surround himself by spineless yes men
— who is nevertheless easy to manipulate by politically savvy people who know how to pander to his massive, yet incredibly fragile, ego.
Because being mean is a feature, not a bug, of this administration. This has everything to do with "othering" anybody who doesn't conform to the Republican notion of a normal person (ie, passes for white, heterosexual, and male; with exceptions for attractive women and Uncle Toms).
I guess they didn't stay classy
It’s about hierarchy. The higher you are in the imagined hierarchy, the more things don’t apply to you.
The president is at the top, so he can do anything.
The WASP housewife is in the middle, so she can get an abortion because her case is special.
The minority commits all crimes and is killing babies.
So, it’s not contradictory in their mind, they literally think they’re better, and it’s why there’s value in having people lower than them in their mental system.
Still interesting though that there are a handful of people still voting on those.
It's hilarious how many born-and-bred blue staters I know actually fall for this. As someone who grew up around the GOP base: I've met literally zero who had actual commitment to personal liberties.
Both sides doing the same thing, disappointing.
So instead of saying "I thought she said" I need to say "I thought said" ?
Nice, I almost wish I worked for the Fed Gov.
"I identify as a threat. My pronouns are try/me."
New email signature for a government employee who's uninterested in complying, perhaps?
An overhaul of perhaps the single most important institution on the planet, the US federal government?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#:~:text=Off...