Employees at multiple federal agencies were ordered to remove pronouns from their email signatures by Friday afternoon, according to internal memos obtained by ABC News.
I can at least provide you 1 data point that I, as a trans person who experiences gender dysphoria, include my pronouns in my footer and many other places to avoid being misgendered. And I can tell you from my lived experience that its not something you just “swallow”.
You might be able to bottle it up in an incredibly unhealthy way like a lot of men do with their emotions in general, and end up with life long issues. But if I experience particularly bad dysphoria, which can come about from being misgendered, giving my focus to the same incredibly important emails you’re talking about would be impossible. Thus, it is of business importance that my pronouns are visible, so that nobody misgenders me and risks impairing my ability to do the thing I need to do.
Again, I know its really hard to relate to when you don’t experience it. But its a real experience, and the cisgender people who are putting their pronouns there are doing so in solidarity with trans folk. It makes trans folk less “other”. If everyone puts their pronouns there, or at least if a lot of people who aren’t trans do it, then you can’t identify a trans person by whether or not they share pronouns.
Anyway, I think we’ve both said what can be said without rehashing old points. It is my sincere hope that you can better understand and empathise with the trans experience here, if nothing else :) have a nice day.
I can at least provide you 1 data point that I, as a trans person who experiences gender dysphoria, include my pronouns in my footer and many other places to avoid being misgendered. And I can tell you from my lived experience that its not something you just “swallow”.
You might be able to bottle it up in an incredibly unhealthy way like a lot of men do with their emotions in general, and end up with life long issues. But if I experience particularly bad dysphoria, which can come about from being misgendered, giving my focus to the same incredibly important emails you’re talking about would be impossible. Thus, it is of business importance that my pronouns are visible, so that nobody misgenders me and risks impairing my ability to do the thing I need to do.
Again, I know its really hard to relate to when you don’t experience it. But its a real experience, and the cisgender people who are putting their pronouns there are doing so in solidarity with trans folk. It makes trans folk less “other”. If everyone puts their pronouns there, or at least if a lot of people who aren’t trans do it, then you can’t identify a trans person by whether or not they share pronouns.
Anyway, I think we’ve both said what can be said without rehashing old points. It is my sincere hope that you can better understand and empathise with the trans experience here, if nothing else :) have a nice day.