Ask a Manager: should we require “they/them” pronouns as the default for everyone at our meetings?

[minoanmiss]

I just stumbled across your 2021 post “my office wants my pronouns — but I’m still figuring it out.“ I was so grateful to the letter writer and commenters who described the turmoil I feel when asked for my pronouns in a work context. The best parallel I can imagine is an icebreaker where meeting participants are asked to describe their relationship with their mother in two words: I don’t know how to answer the question, and even if I did, I don’t want to share it with a group of professional contacts before we turn to a work topic.

I manage HR at a small nonprofit, and I’m thinking about proposing an organizational standard that for external meetings/events, we ask folks to refer to each other as “they” unless they know the person prefers a given pronoun (from prior knowledge, inclusion in their Zoom participant name, etc). When we ask for pronouns, what we really want is to keep from misgendering each other in the course of our work — but why do we put the onus on individuals to come out rather than removing the gender default from our language in the first place?

I wondered if you’d be willing to ask your readers for feedback on this idea? It’s hard to find communities of other professionals with diverse gender identities to run this by. I’d love to hear any implications of this idea that I’m not considering! I’m picturing a script along the lines of:

“Before we do introductions, I want to acknowledge how much we don’t know about each other just by looking. There’s likely a spectrum of racial/ethnic and gender identities in this meeting, as well as neurodiversity, an array of areas of expertise, and more. So we’re asking all participants to challenge yourself to not make any assumptions about others in how you talk to or about each other. In particular, please refer to other people by their name or the gender-neutral pronouns ‘they’ or ‘them’ unless you happen to know someone prefers another pronoun (he, she, xe, etc.). And if you are someone who wants specific pronouns used for you, you can mention that in your intro or add them to your Zoom name. Any questions?”

Are people ahead doing this anywhere? In addition to the distress caused to me and apparently others by asking everyone to disclose something personal at the top of the meeting, practically speaking, no one remembers all the names from intros, much less each individual’s pronouns. Plus, beyond my own identity, I’d really like to avoid hearing a slew of femme-presenting people ask for “she/her” pronouns (as often happens in the spaces I’ve been in); this can quickly feel alienating, like a public celebration of the gender binary rather than the acknowledgment of diversity it’s meant to be, depending on who’s in the room.

What I’m curious to hear from you and readers is, can we put the affirmation that comes from using people’s individual pronouns back on an individual level? This proposal would make me feel more able to participate in a meeting. Would it do the same for others?

To make sure readers are following: the idea would be to request that everyone use “they/them” as the default when referring to other people, unless someone names different pronouns for themselves.

I’m interested to hear feedback from others, but I don’t think it’s practical. Getting people to reprogram their language for an entire group for a single meeting is not a small request (look at how much trouble people have getting individual people’s pronouns correct when they change, even when they’re genuinely trying). And you’re expecting them to remember who introduced themselves with specific pronouns and who didn’t — when, as you point out, people don’t even remember everyone’s names.

Moreover, how do you plan to enforce it? And are your meetings going to be regularly derailed by people apologizing for getting it wrong?

You mentioned that part of your motivation is to avoid hearing a slew of she/her pronouns when people introduce themselves. But your script specifically invites people to name any specific pronouns they want used for themselves, so most likely you’ll still get lots of people saying “I use she/her” during introductions. And the solution definitely isn’t to remove the invitation to offer those — because lots of people feel strongly about their gender identities and want their correct pronouns used. That’s much of the point, really.

In fact, that’s the other issue with this plan — you can misgender people with “they/them” just like with anything else.

So by all means, encourage people to share their pronouns if they want to (as long as you don’t require it). But trying to impose “they” for everyone as a default unless they request an exception is likely to draw a ton of attention away from what you’re there to do and ultimately not have the effect you want.

Comments

[melannen]

As a person whose main pronoun preference is "please don't make me choose", I identify very strongly with this letter writer. And I love the dream of a world where they/them is the default pronoun for everyone, and using a different pronoun with someone is a sign of intimacy, like tutoyer. And I have gotten in trouble several times where I have tried to point out that asking for people to publicly list their pronouns - even if it's optional - isn't actually welcoming for everyone, because it removes the ability to exist in a space where it just isn't a *thing*, which the internet was for me for a long time - and been told that's transphobic because only cis people wouldn't want to list pronouns.

And yet my experience of fandom spaces where constantly proclaiming your preferred pronouns is encouraged but not required is that gender-binary-conforming people are always the loudest and proudest, and the people who don't list one despite the pressure are nearly always people I know privately to be nonbinary, questioning, or in the process of transitioning or coming out. And in gnc queer spaces it can be super welcoming to hear everybody give their pronouns and hear a wide variety of sometimes complicated answers; in mostly-cis spaces, I would much rather not have to hear twelve gender-conforming cis people affirm their cis identity and then be expected to either affirm a gender I don't want to or explore my complicated feelings in front of them.

I've also had the experience at work where I supervised someone I knew both in hobby spaces and at work, and they used different pronouns in the two spaces. I stuck with using the one I was introduced to them by in each space, but the coworkers started using their hobby-space pronoun for them, and then we started getting pressure from above to ask for official preferred pronouns, so I had to have an excruciatingly awkward discussion with this queer neurodivergent kid about how they did prefer the other pronoun but they also didn't want that on any official record anywhere yet and also didn't want to have to explain their whole partial-coming-out situation to everybody so could we just. not make it a thing.

But I don't think we're at that world yet for a long while where everybody will be okay with a nongendered default, and where it won't be seen as unwelcoming by some trans and nonbinary people too. And that's something we just have to sit with, uncomfortably.

I do think a company style standard to use they/them for anyone who doesn't list a pronoun, and a request that anyone who doesn't want to be they/them'd provide pronouns in their profile, is something you ought to be able to reasonably do, possibly without even mentioning nonbinary issues.

(And I would suggest getting rid of the 'state your pronouns out loud to the group' if there's any alternative at all. Fannish spaces are increasingly getting rid of that in favor of the option to list it on profiles or name badges. It lets people provide information if they want to without requiring them to be excruciatingly public about it.)

ETA: I really like the metaphor about describing your mom in two words. Imagine being in a work meeting where everybody's two words were "love her" or "best friend" and you were the one person who didn't think you could honestly say that. That doesn't mean you don't want people to be able to proudly love their moms, it's just that it made the whole work meeting uncomfortable to you (pointlessly, because it's not like you're going to explain your mom issues at that point anyway, so all it did was make the diversity of mom feelings in the group *less* visible.)

[ashbet]

Heh, my instant response to "two words about my mother" was "very estranged," which would definitely be awkward in a work context ;)

[melannen]

:D There are definitely going to be some people who look forward all week to being able to say "Very estranged" with relish.

[ashbet]

HAHAHAH, my daughter just said (in regards to my mother) that her two words were "heinous bitch." 🤣

[fred_mouse]

Ha. Mine was 'no'. and 'oh, hell, where do I find a second word'. Because no does both 'I have no interest in discussing this' and 'i have no relationship with my mother, and no desire to'. I guess 'all gone' would do.

[melannen]

I wonder if "all gone" would work as an answer for the pronouns question....

[azurelunatic]

"no thank-you"

[fred_mouse]

Ooh, that works for both of them! Because my feelings on pronouns are very much ' no thank you' with a side order of 'seriously? again?'.

[sciatrix]

Oh goodness, I'm right there with you. I've had the weird experience, repeatedly, of being pronouned professionally with they/them--which I mostly don't use, because I don't particularly want to think about pronouns either and they aren't the most salient part of my gender for me--and then getting a very excited look from colleagues, like I'm their chance to try out these shiny new things.

In a lot of ways, I haaaaaaaaate this new terrible pronoun-forward world because it foregrounds a part of my gender experience that makes me feel pressured to fit into a certain narrative, while backgrounding the things that actually are important to me. I also really hate being put on the spot and asked to be a teaching lesson, which I feel like this new norm makes increasingly popular. It would be one thing if EVERYONE actually was getting defaulted to they/them; grumpily, I feel like in practice this would just be a cue to they/them someone who presents as visibly non-gender-conforming as I do and then sit up and get excited for cookies, and then I have another goddamn Social Lesson to navigate. I do not like being a learning experience without warning, goddammit.

I have also had a very, VERY similar experience supervising a student who code-switched their pronoun use depending on the space. I took precisely the same approach you did right up until it was time for a recommendation letter, and then I asked "what pronouns would you like to use on the letter of recommendation?" and let them pick there. It's probably for the best that the rest of the lab didn't have access to their hobby use (via their twitter presence), but I would have let them lead there too.

One of the things I had to explain in a queerness diversity meeting thing for the department, to a considerably more senior gentleman who was throwing a giant fit about the possibility that a student might request nonbinary pronouns on a rec letter, is that genderqueer and nonbinary people commonly code-switch pronouns depending on how comfortable they feel and that they usually have a lot more experience with their own comfort levels and potential social consequences than you, the outsider, do. You'd think this would be obvious, but I've had to frequently explain this to people who are absolutely certain that this has never before occurred to anyone who uses nonbinary pronouns day to day. It is exhausting.

[azurelunatic]

I am not changing the gender marker on my driver's license until I am assured that cops in my area will not use it as an excuse to treat me more badly than they otherwise might.

(My presentation reads extremely femme, because I have long hair that I wear braided, and exclusively wear skirts and dresses. I am also very fat, and wearing skirts/dresses shifts me into the tradwife-adjacent pigeonhole; a/b testing confirms that I get nearly 0 verbal abuse in a skirt, and more than 0 verbal abuse in pants.)

[fred_mouse]

Oh, that is very interesting on the a/b testing. I am white, middle-aged, and female presenting, and heading comfortably for 'overweight'. I get less hassle when wearing trousers. I also have long hair, but I don't braid it, I either wear it loose or in a bun.

[rmc28]

I have pointed out at work that having a corporate-default place for pronouns helps with

• names from unfamiliar cultures (we have a lot of international staff and students)
• familiar but ambiguous names (e.g. Chris, Alex, Sam, Jo ...)

Using "they" about someone until pronouns-for-work are clarified is what I've started to do anyway. So I agree it ought to be possible to make that the workplace default.