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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m about done with all of this.  I think we should switch to they/their/them for everyone.  The overwhelming majority of jobs, a person’s gender (biological or preferred), makes absolutely no difference. There’s long been discrimination against women.  Now, there’s the concern about discrimination against trans.  It was bad enough when you had to consider if a woman wanted to be addressed as Miss/Mrs. or Ms.  Now we have to keep track of everyone’s pronouns.  I have enough problems keeping faces and names straight.  Not to mention, I find it irksome that we have to be so sensitive to identifying people as they wish, but apparently now, I can no longer identify aw simply a woman.  Somewhere along the way, society decided I was a cis-woman and forgot to ask my preference.

I vote we switch to first initial, last name, and neutral pronouns for everyone.  Maybe then we can stop worrying about the problems the more complicated forms of address cause, and get down to business, which is presumably what a workplace is for.[/quote]

That’s not how language works. You can’t just change it in that way, it’s an organic thing.[/quote]

Really?  It seems like the switch to declaring pronouns and identifying biological women as “cis” were pretty abrupt changes.  They’re cumbersome, but they’ve gained momentum because we don’t want to offend others.  Except that, according to this thread, some of the trans individuals these policies are supposed to protect, it actually puts in a predicament if they’re not ready to declare their preference.

This is not an organic shift in language.  These are office policies implemented to avoid legal liability and negative attention for not being sensitive enough.  My suggestions would mean that people were free to identify however they wanted, but that such identification is irrelevant for business communication.  It would seem to satisfy the goals of the current policies better than the current policies do.  Instead of everyone going out of their way to make sure trans individuals don’t feel othered, the approach I suggest would mean they aren’t othered, because we just agree that gender is irrelevant for most positions.  In the very few positions where a specific gender might be required, it can be listed as a job requirement like any other, but it doesn’t need to be reflected in how that person is addressed.
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