The following text is my response to Caroline Lacey’s global email inviting all employees to add pronouns to their email signatures. I quote from the Employment Tribunal’s Reserved Judgement:
… in our view it is important to our decision to understand the nuances of the claimant’s position. We therefore set out the text of the email the claimant sent to Mr Branagan in full:
Luke,
As discussed on our call earlier, I have removed what I would choose as my preferred pronouns from my email signature until further notice. I understand (and apologies (sic) for) the difficulty in which this potentially puts my line managers. However, I believe that (even if I’m given the choice not to add one) the corporate policy of providing employees with the option to add preferred pronouns to an email signature, is a political position that the Council has no mandate to adopt; and one that I must dissociate myself from by rejecting.
I accept your point that this is such an unusual issue that you will need to escalate to more senior colleagues.
As I have said, I believe choosing not to add a pronoun, or to use the anodyne biological he/him, is not an option for me. Of course, I understand that some people don’t want to go by pronouns with gender associations they reject; but I personally associate pronouns with biological sex, not gender.
I, myself, do not want to go by pronouns with transgender associations (which I believe most pronouns acceptable to the Identity Politics lobby carry); and I feel that complying with this without challenge would be tacit acceptance of the clearly divisive, exclusionary nonsense of identity politics.
To avoid ambiguity, I fully support the rights of biological females to exist without harm being done to them by biological males who self‐identify as gender females, or those organisations and institutions that support such individuals and are facilitating this kind of harm. And I also support the right of anyone to adopt any legally acceptable lifestyle they choose. As history has demonstrated on many occasions, remaining silent when long‐standing cultural norms, morals and principles are under threat, facilitates the steady creep of evil. I cannot and will not remain silent on this.
Therefore, in line with East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s claimed workforce principle that ‘everyone matters and should feel valued’, and recognising the importance of diversity, I would like to claim an equal right to diversity by declaring my preferred pronouns to be: (XY‐chromosome‐guy/adult‐human‐ male).
I hope my departmental colleagues, and the Council more widely, feel they can support me in my choice ‐ to help me feel valued in the workplace.
James Orwin
ICT Project Officer