The Mayo Clinic introduced a fresh round of woke policies relating to gender identity this week, including wearable buttons for employees to display their preferred pronouns.
The company announced Tuesday that it has updated its Dress and Decorum Policy to approve the pronoun buttons, according to a news article on Mayo Clinic’s internal website viewed by The Daily Wire.
Mayo Clinic also updated its Email Signature Policy for official emails, informing employees that preferred pronouns can now be included in email signatures.
Several years ago, Mayo Clinic also reportedly changed all its restrooms to be gender-neutral, a move that has been particularly unpopular with women, and the restrooms now display signs with notices like, “For the consideration of others, please lower the lid.”
“At Mayo Clinic, our values and our commitment to the values are one of our biggest differentiators,” said Mary Jo Williamson, Mayo Clinic’s vice chair of Administration.
“They are what inspire and motivate our staff. By committing to using the correct pronouns, we are creating a space of respect and inclusion for all our patients, our staff and students,” Williamson said.
For the uninformed, Mayo Clinic offered an explanation of the importance of personal pronouns.
“Pronouns are specific to an individual’s gender identity. Often, people determine a person’s gender based on their appearance, name or gender expression,” the company said. “However, individuals might not identify as either male or female but rather somewhere along the gender spectrum. In these circumstances, people might use gender-neutral pronouns such as ‘they/them’ or a pronoun that better speaks to their identity, including newer pronouns such as ze/hir.”
“Using someone’s correct personal pronouns is as important as calling someone by their correct name,” Mayo Clinic wrote.
The article notes the preferred pronouns of all the individuals quoted in the article, all of whom go by she/her.
Meredith VandeHaar, a Mayo Clinic cytology quality specialist who is transgender, wrote in one of the comments that the pronoun pins will be available for purchase on the gift shop website as soon as the initial order is received and will be listed under a section titled “Equity & Inclusion” by next week.
The comment section on the article about the policy changes is full of approving comments that were screened and approved by Mayo Clinic.
One commenter said she “would also love to see pronouns added to patients’ charts.” Another exclaimed, “Congratulations Mayo Clinic!!! This is a meaningful, important, and supportive/inclusive step forward!”
In recent years Mayo Clinic has been outspoken in its support of gender-affirming medical treatment, including puberty-blocking hormones for children as young as 10 years old, saying that such treatment “doesn’t cause permanent changes in an adolescent’s body” and “puberty will resume” if an adolescent stops the treatment. Studies have found that puberty-blockers stunted the height and impaired the bone mass of children who took them.
Last summer, Mayo Clinic expressed its opposition to a Trump administration rule allowing medical providers and insurance companies that receive federal funding to refuse to provide or cover services related to gender transitions.