Corporations to employees: Use gender pronouns or else.
As Pride Month gets into full swing, it’s clear that Corporate America is all-in on the rainbow revolution. Calculating that capitulation to the movement is less painful than dealing with a very loud, implacable minority of workers who insist that their companies – and the world – be remade in their gender-fluid image.
But where does that leave Corporate America’s employees who hold traditional, biblical, or simply common-sense, thousands-of-years-old views on sexuality?
Well, as it turns out, for employees of Fortune 500 companies, it’s becoming obvious that trying to remain silent on these issues will not be enough for the radical gender theory ideologues, who’ve seized company HR departments via Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs.
Increasingly, it seems, corporate DEI czars are demanding fealty to radical gender theory. How? By pressuring employees to announce their personal gender pronouns. Now for those of you who don’t work in a Fortune 500 corporate setting or have yet to watch “What is a Woman?” by Matt Walsh (subscribe to watch here), let me quickly explain the logic – er, illogic – behind declaring one’s preferred gender pronouns.
Radical gender theory argues that biological sex and gender expression are distinct things that need not align. Personal gender pronouns embrace this logic by affirming the idea that gender is simply a cultural construct, akin to a costume one puts on or takes off at will.
A biological man, therefore, might choose to identify as female and go by the gender pronouns “she/her.” Conversely, a biological woman could identify as male and go by the pronouns “he/him.” After all, that’s the gender construct/costume they’ve decided to wear. That’s “their truth,” as the post-modernists like to say.
It only becomes more confusing from here. Apparently, there are all kinds of personal pronouns that one employee might demand another employee to use – like “they/them” for someone who identifies as “non-binary,” or neither female nor male. And don’t even get me started on “ze/zir,” another made-up set of pronouns for “non-binary” people – and there are dozens more.
Now, imagine trying to remember everyone’s various personal gender pronouns in your next brainstorm session. Even if one wanted to give all this the college try, if they were to misuse another employee’s pronouns, well, they may very well be accused of “misgendering” someone.
It’s exhausting just thinking about it. Thankfully, I’m closer to retirement than not.
Still, despite the ridiculous nature of all this, corporations are embracing the use of personal gender pronouns without even considering another factor: the social pressure it might place on employees who – due to religious convictions or any other sensible reason – might object to announcing their own personal gender pronouns.
Instead, companies have rationalized the adoption of personal gender pronouns under the guise of keeping people “emotionally safe.” The idea being that employees may feel harmed if another employee fails to embrace their gender identity fantasy by failing to use that person’s preferred pronouns.
For example, if a biological woman named Susie says she’s actually a “he,” then pronoun hospitality would suggest that to refuse to call Suzie a “he” could make Suzie feel emotionally “unsafe.” Yet, even if an employee agreed to call Suzie a “he,” that’s still not going far enough. Everyone must also announce their own personal pronouns as well so that Suzie doesn’t feel odd about the fact that she announces hers, er, his.
Getting a migraine yet? I’ve found that two Excedrin and a cup of coffee works well.
Now, the corporate pressure to use gender pronouns usually starts with a talk about the importance of adopting them, followed by constant reminders – via DEI workshops, online tutorials, and emails from HR. Employees are often encouraged to put their personal pronouns in their email signatures and on name tags and to announce them when they’re introducing themselves in meetings. Email signatures today often come with hyperlinks, like the real-life example below, that say things like, “what’s this?” next to the sender’s preferred gender pronouns. Click on one of these links and it takes you to sites like pronouns.org, which inform the reader that the only decent thing for them to do is to adopt personal pronouns themselves.
The implicit message? Empathetic and caring employees use personal gender pronouns; inconsiderate and harmful ones do not. So please use the pronouns others tell you to use, and be sure to also announce your pronouns in the next meeting – and, yes, even if no one is confused about your gender identity.
In this way, companies subtly coerce employees to follow suit by using emotionally manipulative arguments which claim that it might be harmful to other employees if they don’t get onboard the personal gender pronoun train – even if it violates their conscience.
If all the prodding to adopt personal gender pronouns fails and some employees still haven’t embraced them, co-workers may even tell that employee they are being perceived as “transphobic.” (This is exactly what happened to a friend of mine who works at a major corporation in Los Angeles.)
If all this seems designed to purposely confuse and pressure employees, that’s because it is. Personal pronouns become social trip wires over which a person might stumble at any given moment, triggering a possible “micro-aggression” accusation should they get one wrong. Indeed, to not use them could cause an employee to be perceived as “problematic.” To use them incorrectly could also cause someone to be viewed as “problematic.”
In this way, personal gender pronouns cool speech, for fear one might “misgender” someone else – intentionally or unintentionally. (I have friends in Fortune 500 companies who’ve told me they will only refer to people by their name to avoid making a pronoun mistake.) Yet, at the same time, personal pronouns also compel speech by coercing some employees to take part in a gender role-playing, linguistic game that implies they believe things they don’t: like, say, the entire premise of radical gender theory.
Yet, even if employees who reject using personal pronouns don’t get called transphobic, they will surely stand out for refusing to use them. One source informed me that at his former company of 200 employees, roughly 95% of workers used personal gender pronouns.
In online communities, like LinkedIn, profiles that list their preferred pronouns are becoming ubiquitous. It’s a convenient way of signaling that one is in the right political club, and the more employees that use personal gender pronouns, the more conspicuous are the ones who do not.
In the end, the use of personal gender pronouns is just the new version of posting the BLM black square, declaring one’s vaccination status, or placing a yellow and blue flag in one’s profile picture. They’re just one more way to publicly declare to the corporate world where one stands on the political spectrum.
Judging by the almost instant uptake of gender pronouns, it appears that the only place left to stand in Corporate America is on the progressive side and be forced to embrace radical gender theory.
Brett Craig is EVP, Creative at The Daily Wire. He has created multiple Superbowl ads and was featured on Adweek’s Top 50 movers and shakers list.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.