Preferred gender pronoun
[25] Social media websites including Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn have added dedicated pronoun fields for their users' profile pages.
[32] The dean of women at Pomona College, Rachel N. Levin, advised against professors asking students to reveal their PGPs during class introductions, since this could upset those whom the PGP use is supposed to support.
[4] Analysts Louis Choporis, Gemma Martin, and Bali White, argued that using the incorrect pronouns can be "hurtful, angering, and even distracting".
[38][36][39][40] These include Workday,[41] Virgin Group,[42] TIAA,[41] Marks & Spencer[43] IBM,[44] the U.S. Air Force,[45] U.S. Marine Corps,[45][46] BBC,[47][48] and United Kingdom Ministry of Defence.
[51] The Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission provided guidance on using PGPs in email signatures[52] and the Australian Government's Style Manual has a sub-section about "pronoun choice".
[53] In July 2021, the Scottish Government proposed its 8,000 civil servants should pledge to include their PGPs in their emails, but an internal poll revealed that more than half were unwilling to do so.
[60][61] In 2018, medical doctor David Mackereth was not hired by the United Kingdom Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) because he refused to use PGPs for transgender individuals, saying they went against his Christian faith.
[62][63] Andrea Williams, of the Christian Legal Centre, claimed that the decision was "the first time in the history of English law that a judge has ruled that free citizens must engage in compelled speech".
[64] In November 2018, the European Commission recommended guidelines emphasizing the "desirability" of using PGPs and gender pronouns that individuals prefer, including by teachers and students in accordance with non-discrimination policies.
The report also noted that only schools in Greece, Malta, and Norway were required to respect people's name and PGPs, and stated this appears to be the case in Finland and some regions of Spain.
[66][67] Asaf Orr, the director of the Transgender Youth Project for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which represented the student in the case, said that the decision "opens the door to discrimination generally".
[72][74] In October 2021, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal judge Devyn Cousineau ruled that for those who are non-binary, trans, and not cisgender, "using the correct pronouns validates and affirms they are a person equally deserving of respect and dignity.
[76][77][78] The guidance states that there might be situations in which a witness might refer to a transgender person with "pronouns matching their gender assigned at birth" and that judges should be alert to "how someone prefers to be addressed".
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also suggested that even though misusing the PGPs and name of a transgender employee does not violate Title VII, doing so intentionally and repeatedly "could contribute to an unlawful hostile work environment.
Employers refusing to use transgender workers' preferred pronouns or bar them from using bathrooms that match their known gender identity commit unlawful sex-based harassment acts.
North Carolina Congressman Greg Murphy opposed the U.S. Air Force allowing PGPs in email signature blocks, calling it "unbelievable", and arguing it detracted from military preparedness.
[93] In a dissent in Bostock v. Clayton County, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said that the majority decision, in which the Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination because they are gay or transgender,[94] may lead some to claim that not using their PGP "violates one of the federal laws prohibiting sex discrimination" and believed that the decision would affect how employers "address their employees" and how school officials and teachers talk to students.
