The political push for pronouns
by Tim Dieppe, Christian Concern:
Last month, the BBC asked all staff to state their pronouns in their email signatures in a drive to be more inclusive of transgender employees. The BBC employs 400 people who identify as transgender according to internal surveys – that is nearly 2 percent of the 22,000 employed by the broadcaster.
The Scottish government has also asked its 8,000 civil servants to ‘take a pronoun pledge’ and add pronouns to their email signatures. This is in spite of an internal survey showing that almost 60 percent of civil servants disagreed with the move and did not want to add pronouns to their emails.
No doubt other businesses and organisations across the country are making similar requests of employees.
The Stonewall connection
The government estimates that there are 200,000 to 500,000 trans people in the UK. LGBT activist charity Stonewall estimates that 600,000 people identify as trans, which would equate to around 1 per cent of the population. It is interesting to note that the proportion of trans people in the BBC is significantly over-representative of the population as a whole.
Stonewall recommends adding pronouns to email signatures. It also recommends that when you introduce yourself you should also introduce your pronoun. It is probably not a coincidence that the BBC is a Stonewall Diversity Champion, as is the Scottish government.
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