4 Tips to Ensure Proper Gender Pronouns in the Workplace
You may have heard talk of pronouns on the news, or in popular culture, and wondered what the fuss was all about. Pronouns can be a bit of a hot topic these days, but we use pronouns all the time, often without even thinking about them. This article will talk about pronouns and how they relate to gender. We’ll also discuss why it's important to respect employee pronouns in the workplace and how this act of respect and inclusion can foster a more welcoming work environment.
What are Pronouns?
We use pronouns all the time, often without even thinking about them. A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun in a sentence. For example, the sentence "Neil talked to Neil's friend on the phone" has no pronouns in it, but it sounds a little strange. Most people would say, "Neil talked to his friend on the phone," where “his” is the pronoun. The English language has lots of pronouns, including first-person pronouns like "I," "me," and "mine," second-person pronouns like "you," "your," and "yours," and third-person pronouns like "she," "her," and "hers"; "he," "him," and "his," and "they," "them," and "theirs."
When it comes to gender pronouns, the pronoun "she" often refers to women or girls, while the pronoun "he" often refers to men or boys. The pronoun "they" is often used to refer to a nonbinary person, someone whose gender you do not know, or someone whose gender is outside the gender binary of "male" and "female." According to the Oxford English Dictionary, using "they" to describe a single person dates all the way back to 1375! Even pronouns that are connected to gender don't necessarily reveal gender; in other words, pronouns and gender aren't the same thing.
What is Gender?
Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, expressions, and identities of women, men, girls, boys, and gender-diverse people. It includes several different social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects. Gender is often associated with but is not dependent on biological sex. "Cisgender" is an adjective describing someone whose gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth, and "transgender" is an adjective describing someone whose gender does not match the sex they were assigned at birth.
Gender identity is an individual's experience of gender. Everyone has a gender identity, whether that identity is cisgender, transgender, nonbinary, or agender. Gender expression is all the ways in which someone performs their gender, from clothing to hairstyle to the way they speak or move their body, to other ways of being in the world. Everyone expresses their gender — or lack of gender — in some way.
Tip #1: Practice New Gender Pronouns
To get used to someone's new pronouns, practice conversations with them or about them. It might feel a little artificial, but making an extra effort to practice the proper pronouns early on can help avoid mistakes down the road. Here's an easy way to practice someone's new pronouns. Try describing their outfit every day to another colleague using the new pronouns. For example, you can say something like, "Today ey wore a purple blouse and black slacks. Eir shoes were very fashionable."
You can practice in your mind or in a mirror, but you should definitely practice with your other colleagues. You can even find an accountability partner to help you practice! Commit to correcting each other when you make mistakes so that the colleague with new pronouns doesn't have to. If a coworker makes a mistake, be sure to quickly and politely correct them. If you make a mistake and someone corrects you, say "thank you," use the correct name or pronoun, and then continue the conversation. You can apologize, but make it quick.
Tip #2: Avoid Over-Apologizing
If you accidentally use the incorrect pronouns for someone, over-apologizing can make the situation worse. When you over-apologize for accidentally misgendering someone, it puts the burden on the other person to comfort you, and say everything is okay. But being misgendered can be painful, and having to tell someone "it's okay" when you're hurting inside can make the pain worse.
Remember that your colleague might be regularly misgendered outside of work, especially by strangers. Repeatedly correcting people, sometimes even friends and family members, can be exhausting. Apologizing is often like a reflex, though. If it happens, make it quick and then correct yourself. And thank whoever corrected you! Your colleague will probably appreciate a quick self-correction more than a prolonged apology.
Tip #3: Foster an Inclusive Environment
Regularly sharing pronouns in formal group settings like team meetings and introductions are a great way to make sure everyone has the opportunity to share their pronouns if they wish. It can also help trans and nonbinary people feel more valued and foster a more inclusive environment for all employees. In addition to sharing pronouns in conversation, featuring your pronouns across your digital footprint is a great way to normalize pronoun sharing.
Here are just a few places you can share your pronouns: workplace messaging applications, email signatures, productivity trackers, video conferencing software, and internal wikis and directories. Even if the app you are using doesn't include a dedicated pronoun field, you can often change your display name to include your pronouns. Showing that you provide a diverse and inclusive work culture — and backing it up with your actions — can boost your company’s reputation both internally and externally, resulting in higher employee retention/satisfaction and even increased productivity.
Tip #4: Improve Employee Education
Diversity and inclusion training can also help teach employees how to better understand and respect each other’s many unique backgrounds and perspectives, including culture, gender, and pronouns. Educating employees about the benefits of an inclusive and respectful environment — as well as the consequences of not respecting protected characteristics — can improve the overall workplace culture.
For example, adjusting to someone's new pronouns might take some time, but there are several reasons you should make the effort. Using someone's correct pronouns is the polite thing to do, and makes the person feel included and valued, rather than isolated. Repeatedly and intentionally refusing to use someone's correct pronouns becomes unlawful harassment when it creates a hostile work environment. Employees and employers could face corrective action or even legal consequences for this harassment.
EasyLlama’s suite of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion courses, including our new mini-course on Pronouns in the Workplace can assist employees in learning both the requirements and recommendations for respecting protected classes, including coworker pronouns, in the workplace. Our 100% online workplace training uses interactive quizzes and real-life work scenarios in Hollywood-produced videos to promote knowledge retention while creating a more inclusive environment. Access your free course preview and learn how EasyLlama can support your company’s goals when it comes to employee education!
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