Employees at multiple federal agencies were ordered to remove pronouns from their email signatures by Friday afternoon, according to internal memos obtained by ABC News.

Summary

Federal employees at multiple agencies were ordered to remove pronouns from email signatures by Friday, following executive orders signed by Donald Trump to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

Agencies including the CDC, Department of Transportation, and Department of Energy issued directives citing the new policy.

Some employees expressed frustration, with one CDC worker calling it unprecedented.

The Office of Personnel Management also instructed agencies to disable pronoun prompts in email systems, marking another step in Trump’s broader rollback of DEI initiatives.

  • @[email protected]English
    -12•1 day ago

    Look. I know we want to dunk on this continuing train wreck that is TWELVE DAYS IN and has wrecked so much.

    But - and here I’m paraphrasing my friend who is a psyche, does deal with people most highlighted by signaled pronouns and is also affected directly - “Stating the pronouns causes ‘othering’, is NOT helpful, and only exists to make white normies feel good”. Like, it had no benefit outside of social media fake Internet points.

    I’m not a shrink. I’m not affected. I am trying to see where I can care. On this one, it’s really challenging, and my friend says that’s because it’s junk.

    So, good, if the dirt bags feel like they’re sticking it to the libs while removing something designed just for influencers. Doesn’t affect me or my friend or people like … them. (Wow I hate to say ‘them’ there when I want to say ‘him or her’ but it’s ‘them’, like they’re not us and we’re not them. The othering is high on this one)

    • @VoterFrog
      1•9 hours ago

      My place of work has a pretty high rate of pronoun signaling and I’ve found it immensely useful. Not just for the usual androgynous names line Pat or Elliott, but also I work with people all around the world, how would you refer to Jung Bae? Judging by the number of foreign people who have never seen my name, I imagine it goes both ways. And, yes, I also work with a number of nonbinary and trans people so of course it helps there too.

      Some people refer to everybody, even those they know, as they/them and I honestly kinda like it. Been considering taking that habit on myself.

    • @[email protected]
      1•13 hours ago

      Yeah that’s all great, but someone named Pat got upset with me for referring to her as “they”. Sorry Pat, I never met you in person and so don’t know you’re preferred pronouns unless you tell me.

      All controversy about pronouns is stupid no matter who it is that’s making a fuss about it. Tell me your pronouns or don’t, and be an adult about it either way.

    • @[email protected]
      2•22 hours ago

      Way to completely miss the point.
      Should mandating what people put in their email signatures be one of the duties of the president, in a free democracy?
      What message does this send to trans and non-binary people, and what message does this send to the bigots hating them? What happens if it isn’t done “by end of day”, which is a completely ridiculous time limit?