Edit: I didn’t see the last bit. Why did it factor into leaving? Were they aggressive about it or something?
Sometimes I wonder if people who have the biggest issue with displaying pronouns don’t meet a lot of new people, especially new trans people. Displaying pronouns makes the process so much easier and less awkward!
That's your fault, not the fault of the concept of pronouns. In the thread above, teachers and people working in international companies both explained benefits to having pronouns listed that have nothing to do with gender expression. So, your assumption is flawed.
Secondly, let's consider your terminology: "Basic reality"; "force others to play along"; "pronoun game". Consider this scenario:
You: "Hi, are you Matthew?"
Matthew: "Yes, but actually I prefer Matt, could you call me Matt?"
Do you:
A: "Sure, no problem. Hey Matt, Joe said we should discuss Project Foobar, etc"
B: "No. Your name is Matthew, this is basic reality. Why are you forcing me to play along with your PREFERRED NAME GAME?"
I think we all know the answer to this question.
How is this different from: A new coworker starts on your team named Chris. They seem to have some masculine features but they also have long hair, are wearing makeup and a dress. But you are pretty sure they were born male.
You: "Hey, let's organize Chris's Welcome Lunch. Does anyone know his food preference?"
Your coworker: "Actually their pronouns are she/her."
Do you
A: "Sure, does anyone know her food preference?"
B: See B above.
If you think the situations are completely different, here's a third scenario. Chris is a butch woman with short hair, not a transgender person.
You: "Hey, let's organize Chris's Welcome Lunch. Does anyone know his food preference?"
Your coworker: "Actually, Chris is a woman."
What's the difference? Why is your opinion on gender expression, transgender "ideology", chromosomes, or anything else of the sort matter at all?
This is just basic human socialization 101. Treat people like they ask you to be treated in situations where there is no extra cost to you. That's it. It requires no more difference or effort to remember than in any other social circumstance separate from pronouns.
Appendix:
Yes, I am aware of the extreme exceptions. I'm sure you can find me some angry tweets from trans people who overreacted to some situation or another. But let's remember the context. People are angry because the basic human decency I described above is NOT offered to them. So yes, there are misunderstandings and chips on shoulders. But we don't need to base policy or perspective of opinions based on extreme outliers on twitter.
There are people who believe they are God (There are people who believe htey are Attack Helicopters, I'm sure). But they are very few and far between. We ignore them, we marginalize them. Or, best case, we treat them.
Now, I'm not trying to open the pandora's box on the medical community's perspective on transgenderism. We can have this conversation after, but I am deliberately focusing on pronouns for a start.
Because when it comes to pronouns, in English-language society, we DO treat people based on gendered pronouns - male and female ones. Basically 100% of our time, 50% one, 50% the other.
So a person who is asking to be addressed as "My saviour" is asking for unique preferential treatment that you are likely not offering anyone else in life.
A person who is asking to be addressed as the gender pronouns of the other gender is asking to be treated the same way that you already treat 50% of the people you encounter, just to be re-categorized. And that's not a big ask because in the VAST Majority of cases you encounter, that person will already be presenting MOSTLY as the gender that they are asking to be treated as.
Now, you might say that being asked to be treated as a different gender than you are born is just as unusual as being asked to be treated as a God. But we don't even need to get into the statistics of prevalence to recognize that the numbers are not relevant. You already have to go through life learning 1) people's names, 2) people's nicknames, 3) people's gender when they are ambiguous or deliberately provocative. This is common metadata you remember about people.
Part of existing in society is learning other human's social characteristics, and incorporating them into how you interact with them. Pronouns are not meaningfully different.
Sadly it's not a surprising experience for me anymore dealing with people that argue against progress.
This is a legitimate issue, and I'm not even the political/social-justice type.
(I don't mean the company forcing putting pronouns in your username, but for trans/non-binary people to put it in their profile name)
Had an instance at a job once where someone joined, I spoke with them and they were really nice + helpful. Maybe 2 months later, I went looking for them and they didn't seem to be at the company anymore.
Turns out they had changed their username to another gender along with profile pic, now used a different pronoun.
I felt like an ass when I read back to intros and learned that they didn't prefer the pronouns their name/pic implied when they joined. Quite literally "assumed their gender" and they never corrected me about it. Hope it didn't bug them, but it probably did.
Many people, including those who are not transgendered, are also uncomfortable with being forced to hyper-identify with their gender. For many their gender is just a small aspect of them, and especially in a professional context where their gender has no role being forced to put on a gender-show feels sexually invasive.
I'm just saying that the general concept of it if you're trans/non-binary (and WANT a particular pronoun used) is helpful for people who otherwise wouldn't know.
I think it's become commonplace enough that people don't jump to the conclusion you're trans/non-binary if you put a pronoun next to your username.
> Many people, including those who are not transgendered, are also uncomfortable with being forced to hyper-identify with their gender.
Out of curiosity, would that make you bisexual?
I think when you want something you should ask for it, for sure!
Listing your pronouns isn't hyper-identifying with your gender, it is merely identifying your pronouns so that other people don't get them wrong. Gender is complex territory that goes much deeper than pronouns.
One reason for encouraging general pronoun labeling is to alleviate that exact concern.
> Id recommend getting outside of your social circle/geo a bit more. I’ve never once experienced this in Denver, and have only ever seen gender pronouns be a thing on linkedin.
I've started to see them in email signatures at work, but only in situations where such specification was entirely unnecessary. Though most cases have consistent enough formatting that there may be some corporate-standard signature template that has it now.
> Many foreign students adopted a western name to mitigate such problems
It has more to do with pronunciation.
Doing it in situations where such specification is entirely unnecessary is precisely how you normalize it not being weird.
If the only people that had listed pronouns were ones that needed it, it would "other" them, and make pronoun preferences WEIRD and UNUSUAL.
If we recognize that even before the cultural mainstream of transness, EVERYONE already had preferred pronouns (just the ones that happen to match their gender), then we can normalize it.