Except they aren't obvious 99% of the time. They aren't even "obvious" like 60% of the time. They aren't even "obvious 99% of the time" for cis-straight (non-LGBTQ) folks.
"Hi, Sam Shepard will be on the call with you today, and will be joined by Alex VanBeckran and Kegan Marton" -- are these folks hoping to be addressed as men, or women, or non-binary? There's no way to tell, and it's kind of disrespectful to be wrong.
> It’s also a form of control in redefining the obvious.
Form of control? What on earth? It's literally just a tiny amount of human dignity. It's basically no different than being asked to address someone as "Mr. / Ms. / Mrs. / Mx." from decades prior.
> Nope, sorry, you need to consciously be aware of my preferred pronouns at all times.
It takes literally almost no extra effort, you just file it along with their name (or phone number, or timezone, etc). If you are thinking that hard about it, your probably doing it wrong.
As another commenter pointed out, in a professional setting you would ideally address these people by their proper nouns (names) and not by their pronouns. And if you're addressing more than one person, it's the gender-neutral we/they/them anyways.
I'm actually struggling to think of a business scenario where using the proper pronoun would be more professional or polite than just using someone's given name.
It works at first to just always use names and theys, but the longer a conversation goes on, the more awkward little nooks and crannies you find where it sure would be convenient to have a third-person singular pronoun for referencing the thing the person just said as you expand on it or synthesizing between statements made by multiple other participants. Maybe each one individually has a solution, but the cumulative effect of these small hitches and inefficiencies does build up.
Anyway, it's not impossible to make this feel natural, of course, and some people put in the work to master it. But there's a reason To Kill A Mockingbird stands out as a book that almost completely conceals the gender of its narrator and main character until about halfway through the story.
They/them is almost always appropriate english when the gender of the person being spoken of is unknown. They only change in thinking required is to let go of the assumption that you can determine someone's gender from looking at them or reading their name.
Yes, there's arguments both ways that broadcasting them may be virtue-signalling, but I don't think it ever is to ask someone what theirs are, especially on something like a form.
Is it really an imposition, when your profession includes declaring what OS you're using so you can create usable bug reports, to declare your pronouns on some form somewhere?
It’s also a form of control in redefining the obvious. You want to just live your life? Nope, sorry, you need to consciously be aware of my preferred pronouns at all times. It’s a very narcissistic and attention seeking thing too.