Pronouns and tribal affiliations are now forbidden in South Dakota public university employee emails

A new South Dakota Board of Regents policy keeps employees from including their gender pronouns in school email signatures and other correspondence. #news

https://apnews.com/article/pronouns-tribal-affiliation-south-dakota-66efb8c6a3c57a6a02da0bf4ed575a5f

Pronouns, tribal affiliations forbidden in South Dakota public university employee emails

A new South Dakota Board of Regents policy keeps employees from including their gender pronouns in school email signatures and other correspondence. That was adopted after Gov. Kristi Noem railed against “liberal ideologies” on college campuses. But the new policy is also keeping Native American employees from including their tribal affiliations in a state where Native American animosity over government actions remains high. Two University of South Dakota faculty members were warned in March to stop using their gender pronouns and tribal affiliations in email signatures or face discipline. The American Association of University Professors says it's the first time it has learned of faculty at a public university being required to drop their preferred pronouns in correspondence.

AP News
Silently protest by exclusively using they/them for all employees and students in email body content.
Honestly, do this anyway. Default to they/them until someone requests otherwise. It's the best way to normalize it for people who don't present in an assumable way, without exposing yourself to the same level of potential retaliation that asking leads to.
True, it’s a good practice for those you don’t know. I think using it exclusively for the people they’ve known and worked with for years would send a clear message of disagreement with the policy. It’s also not something they can forbid, because it’s rightfully inclusive.

Please don’t do this. This is just misgendering by default. The vast majority of people are exactly the gender they appear to be on the surface, and if they aren’t, they’ll let you know. I’ve only known one person who wasn’t the gender they appeared (a very masculine-presenting enby), and they weren’t offended at all when I misgendered them at first; they corrected me, I apologized, and that was the end of it.

However, if you call the wrong clearly-masculine “alpha male” or clearly-feminine “queen bitch” they/them, you’re likely to get a violent reaction.

"They" as a neutral singular pronoun has been in the English language for hundreds of years.

Enbys also use it as a personal pronoun, sure - but no one gets to dictate that it can no longer be used as a neutral pronoun for everyone of any gender.

A brief history of singular ‘they’

English is my primary language, so yes, I’m aware of the historical use of they/them as a non-gendered pronoun for hypothetical people.

I’m also aware of the fluid nature of language. I’m still salty about “literally” becoming its own antonym, but I have to accept it because it’s now part of English.

That being said, it’s never been socially acceptable to use they/them for a known person of a binary gender, and I’d argue that it’s even less acceptable now, thanks to the common adoption of they/them as a personal pronoun for known persons of nonbinary gender.

It’d be much less confusing if there was an entirely new pronoun for enbies. Or, better yet, if there were never any gendered pronouns to begin with. But this is the world we live in, and we all have to find the best way to navigate our own paths without kicking up dirt onto others’.

I'm sympathetic to what you're saying but there's a part I just can't get on board with at all. I don't know if it's just that I come from a really different society to your one or what is going on here, but this paragraph doesn't ring true to me at all:

it’s never been socially acceptable to use they/them for a known person of a binary gender, and I’d argue that it’s even less acceptable now, thanks to the common adoption of they/them as a personal pronoun for known persons of nonbinary gender.

It's totally socially acceptable where I am to call people "they", or at least it always has been.

Didn't mean to insinuate anything about your English btw; in my experience most native English speakers don't have much interest in historical useage or etymology. Formal English style guides have only come on board with singular "they" in the last 15-20 years despite everyone using it colloquially for decades and decades.

Get fucked. Love to see the first amendment case on this one.
Sounds like a government agency restricting free speech.
Free speech does not supersede school conduct policy.
Wow. Freeze peach much?