A new South Dakota policy to stop the use of gender pronouns by public university faculty and staff in official correspondence is also keeping Native American employees from listing their tribal affiliations in a state with a long and violent history of conflict with tribes.
Two University of South Dakota faculty members, Megan Red Shirt-Shaw and her husband, John Little, have long included their gender pronouns and tribal affiliations in their work email signature blocks. But both received written warnings from the university in March that doing so violated a policy adopted in December by the South Dakota Board of Regents.
“I was told that I had 5 days to remove my tribal affiliation and pronouns,” Little said in an email to The Associated Press. “I believe the exact wording was that I had ‘5 days to correct the behavior.’ If my tribal affiliation and pronouns were not removed after the 5 days, then administrators would meet and make a decision whether I would be suspended (with or without pay) and/or immediately terminated.”
The policy is billed by the board as a simple branding and communications policy. It came only months after Republican Gov. Kristi Noem sent a letter to the regents that railed against “liberal ideologies” on college campuses and called for the board to ban drag shows on campus and “remove all references to preferred pronouns in school materials,” among other things.
Some folks just get way too pissy about simple words. They’re just words, sounds that are emitted from the large facial orifice, and written down or typed in symbols.
What words someone refers to another as change absolutely nothing about the person in question. Looking past the words that are clearly intended to be offensive, innocent pronouns such as he and she are simply meant to shorten and simplify writing and speech, rather than having to write, type or speak the person’s full name every time.
TL;DR - They’re just words, get over it.
I think “they’re just words, get over it” is a good argument in favour of pronoun declaration, no?
Basically, yeah. As long as they’re not deliberately and intentionally offensive anyways.
I’ve been called grandma before, by my good friend’s niece. I’m a grown dude, and ain’t even related to their family.
I just laughed it off, because I know it wasn’t intentional, plus everyone in their family seems to occasionally accidentally use the wrong names or pronouns.
It doesn’t upset me, unless they keep repeating the same mistake intentionally. They’re just words, and sometimes people make innocent mistakes.