You're probably correct. It's a paradox of our modern societies. We're supposed to be tolerant towards minorities and religions. It's not clear what we're supposed to do when those religions explicitly discriminate against women, gays, atheists or other religions.

If you turn this on it's head, why should a "non-issue" like whether to state one's pronouns or not have a significant damage to one's career. If it is such an easy thing to do, then picking a fight to force someone to do it, seems ridiculously over-exaggerated as well. You can simply be a pragmatist and save space to the essential information and you might not consider this essential information about yourself. That reasoning has nothing to do with transgender people or how others present their identity.

Even if you are aware of the possible reading (not necessarily the only reading) that announcing your pronouns is showing support for transgender people, you might simply value being concise more. Or you might value your personal self-presentation more. Or you might have particular views about what pronouns are supposed to express and how they are supposed to be derived without having any issue with transgender people. All that should be possible, especially in an open-minded academic environment. You can still support transgender people in general, e.g. vote for all their same rights issues.

Some personal experience: I know transgender people who prefer not to disclose their preferred pronouns and are against this practice in general. If I disclose my pronouns now, I might slightly offend these people I know. If I do not, I might offend the general transgender public. What do I do then? Do I have to explain this decision to everyone so they don't cynically assume I am not supportive of transgender people?

"Without more context, picking such a fight sounds rather extreme to me." But would you consider it extreme if a transperson wanted to put their preferred pronouns and were not allowed to (due to a policy of forbidding pronoun declaration)? If the entire purpose of the exercise is meant to be the provision of freedom to express what pronouns one prefers, clearly it follows that shaming and decrying someone who wishes not to do so is antithetical to the stated aim. Cynically one could say that if this were the case, it was never about individuals' freedom to express their preferred pronoun.

@FrankHopkins if you read carefully, I think I actually addressed your concern here. It seems to me that the OP's position is likely to turn heads not because of the "non-issue" but because of the very impactful and important (IMO) issues it's related to. If the OP holds such an esoteric position as you suggest, they need to work hard in communicating this or else people will assume the (in my experience) much more common position of simply not being supportive of trans people. Moreover it seems in light of the OP's update that I was correct.

@Serge The question of whether the prof should ask TA's to put their pronouns down on the syllabus (which is maybe more nuanced and complicated) seems separable from the OP's question. I don't have statistics, but it's my impression that the majority of trans people would probably appreciate the gesture.

@aquirdturtle see to me that doesn't sound esoteric at all given the context. rather the "you must be against trans-people if you don't want to do this little thing" conclusion seems to me to come from an esoteric narrow-minded (with respect to that topic and considering other people look differently at the world) point of view.

@FrankHopkins "narrow-minded" - there's no need to start throwing ad-hominems around. Given multiple possible explanations for the conduct, we all simply use our life experience to try to evaluate how likely each one is, and given how much hatred and bigotry I've seen directed at trans people, I felt that one was more likely than the other. Please re-read my last paragraph. Moreover, given the OP's update (see 2nd bullet), it looks like I was exactly correct in identifying why the OP was picking this fight, so perhaps you should update your priors.

@aquirdturtle it's not an ad-hominem. I'm not saying you are, just drawing that conclusion is to me. And no I don't see the update verifying an anti-trans agenda, OP does not want to push a pro-trans agenda, but shows respect to any trans-person. anyway, I've said my piece in this and tried to open perspective for a bit more than this "not with us every step is against us" thinking, but I rest my case here.

@FrankHopkins you've been putting words in my mouth this entire conversation, and should really stop putting everything I'm definitely not saying in quotes. I was very specific. I actually said "it sounds to my cynical brain that you do not want anyone to think that you are supportive of transgender or non-binary people". The OP said "If I started putting my pronoun on my cv, it will contradict my believes since it implicitly says that I am ok with that movement". I rest my case. The question of whether being explicitly not supportive is de-facto being against it is a separate debate.

In my experience, sharing your pronouns goes beyond merely showing support for transgender individuals. In the conservative circles I run in it can be viewed as signaling one’s “wokeness” or support of “the liberal agenda” and that action can have repercussions in social circles. It’s not seen as pro social behavior, rather as a strictly political behavior.

@CoryKlein Not sure what to say. I think the OP is very wrong on their professed beliefs regarding gender, but it sounds like your social circles don't even give you room to think critically about these things. I don't believe most people in America are that dogmatic - if I were you I'd I'd try to reason with them or find different friends.

@aquirdturtle It’s not a friend or two if have to have a real conversation with, it’s the social community at large; and a simple conversation or two is not going to fix that. Also, as obvious and clear the issue of pronouns appears to you, I think you may overestimate how well this matter may be considered “settled” in the greater US.

@CoryKlein I'm still not sure what exactly your point is. Are you looking for sympathy? Is this an offered explanation for the OP's actions? Because in the latter case "My community will accuse me of supporting 'the liberal agenda'" isn't a good reason for much of anything, much less things related to deep social problems. Also, I never said it was "settled", I just have strong opinions here myself.

@aquirdturtle: You write "You aren't being asked to affirm the existence of trans people" and yet you later write "Stating one's pronouns is sometimes used as a slightly coded way of expressing support for transgender people". They're fairly obviously contradictory to each other, so I would take out one of those sentences. Otherwise you're destroying your own argument this way.

@EricDuminil this is poppers paradox of tollarance. In short, "if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant".

@Clumsycat: Excellent, thank you very much. I never heard of it, but it describes pretty well what I had in mind.

This answer has some contradictions per user541686's comment. Secondly, I stated that I do disagree with this movement but when I'm in class, I see students. Nothing else. This means no discrimination will occur. if you still believe that I will discriminate after all of this, then you basically discriminate against me because my believe. Again, please do not try to disassociate the pronoun with this social movement. Your reasons are just covering up to the truth. Thanks for sharing your point of view though.

@poman Someone believing you might still discriminate (basec on your refusal to even mention your desired pronouns) isn't discrimination against you.

@Serge I am friends with many transgender people and read a lot about gender issues and I've never heard mention of any criticism of noting one's pronouns. It doesn't make any sense; if you're not out, then you can just lie about your pronouns. You're likely already presenting as whatever gender is safest for you, and being constantly misgendered. In the meantime, everyone else noting their pronouns normalises and makes it safer for all trans/NB people to come out in future. I'd be interested whether you could produce any data showing how common this anti-pronouns opinion is among trans ppl?

@user541686 These don't contradict because (as discussed) supporting trans people isn't the only reason to state your pronouns. Consider another example - a person drinks coffee. Do they drink coffee because they wish to support the socialist Venezualean government which produced the coffee?! Or do they just like coffee? Both are possible explanations, but asking a person to drink coffee isn't the same as asking them to support the Venezualean government. In the case of a misunderstanding, the coffee-drinker should simply inform whoever assumed wrong of their mistake and move on.

@poman You say "...when I'm in class, I see students. Nothing else. This means no discrimination will occur." You describe yourself as a perfect, unbiased machine when interacting with people, but you're not, you're an imperfect human just like the rest of us. I don't think anyone is truly unbiased on anything, much less such a knarly issue as this. I don't believe what you describe is possible, and IMO if you truly want to prevent discrimination then you should open yourself to the possibility that you might accidentally perpetrate it in order to better be aware of and prevent it.

@aquirdturtle Disagree. I can handle teaching students about specific material for 1 hour and some of them are trans. No problem, most of the time I am talking and when they want to ask, the will ask questions regarding the material. It is well-controlled environment that does not even give the chance to look at the differences. However, outside that environment, It is unlikely for me to make a closed friendship with trans people. That does not mean hostile, but they mind my business and I mind theirs. I will openly talk about my beliefs and address my concern in public.

@aquirdturtle if drinking coffee was recently caused/initiated by an organization that supports the Venezualean government, then you are presumably a supporter for the Venezualean government.

@aquirdturtle Your coffee analogy is interesting. Clearly asking someone to drink coffee is not the same as asking them to support the Venezuelan government, but the OP doesn't want a coffee, and is asking why he should have to justify that? In other words, if you shouldn't infer why someone wants a coffee, why should you infer why they don't?

@poman No, it doesn't imply you're a supporter.

@poman Announcing pronouns doesn't show support for the "social movement" (insert remark that one doesn't "choose" to be transgender), it states that transgender people are as welcome as others. It's equivalent to saying "We do not discriminate against people of color". Obviously the fight of trans people for their rights (just like the civil rights movement) is a social movement, but you aren't asked to support that. Just to welcome trans people within the course. Nobody asks you to announce pronounce outside of your institution.

@ljrk I'd rather keep social issues outside since this website is not the right place to discuss (Your first sentence is what you believe). Why aren't they words to welcome people of color then? Do you think trans people are the only one who are "oppressed"? Shouldn't every southern town announce that they are welcoming black people for instance? It is a FACT that the majority of US schools don't discriminate. As a matter of fact, conservatives consider them as the center of "radical lefts"

@poman @bornfromanegg Maybe the proper extension of the coffee analogy is to imagine instead of someone asking you to drink coffee, someone, e.g. as an ice-breaking exercise, asks you what your favorite drink, or favorite brand of coffee is. I feel like then the OP's position is like refusing to say what their preferred drink (coffee) is out of fear that someone will interpret being a fan of coffee as being a fan of the Venezuelan government.

My point is that supporting the Venezuelan government is a possible reason to like coffee, and in some (weird) cases might even be the most likely reason, it's clearly not the only reason, and so liking coffee should not be viewed as being equivalent to supporting the Venezuelan government. Pulling this back to the question at hand, stating one's own pronouns is not equivalent to supporting issues around trans rights.

Depending on what social circles you run in, maybe people jump to conclusions you don't like (although who in your social circle is reading the syllabus of the course you TA?), but then you can simply correct them and tell them the real reason (some mixture of it helping actually clarify some edge cases and that your professor asked you to) and be done with it.

There's a lot to potentially unpack in these conversations so I'm going to try keep this to one thing at a time to avoid being to ranty. Let me just say that @poman while I disagree with you very strongly about a number of positions you are taking here, I am at least thankful that it seems that you are trying to make a good-faith effort to engage with the topic, which can't be said about everyone on this website.

@aquirdturtle "stating one's own pronouns is not equivalent to supporting issues around trans rights." that is true. I think the disagreement between you and I is that how much likely it is to be related to trans rights. I am afraid a time comes and you have to do it because of other agenda. Unfortunately speaking up about this issue in academia is becoming hard and they simply call me names which endangers my academic career.

The education should be a place where we rethink the status quo not go along with it. I did not disrespect anyone but also shouldn't be afraid to announce my positions even it is oppose the "pro-trans" movement.

@poman The status quo is not stating your pronouns anywhere. Consider rethinking your support of it. Just saying...

@poman Let me point out that "The education should be a place where we rethink the status quo not go along with it" is not uniformly true. For example, I assume you don't think we should rethink whether slavery was okay? It does not seem productive in any sense to engage with some extremist positions like this, and would pretty clearly be damaging to certain populations to do so.

It seems to me that the real question is where we draw the line. I hope that in the future we will similarly not question whether transgender and non-binary identities are valid. Clearly we are not there yet, and obviously you and I would draw the line on this topic at different locations.

But continuing the example, I (and I think most people, probably yourself included?) would have no problem asking professors to affirm that slavery was bad, and kicking out professors who do not think that slavery was bad. It seems to me that a professor who is in favor of slavery can not reasonably do their job to teach and educate people of color. Do you agree with this?

Just trying to establish a point of common ground.

@aquirdturtle I think it boils down to the argument. We need to look at the professor's argument first. A professor might has a point of view. However, if it is obvious that professor thinks people of color are less human compared to white, for instance, then that professor shouldn't teach because he questions their humanity. In the trans case however, I do not question their humanity but I question their approach and how they treat what is in their head.

@JSLavertu not in the academia. Professors who don't put pronouns is because they are not even aware of it. You'll find those mainly in engineering/science.

@poman it's hard for me to imagine an argument for slavery which doesn't dehumanize and treat as lesser the enslaved, but I'm glad it sounds like we basically agree there.

While in your mind you aren't disrespecting anyone, many people, myself included, would find the sentence "I do not support non-binary genders and I do not think it is possible that a one can change his/her sexual identity," quite disrespectful. In some sense, and I hesitate to use somewhat loaded terms, you are denying that the non-binary person's identity is valid.

I don't know what religion you follow, but imagine for a moment a contrarian told you that your religion was not a true religion, and that you were very confused about religious doctrine. Maybe not yourself, but I hope you find it easy to imagine many people being reasonably insulted by such a sentiment.

I understand you view your position as fairly neutral and that you feel you are being lumped in with a much more extreme crowd who would literally profess hatred of trans people. While I definitely don't mean to do the latter, I hope I'm effectively conveying part of why I don't see your position as particularly neutral or harmless either.

However, you call for limiting my practicing is offensive. i do not call to deny or limit the freedom of anyone. But I have the right to disagree with their life choices. Simply because we are in society and we effect each other in an indirect way.

To be clear, I'm not calling to limit your freedom, so I'm not sure what you're referring to there.

you didn't. i'm not talking about you. but other academics did.. :)

sorry i used you in my example. I should've refer it to a third party.

Okay. I feel like you may be missing my point in my example above though. It's great that you wouldn't be offended, but plenty of people would be (whether they'd admit it or not). I both think it's fairly predictably so, and I don't think it's appropriate for me to tell others what they should or shouldn't be offended by. Not necessarily you, but I feel like a lot of the conversation about being "offended" these days boils down to that.

But on the other hand, I am trying to explain why I and others find your opinions problematic, especially for a role where you are to be a teacher and a role model to students. I'm trying to explain why I might not hire you for roles that it seems to me you may not be well suited for, and as such how the fights you are picking may affect your career path.

Maybe you feel that this is limiting your freedom? But from my perspective you have a right to your opinions, but you don't have a right to an academic job. Maybe this clears up where the conflict is here.

I think we are nicely settling some of the more low key parts to this conversation, but I think that there is something big looming in the background of it which is that I think you are very wrong on your views regarding gender, and to some extent we may not be able to reconcile the formalities without reconciling that.

"ut from my perspective you have a right to your opinions, but you don't have a right to an academic job. Maybe this clears up where the conflict is here." I see. It is all based on the professor's judgement. Students should look for an advisor that shares the same values OR they should follow the professor beliefs (specifically if they are international students from poor countries).

This is the contrary of "a free thinker" that academia claims to advocate. This denies the claim that science is not biased. It is simply because scientists are biased to their beliefs which are not scientific.

Uh, I don't particularly agree with that phrasing. Oftentimes students can work with professors who have different values or belief systems, but I feel like I'm stating the obvious here that sometimes this is very hard, especially when it comes to social issues.

I wouldn't claim that science is perfectly unbiased, I might claim that science aspires to be unbiased, but also (presumably) you aren't in graduate school for gender studies, so a disagreement on such issues seems rather orthogonal to the actual science, and that might actually harm the science in other ways (for example preventing LGBTQ people from being as productive in the sciences).

Also perhaps related, I was at some level assuming when you referenced "your academic carreer" in the original post that you have aspirations to be in academia beyond graduate school. I think the consequences within graduate school are much smaller than the potential consequences for a full-time professor who has many more responsibilities to the students themselves.

(I also think that many specific common bias accusations thrown at scientists don't hold water, but I wouldn't say that it's completely unbiased, this is again my own opinion but I don't think such a thing is possible.

(I should also maybe emphasize that basically all of these opinions are my own, and that while I would love to convince you that I'm right, I don't know how representative of the broader academic community these opinions are).

sorry I'm getting ranty

".. professors who have different values or belief systems," it is because either the professor is tolerant or students just gave up their rights to speak.

Science can't prove anything about gender issues because it is simply is too complicated. Social science like psychology claims to do so by doing some linear correlation analysis, which is disturbing.

It is more a social/philosophical issue. Like the existence of a god. Science can't play in those field. Simply because there are too many parameters to adjust. And there will be always bias in the data.

I am saying this because I understand from what you said that your point of view is scientifically grounded.

Hmm, I feel like the word "prove" might be doing a lot of work there. While it may be impossible to technically "prove" anything, that doesn't mean that science doesn't have a lot of valuable input on these matters.

Honestly I tend to feel that a lot of the debate and arguments regarding things boil down to simple confusion regarding the terminology used by the "liberal" side. I think a lot of it stems from arguing that it's worthwhile and useful to distinguish between "sex" and "gender". Once that's understood, I tend to feel that gender being arbitrary and something that people should have agency over follows quite naturally.

In short, I feel some people want to ideologies science for their agenda. US university supports them from my perspective. They attack anyone who disagrees with them. That is why giving up a little bit will exacerbate the problem.

Hmm, hard to comment without something more specific, and I don't really know what you mean by "their agenda". My only agenda related to this conversation is to improve the lives of trans and non-binary people and to improve the quality of conversation around these issues.

But "They attack anyone who disagrees with them", I mean I will argue with basically anyone who disagrees with me. Is that what you mean? Am I attacking you by telling you or others that I think you're wrong and that IMHO some of the positions you hold are harmful?

Well, some believers want to proof that science is with their side, atheist also does that. However, the social movement of trans and non-binary people is so extreme. I hope that they ask for a debate like what we have. They basically start escalating to media and start calling the people who they disagree with homophobic, bad people, want to deny the existence of trans and non-binary people.

Almost all people on SE discussed this issue rationally. You included.

Well, you view it as extreme but I think it is very natural. It's certainly true that there exist people (esp. e.g. on twitter) that use inflammatory rhetoric, not really looking to foster good conversation (probably believing that good conversation is not possible on such issues), and I definitely try (if i don't always succeed) to avoid such rhetoric.

Honestly though I think that many people are simply calling these things as they see them, ironically a phrase strongly associated with the right nowadays. I'm definitely sympathetic to people expressing frustration and feeling like they are walking on eggshells in avoiding using such rhetoric, as I oftentimes feel the same myself.

I think one common characteristic of arguments like this is that people on the right don't understand what the big deal is (oftentimes, I suspect because they don't know many LGTBQ+ people), and people on the left, myself included, treat it as something of huge importance.

To my eyes, the world at large is so overwhelmingly hostile to trans and non-binary people that it literally results in their death (sometimes homicide, and sometimes suicide). So even though there aren't many trans people, it's a big issue that deserves our attention and our action. I try to foster good, honest communication around these issues, but I feel less bad about the person who was hastily called a bigot than the trans people who are victims of suicide.

Hope that helps explain where I'm coming from.