Why I added My Preferred Pronouns to My Email Signature

Someone on our team at KUNGFU.AI just added their preferred pronouns to their email signature and it struck a chord with me. I’ve been thinking about whether I should add my preferred pronouns to my email signature for a little while now and decided to do it after seeing hers.

Here’s the way I think about it. As a straight, white male, I am from the group that most benefits from the racist, sexist and homo/transphobic society we live in, regardless of whether I have done anything to make it that way. And, if I’m a beneficiary and have the power that comes with being in this group, why shouldn’t I try to level the playing field to help make our society fair and just for everyone? It doesn’t make sense to me that the job of making things fair falls to those that are on the receiving end of the inequity. They, after all, have less power to make the changes we need and I have more.

I have been feeling increasingly strongly about this, which is why I decided to spearhead The Startup Diversity and Inclusion Pledge in 2016, which I launched this March. It was over the last few years of doing this work that I realized that allies — which is what doing this work makes me — matter. As a straight, white male, I can speak hard truths to others like me without the perceived agenda that is sometimes attributed to the same message when it comes from a member of a minority community. But I don’t usually feel the need to take that tact. Rather, just by my being active in diversity and inclusion appears to create a ‘safe space’ for others like me to join me in my efforts. It’s quite remarkable how it tends to work to draw other straight, white males into this work.

Which leads me back to why I added my preferred pronouns to my email signature block. I’m doing it for two reasons. The first and most direct is for people who identify as LGBTQ+. In a world where someone may not identify with the pronouns that they hear about themselves because of poor assumptions, I can only imagine that it can be scary to push back and and doing so makes the person vulnerable. By putting my preferred pronouns on my email signature, I feel that it helps to normalize the need to not make assumptions about who people are and how they self-identify.

The second reason why I added my preferred pronouns to my email signature block is that I want to send a more general signal that I am not only an ally, but proud to be so. I also hope it triggers good conversations with others who want to help make the world a more fair and equitable place and that that leads me down more paths to making positive change in the world.