Personal gender pronouns in the workplace

Gender identity

Gender identity is “an individual’s personal sense of having a particular gender” . It may match or differ from their assigned sex at birth. A person may also identify as gender-fluid or as having no gender.

Assumptions should not be made about a person’s gender or how they identify from outward appearances alone.

What are PGPs?

For this reason, many larger employers are encouraging their staff to provide personal gender pronouns (PGPs) on work emails, internal communications and work-related social media.

A PGP is the pronoun which a person uses for themself and expresses how they wish to be referred to by others.

Binary and non-binary

A PGP can be gender-specific, which is also known as binary, or gender-neutral, which is also known as non-binary.

The most common gender-specific PGPs are he/his/him and she/her/hers. There are more gender -neutral pronouns, with the most common being: them/they/theirs and zie/hir/xe.

It’s been suggested to one of our subscribers that they should require all staff to disclose their PGP on work emails as this will help to avoid misunderstandings, offence and potentially discrimination claims. Is this something that they should do?

Hidden danger

The short answer here is “no”. Apart from the fact that many individuals wish to keep this personal information private (or certainly out of the workplace setting), forcing an employee to disclose their gender at work is potentially discriminatory. Our subscriber should certainly not make this a new workplace policy.

Be supportive

However, they can advise employees that they support PGPs being expressed on work-related communications, whilst making it clear this is always an individual’s personal choice.

If an employee expresses their PGP on works communications, such as on an email signature, or a professional social media platform, don’t ask for it to be changed or removed. That could also invite a discrimination claim.

Don’t challenge or make any judgements about an individual’s PGP for the same reason. Neither should there be any remarks about the use of “they” as a singular pronoun being grammatically incorrect as it is now considered acceptable.

Tip. PGP has previously been short for “preferred gender pronoun”, but this phrase is no longer used and should be avoided. That’s because “preferred” suggests that a person’s gender is up for debate and/or their wishes can be disregarded. Gender is a personal choice and should be respected.

Tip. If you are unsure about how to refer to someone, or are worried about misgendering, the safest option is to use their name or “them/they”.