Pronouns in Signatures: Not Just a Marketing Gimmick

A few weeks ago, a dear friend invited me out for a glass of wine. Halfway through the evening, my friend asked me, abruptly, how I feel about pronouns in email signatures. Full disclosure: during my tenure as a graduate student at the University of South Carolina, I leveraged my position on the College of Arts and Sciences’ Diversity Committee to tack on a provision about pronouns on rosters to an existing proposal to allow students to indicate preferred names on official University records. This option was implemented June 2021, and said policy is one of the first of its kind. Unsurprisingly, I told my friend that I am pro pronouns everywhere—jacket pins, email signatures, website bios, tattoos—and anywhere where one may encounter a fellow human being. My friend, a recent law school grad with pronouns in their email signature, explained that their question was fueled by a recent comment: that pronouns in signatures are “for the marketing department, not lawyers.”

Thankfully, this person’s stance against pronoun declarations in the law isn’t the final word on the matter. However, this person’s opinion is far from the minority. Since 2019, law firms (and business) across the globe continue to promote diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) among their ranks through LGBTQ+ friendly workplace policies. For those unfamiliar, including pronouns in email signatures typically includes a line that clearly indicates which gender pronoun the person uses, such as “he/him,” “she/her,” or “they/them.” My signature indicates that I use both “she/her” and “they/them” pronouns, which is consistent with my self-identification as non-binary. For me, I do not feel that womanhood defines my whole story and sense of being, but that I do not feel totally divested from it either. As of today, many major law firms have offered firmwide approval and support for all employees to include gender pronouns in their signature, including Ballard Spahr, Clearly Gottlieb, Cozen O’Connor, Fried Frank, Jenner & Block, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, Littler, Reed Smith, Mayer Brown, Pepper Hamilton, Paul Weiss, Ropes & Gray, Kramer Levin, and others. Beyond including pronouns in email signatures, many firms have encouraged attorneys and staff to include pronouns on their website attorney pages. Clearly, these firms didn’t get the memo that pronoun declarations are for marketers, not lawyers.

Many of these law firms accompanied the announcement with a press release explaining the rationale behind the decision inviting attorneys and staff to include personal pronouns in their communications and on their website biographies. (This release by Reed Smith is one example.) While this decision to, in a way, make a big deal out of what is really is a small, quotidian gesture of support, these sorts of public overtures indicate that embracing the full gender spectrum is still thought of as a radical decision, one that is divorced from the perceived seriousness of practicing law. What may also be important to note is that few of these announcements are accompanied by promises to pipeline, mentor, and advance gender diverse attorneys, through the establishment of scholarships or strategic partnerships with LGBTQ+ organizations. Indeed, critics of such DEI initiatives point to how our current social and political moment emphasizes identity, or the notion that one’s gender is one of the most important things to know about an individual.

Well, why shouldn’t identity be important? Key facets of identity—including gender, age, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, religion, and disability status—play significant roles in determining how people understand and experience the world, as well as shaping the types of opportunities and challenges people face. Ensuring identity representation in leadership and decision-making roles also ensures a broader consideration of how decisions impact various individuals. Social and cultural identity is inextricably linked to issues of power. Put simply, historically underrepresented populations have been, at worst, battered by unfair and outright discriminatory practices for decades, or, at best, overlooked and left to languish in the realm of the unimportant Other. Such expressions can be seen in a 2020 article that includes snippets of conversations between LGBTQ+ lawyers and Bloomberg Law. In short, attorneys across the legal profession agree that, while major strides have been made to integrate issues that affect gender and sexual minorities into extant DEI initiatives, many barriers remain, particularly for trans and nonbinary attorneys.

It is important to remember that legal support for the LGBTQ+ community is relatively new and, unfortunately, social acceptance is often tied to issues of legality. The Supreme Court ruled in a landmark June 2020 decision that federal law bans workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The decision, coupled with the court’s marriage equality ruling in 2015, represented a monumental shift legally, but also facilitated the “mainstreamification” of LGBTQ+ people. Only 1% of U.S. lawyers identified as LGBT in 2004. In 2019, that number tripled, according to the National Association of Law Placement (NALP). Among the newest generation in Big Law, the numbers are even higher. NALP’s 2019 survey of U.S. law firms found only 2% of partners identified as LGBT, whereas 4% of associates and nearly 7% of summer associates did. Is this increase because of a real shift in sexual orientation and gender identity? Or is it because of a greater willingness among people to openly identify as LGBTQ+? My belief is that it is more the latter than the former.

Although the number of people who openly identify as trans and nonbinary is increasing, Americans’ comfort levels with using gender-neutral pronouns to refer to someone, as well as acceptance of how someone’s assigned sex as birth can differ from their gender, have remained static, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center report. Normalizing discussions around gender and inclusion is one way we can combat this discomfort. The reality is everyone uses pronouns as part of everyday communication. Gendered pronouns (e.g., “he/she/they” versus “it/this/that”) are the way that we constantly refer to each other’s gender identity—except we do not often carefully consider how they are deployed in a sentence. Usually, we interpret or “read” a person’s gender based on their outward appearance and expression, and then “assign” a pronoun based on our own understanding of how someone of a binary gender should present (think: skirt = female; facial hair = male). But our reading may not be a correct interpretation of the person’s gender identity. And, if we determine that a person’s gender presentation is not “male” or “female” enough for our tastes, that person may be subject to bias, discrimination, and even violence.

Furthermore, gender bias and discrimination can be magnified by other issues of discrimination in the workplace, including racism. 2021 was the deadliest year in history for violence against transgender individuals. Of the homicides, most were committed against Black and Latine transgender people. According to the Center for American Progress, Black members of the LGBTQ+ community find themselves at the intersection of multiple forms of discrimination, as anti-Blackness and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment compound to result in toxic workplace discrimination and large-scale economic difficulties. These issues are not helped by the fact that, in law firms and elsewhere, the most outspoken and visible people in the LGBTQ+ community are white men. But no one makes negative assumptions when a white guy in a suit shows up to a meeting, but that can easily change if the attorney in question is someone who outwardly does not conform to one’s own conception of appropriate gender norms. In the legal profession, many queer attorneys of color may find a lack of empathy for the distinct experience that comes from being Black and LGBTQ+.

The experience of being misgendered, or being addressed or identified as a gender that is inconsistent with one’s own self-identification, can be hurtful, infuriating, and even distracting. Plus, the experience of accidentally misgendering someone can be embarrassing for both parties. These experiences, alone or in tandem, create tension which can lead to communication breakdowns across organizations and result in negative outcomes for clients. It is a recipe for decreased productivity and retention issues, as LGBTQ+ individuals and allies defect to organizations with more welcoming and inclusive cultural practices, i.e., where more people are treated with respect.

And that’s just it: using people’s preferred pronouns—and, in turn, offering your own pronouns—is a sign of respect. This shouldn’t be an arguable point, but people have a right to respect and dignity in all aspects of life, including the workplace. Having pronouns in email signatures and elsewhere is an easy way to, on a theoretical level, begin to understand a person’s own internal understanding of identity, and, on a practical level, avoid the frustration and communication breakdown that arises from someone using the wrong pronoun for someone else. When an organization has pronouns everywhere, there is no reason to misgender someone. These policies, issued from the top of law firms, facilitate change. Corporate and law firm leaders must foster a sense of psychological safety so that their employees feel affirmed and supported in taking risks without penalty or fear of retaliation. Employees should have that open space to suggest new ideas or even discuss difficult topics. Sharing pronouns signals allyship. Cis people, or people who use a pronoun that is more likely to be correctly “read” by a stranger, help signal that the practice of having pronouns in email signatures is not aberrant, or the practice of a few aberrant few. It helps standardize the process for everyone—it is incredibly isolating to be the only person with pronouns in their email signature or online biography. More importantly, these policies help encourage and empower people to be their authentic selves in the workplace, without fear of retaliation. Yes, slip-ups and accidents will occur. The easiest solution is to sincerely apologize and move on—if someone otherwise demonstrates true allyship, LGBTQ+ colleagues will understand.