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.
What does this even mean? Are you the arbiter of when someone is being genuine and when they’re “virtue signalling”? You get to be the one to determine if it’s performative or some shit? Get the fuck out of here…
Do you consider cis-gendered people (oh no I said it, will I be ruled as a virtue signaller?) stating their pronouns in solidarity as “virtue signalling”?
And follow-up: would you say the same about the white allies that sat hand in hand with black people at sit-in being spat on, physically assaulted, sprayed with fire hoses and had dogs sicced on them?
Or would you also tell them that they should have “just live and let live”?
Our trans citizens are fucking dying and motherfuckers call you virtue signalling for doing anything but keeping your mouth shut.
I’d bet my next paycheck you’re a NIMBY too. “Just keep this unpleasantness somewhere I can’t see it.” People like you actively make the world a worse place.
I mean it, just like it is defined.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling
I have been shamed for not providing my pronouns in Slack. I think it’s not important for me to do because it’s easy to tell my pronouns by our language. If it was ambiguous in any way, I would feel comfortable providing them.
I do not shame or care if others use them regardless of their reason (support, clarity, etc) up until that reason is to passively or actively shame others.