Why You Should Share Your Pronouns: A Personal Reflection

About a year and a half ago, I noticed one of my friends and colleagues included the pronouns “she/her” in her email signature. I greatly admire and respect this woman, but my immediate reaction was that she was trying to show how “woke” she was—almost that she was trying to make herself look better than everyone else. From my perspective, it was fine that she listed her pronouns, but it just didn’t feel like it was important for me personally to announce my pronouns in my email signature. I didn’t want it to be assumed that I was “woke” or “showy”.