Journalists who include their preferred pronouns in email signatures are less likely to get a response from the White House or other members of the Trump administration when they reach out for comment.
Following President Donald Trump’s crackdown on transgender rights and gender ideology in the federal government, administration officials have seemingly taken steps to suppress reporters from using terminology that acknowledges the existence of non-binary or trans people.
That includes refusing to respond to reporter’s emails when they include preferred pronouns in their signature such as “she/her” or “he/him” or “they/them.”
The New York Times said on at least three occasions that senior press aides for Trump have refused to answer questions due to the presence of pronouns.
“As a matter of policy, we do not respond to reporters with pronouns in their bios,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote a Times reporter.
The White House told The Independent in an email, “Any reporter who chooses to put their preferred pronouns in their bio clearly does not care about biological reality or truth and therefore cannot be trusted to write an honest story.”
Other Trump administration officials, including White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung and Department of Government Efficiency adviser Katie Miller, have sent similar responses to reporters with pronouns in their email signature.
“As a matter of policy, I don’t respond to people who use pronouns in their signatures as it shows they ignore scientific realities and therefore ignore facts,” Miller wrote in an email to a Times reporter, according to the outlet. She added in a separate message: “This applies to all reporters who have pronouns in their signature.”
Matt Berg, a reporter at Crooked Media, said in a February newsletter that he ran an experiment to test this by sending an email to Miller but this time including preferred pronouns – which he typically does not do.
Berg said Miller responded, “As a matter of policy, I don’t respond to people who use pronouns in their signature as it shows they don’t have an understanding of basic scientific facts.”
The practice of sharing preferred pronouns online has become a target of conservative media personalities and some politicians who believe any recognition of gender beyond male and female is an example of woke-ism.
In January, Trump ordered all federal workers to cease using preferred pronouns in their email signatures.
The Trump administration has made transgender issues a focus of the president’s first 100 days. Trump signed an executive order declaring there are only two sexes - male and female - on his first day in office. Transgender people have also been banned from serving in the military, while transgender women and girls are prohibited from competing in women’s sports. Several of these policies are now facing legal challenges.
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