The US air force has reversed its ban on the use of preferred pronouns in email signatures and other professional communications.
In a memo dated last Wednesday, the Department of the Air Force announced that it had “rescinded” the directive it issued earlier this year prohibiting “the use of ‘preferred pronouns’ to identify one’s gender identity in professional communications”, including email signatures, memoranda, letters, papers, social media and official websites.
The initial directive was issued in February following an executive order signed by Donald Trump upon taking office, which recognized only two sexes and ended all federal recognition of gender identity.
Shortly after the inauguration, many federal employees were instructed to remove pronouns from email signatures.
The air force reversed its ban on preferred pronouns in professional communications after the department realized that the ban was not compliant with the annual defense policy bill from 2024, a Department of the Air Force spokesperson said in a statement to the Guardian.
The bill, which was signed in 2023 under President Joe Biden, prohibits the defense department from creating any pronoun policy.
A spokesperson for the air force told the Guardian that on 4 February, the Department of the Air Force “moved out swiftly to comply” with Trump’s executive order “by rescinding previous DAF policy that allowed the use of preferred pronouns”.
On 2 April, the spokesperson said: “The Department of the Air Force updated the policy to comply with federal law after it was brought to DAF attention that the Feb 4 policy was not compliant with the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.”
The annual defense policy bill includes a provision that prohibits the defense secretary from requiring or prohibiting “a member of the armed forces or a civilian employee of the Department of Defense to identify the gender or personal pronouns of such member or employee in any official correspondence of the Department’’.
While the ban on pronouns in professional communications has been lifted, the air force said in the statement from last week that the rest of the February directive remained in effect.
That includes the termination of any agency programs, contracts and grants that “promote or inculcate gender ideology”, a removal of all “outward facing media that inculcate or promote gender ideology”, the disbanding of any employee resource groups or special emphasis programs that utilize the department’s resources or time that “inculcate or promote gender ideology or have done so in the past”, and the prescription “that all policies and documents, including forms, use the term ‘sex’ and not ‘gender’”, among other provisions.
