The most senior spokesman for the White House has said that she would not recognize any emails sent by journalists that use pronouns in their signatures.
In a statement that she sent to The Washington Post, Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary for the White House, stated that reporters who divulge their pronouns are not interested with “truth.”
“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,” Leavitt told the publication.
Matt Berg, a reporter for Crooked Media who has pronouns specified in his email signature, tested it out for himself. He wrote another Trump administration official, Katie Miller — who had declined his buddy’s request for comment days earlier, over his pronouns being in his email signature — and got the same answer as his friend had.
“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,” Miller replied in response.
There were apparently three reporters at The New York Times who were denied contact for the same reason. However, the Washington Post reported that “at least one Washington Post reporter has recently received replies from White House officials despite having an email signature listing pronouns.”
Following the request for comment made by the Post, Leavitt did not provide any more information on whether or not her personal approach is reflective of formal guidance from the White House, or whether or not other officials from the White House are likewise picking which reporters to address by hand.
Following the signing of an executive order by President Donald Trump on the first day of his second term, which declared that the United States will only recognize two sexes, male and female, according to the biological characteristics that are given at birth, this practice has come into existence.
For the most part, this policy has been a source of contention within the government, particularly at the state and federal levels.
Recent events resulted in the termination of a worker for the Texas Real Estate Commission who refused to modify his email signature in order to remove his pronouns. In addition, at a panel discussion of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that was held in Europe a month ago, Representative Keith Self of Texas purposefully misidentified Representative Sarah McBride, who was the first openly transgender member of Congress, and he referenced President Trump’s executive order as his justification.
Over the last several years, it has been more popular practice to include pronouns in email signatures. This practice was first done out of solidarity with transgender and nonbinary individuals. Given that names are not always obvious markers of a person’s gender, pronouns have also been employed to offer useful context for virtual introductions. This is because pronouns are used to refer to people.