The Trump White House isn’t responding to queries from reporters who put pronouns in their email signatures. Wait, what? If you’re confused about what this is all about, you’re not alone. The New York Times had to includes a pretty basic explanation for even its elite readership.

“The practice of including pronouns, such as ‘he/him’ or ‘they/them,’ in email signatures and social media bios has become widespread in recent years as a way of clarifying one’s gender identity and conveying inclusivity and solidarity for transgender and nonbinary individuals,” reported The Times.

If you work for a big corporation, you’ve seen this in emails from Human Resources folks who love this practice. I have seen it from Kansas public health workers, a Virginia state judge as well as from a social worker and doctor in Omaha.

It seems like it is spreading, and White House officials are fuming. “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,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, wrote in an email.

Not answering questions from people you find disagreeable seems counterproductive if you care about the truth. It is akin to a congressman who chooses not to answer mail or do constituent services for people in the other party or who didn’t vote for him. How are you going to get them to vote for you next time, if you don’t engage? How is the White House going to get reporters to tell their truth if they greet questions with silence?

This fracas and the pronoun question that spurred it are both ways our public and private lives draw clearer and clearer lines between us and them making just common decency harder and harder to achieve.

I am less concerned about the journalists and the White House — who always find something to fight over — than I am about this spreading among executives, health workers, legal types and HR folks — the trusted core of our communities at work and at home.

For sure, some people find it helpful to follow this practice because they go by a name that is sexually ambiguous (like Pat) or they are a woman named Mike. For others, who for reasons of gender identity prefer they/them pronouns, it is practical if they want well-meaning people to treat them properly.

But the majority of people who do it are neither of those. They do it to signal their allyship with a friend, a family member or the cause. That can come across as an endorsement of the identity politics around everything embodied in the term LGBTQIAA+. Those squeamish about adding superfluous pronouns to their signature get told that they should do it to make trans people feel less conspicuous when they do it.

But I think people in professions who want to be trusted by all comers should recognize that many on the conservative half of the political spectrum view the superfluous use of pronouns as the equivalent of putting a liberal political bumper sticker in your every email.

Count me among them. When my account got big enough and I was assigned an adviser for my investments at my discount brokerage, he came with pronouns. The last thing I want in an investment adviser is someone who follows the crowd or, worse, is so sensitive to people’s feelings that they might not want to give me tough news. Of course, I couldn’t be sure he was that way, but why take a risk? I asked for another one.

Same with my new mental health counselor when I moved recently. No thanks, I didn’t want to have to wonder why the culture war was so important to her that she had to take a side in every email to me. With HR people, you can’t pick a new one, but I always get second opinions before I do anything a pronoun person suggests.

I don’t think any of these people have to agree with me to do a good job, but in our interactions, I’d rather they just keep it to themselves. The fact is if you are a professional, pronouns are going to cost you confidence among a significant part of your audience who you need to trust you. This is particularly true as our nation becomes increasingly tribal in the Trump era.

You might reasonably ask how a columnist who wears his politics on his sleeve possibly object to others doing the same? It is simple. I am acutely aware of the cost because people tell me every day that they don’t trust me and my facts because I am conservative. On bad days, the distrust comes because I am perceived as a liberal. I know the cost pretty well.

In any case, if you are among the few who have practical reasons to include your pronouns in your email signature, by all means, do what you need to do. I’ll understand. If you are someone for whom it is a choice, you should think about the costs before you do.

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