‘Pronouns in the bio’ are one of those fashion statements destined for the cringe of history, like Gothic piercings, leotards worn over leggings, and crimped hair.

For a while, pronoun compliance was very nearly mandated by corporations desperate to adhere to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion guidelines. Businesses became university extension courses on activism and those poor workers who wanted a quiet life and a regular pay cheque were forced to comply with gender theory.

In a sane world, this would be an outrageous and discriminatory practice, but in modern Australia it has become a way to legally traumatise the workforce with a soft Woke autocracy. It is a world where people are required to affirm everything except the majority view.

The bleeding between the business world and the intellectual class has been going on for longer than most people realise.

In 2014, the ‘I identify as an attack helicopter’ meme began as a way to mock what many saw as the hijacking of language. At the time, social media was in the process of being conquered by bio-engineering (no, not that sort of bio-engineering). The bio feature embedded in social media accounts had been transformed from a statement of fact to a rambling dance card of ideological compliance including flags, symbols, and pronouns. (Hands up those who remember Australian lefties adding water drips to their names…)

Most people never read the original attack helicopter meme or saw its darker undertones. It went viral because it touched onto an underlying sentiment of ‘eye-rolling’ that only intensified as a thousand genders were created and people began (seriously) identifying as clowns, fairies, animals, and indistinct gender spirits.

Suddenly, the Apache helicopter didn’t seem so strange.

The corruption of language for the sake of gender theory eventually left the forums and university classrooms and resulted in the real-world harm of women losing their awards in sports and previously safe gendered spaces being violated. The sex-protected rights which had been fought for by generations of women evaporated overnight and the only way people could protest was to make a bit of a joke out of pronoun compliance. The wax seal on the movement was the addition of pronouns to corporate email signatures.

No more, in America.

Trump has given federal employees the order to remove pronouns from their signatures as part of the anti-DEI program that is sweeping out Woke like a broom clears spiderwebs. Nicknames must also be removed. Essentially, you work for the government, start acting like it.

The Hill took issue with the removal of nicknames, saying: ‘The directive to remove nicknames appears directed toward transgender workers who have not yet legally changed their names, essentially requiring them to use their deadname.’

Actually, employees are required to use their real name. Equality means one law for everyone, not separate laws for special identity groups.

Fixing email signatures is only a small part of the campaign. There are a lot of ‘page not found’ messages running around as government departments rush to delete anything that looks a bit too Woke.

To be clear, no one is being fired, they are being asked to engage with their jobs without advertising their personal political leanings.

It is interesting how little push-back there has been to the removal of pronouns. No one is out in the street wearing pink hats, screaming at the sky. There are very few posts on social media by named commentators complaining. Almost no rage-articles have been penned. It is as if the pronoun trend had already run its course before Trump showed it the door.

The only sad part about the whole affair is we will lose email signature gems that include ‘bro/bruh’ and some excellent stand up comedy about people who wander around in the plural.

Unless you live in the backwaters of Australia, of course, where the government recommends the use of gender-neutral language and pronouns in all of its communications. If that sounds contradictory, it’s because it is. To get around that tiny problem, the government further recommends using ‘they’ instead of proper English.

Where America goes, Australia will eventually plod along behind. No doubt pronouns in an email signature will soon stick out like surgical masks worn on public transport.