Pronouns as Canaries

I have some outside reading to refer you to this time - 'Pronouns are the Canary in the Coal Mine' - go ahead; go read it first. But the short version is that telling someone your pronouns is a simple measure of how they will (or won't) respect you overall.

We wear a vest almost all the time when we're out of the house. When I meet people, I will often point to the patches on my vest as I introduce myself. One has our name, and the other shows our pronouns. After I've done that, I generally won't say much about my pronouns, though I typically will use plural pronouns in conversation a lot (for those new to my space, we use both plural and singular personal pronouns - I/me/my/mine and we/us/our/ours - depending on intent).

And then the rest is up to them. They've been told our name and our pronouns, but it's up to them to use them, or not. And yes, we pay attention to how people use them. I won't get angry or repeatedly correct someone who insists on using our legal name or continues to use only feminine pronouns when referring to us. Technically, those are not incorrect; but they aren't desired. And I'll pay attention to see who disregards correct pronouns for other people, as well. I don't view them as terrible people, and I'm not going to yell at them or hate them. But I'm not going to trust them with myself, either. I will hold them at arms' length emotionally, knowing that they are not willing to hold up their end of my security with them. 

As an example... At work, I let my team of co-workers know that I would be going by 'M' and using plural pronouns personally, but would continue to use my legal name for work purposes. In fact, I told them they didn't need to worry about the change in name, as I only see them at work, but I wanted them to know. Most of my team immediately started using my preferred name. There were a couple of questions about how to use plural pronouns correctly (yay, education time!). And they've mostly continued calling me M, except for my boss. He only calls me by my legal name, So in conversation with him, everyone uses my legal name to refer to me, for his benefit. But one-on-one, they revert to M most of the time. Of course, flipping back and forth to accommodate our boss is actually much harder than switching over entirely, but they do try to do so. And that means that anything personal I have going on, I'm much more likely to trust my teammates over my boss. 

I'm not angry at my boss, and he's not out to harm me. Mostly he's just focused on himself and he's a bit clueless. He isn't willing to put in the effort to change the label in his brain for me to 'M/they'. Because of that, I know he won't put any effort into other things that I may need to feel safe and supported with him unless I'm aggressive about asking for it. I don't expect support from him, socially. And that means he and I will never reach the level of friendship I have with some of my team, the ones that have asked questions and tried to use the right name and pronouns consistently. I know they've got my back with other things because they are on my side with little things, like pronouns.