19th Century Bank Adds Pronouns to Teller Name Tags, Invites Unwoke Customers to Close Their Accounts

In our modern era, everything is political.

Case in point: the Bank of Scotland’s Halifax bank. Whereas businesses once provided products or services primarily to net loads of loot, today they appear as ideological initiatives that just happen to not be nonprofits.

Founded in 1853, surely Halifax was initially above all a bank. But society is evolving, and the company no longer has time to bother with bigots.

As reported by the British Broadcasting Company, Halifax recently wore its wokeness on its sleeve. “Pronouns matter,” it heralded via a Tuesday tweet. “#It’sAPeopleThing.”

The post included an employee name tag, complete with “she/her/hers” designation:

Pronouns matter. #ItsAPeopleThing pic.twitter.com/vj9UdlBnLy

— Halifax (@HalifaxBank) June 28, 2022

A rain of revulsion perniciously poured. Some said they’d take their money elsewhere while others just pithily sank the bank:

[This is] pathetic virtue signaling.

Why are you trying to alienate people?

What if a Halifax employee doesn’t want to put pronouns on their lapel, perhaps because they reject the cult of gender ideology? Will they be disadvantaged in any way? Barred from promotion? Fired?

[P]ronouns are the membership card of a dangerous movement…

The issue that people are having is that activists are trying to inject simple grammar with the ideology of “gender.”

One critic pointed to a personal-pronoun peculiarity; I’ll provide my treatment of it from a previous piece:

A perplexity of the pronoun craze is its nil effect on what anyone is called to their face; it literally changes nothing about person-to-person communication.

So if you’re “bunself” to me, you’ll never know. My use of the word will always be a hop, skip and jump away.

If I consider you “kittenself,” that’s some mentioned milk you’ll never get to lap: It’ll never be anything I say — at least, so far as you’re aware.

(I secretly call you kittenself)

Hence, provided pronouns aren’t akin to “I’m letting you know my moniker.” Rather their inclusion conveys, “I demand you speak thusly when I’m nowhere to be found.”

As for the backlash, Halifax wasn’t happy. So the non-nonprofit took a stand: If you don’t share the company’s pronoun perspective, don’t let the door hit ya where the woke gods split ya:

“We strive for inclusion, equality and quite simply, in doing what’s right. If you disagree with our values, you’re welcome to close your account.”

We strive for inclusion, equality and quite simply, in doing what’s right. If you disagree with our values, you’re welcome to close your account. ^AndyM

— Halifax (@HalifaxBank) June 28, 2022

Half an hour later, Halifax signaled to safety:

“We want to create a safe and accepting environment that opens the conversation around gender identity. … For us, it’s a very simple solution to accidental misgendering.”

Commerce has quickly changed. In the past, companies would fight for your business. These days, it seems they believe the power dynamic has reversed: You will align yourself with their singular view, or you’ll cease to be a valued customer.

Curiously, if every powerful corporation makes that shift — and if all of them occupy the same issues’ sides — then they do, indeed, have that power.

Speaking of, rival bank HSBC joined the jamboree:

“We stand with and support any bank or organization that joins us in taking this positive step forward for equality and inclusion. It’s vital that everyone can be themselves in the workplace.”

So goes corporate culture.

Even so, HSBC and Halifax may be accommodating hims and hers and theys; but how far up the ladder of enlightenment have they climbed?

Social justice demands just deserts, and a worker’s truth may need Big Banking to reach another rung.

She/they may be feeling safe behind the loan desk, but what if there’s a wine cake working the window?