Another literary magazine gripe: Dear God don't oblige people to give you their pronouns
Like say 'feel free to include your pronouns in your cover letter' sure! 'your cover letter must include your pronouns' 🙅♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️ friend you have not thought this through.
It is a similar issue to when they ask for a photo up front I think. Like no matter how well intentioned you are there's an obvious opening for discrimination. & You don't have to be consciously prejudiced to discriminate.
Also like with photos I do get it bcos obviously they want to publish author photographs in the magazine and don't want to be chasing them down (many magazines ask for your bio up front for this reason) but with pronouns it's like what do you need them for so badly?
Also literally what is stopping them from taking the way better, way easier, and more effective route of asking for data that could open them up to a discrimination lawsuit after they have made their hiring decisions?????
Every study I've seen has shown that the number one easiest most effective way to avoid racial discrimination in hiring is to blank out the candidate's names on their resume
If literary magazines actually want to fix racism or transphobia in publishing or the literary scene, they need to not require people give them information that will blatantly and unavoidably force many, many job candidates to reveal themselves as part of legally protected classes!!!
(aka: it's harder to reject a submission because someone is Black if you are given no information that could indicate their race besides the contents of their submission. every study shows you can't just Decide to Not Be Racist, that's not how prejudice works, as a great many people of color can tell you. whyyyyyyyy would we want to ask for more identity / physical appearance information as part of the hiring process we're trying to make LESS racist. etc. other bigotries. WHY)
