Using gender pronouns in email signatures

Gender pronouns have become an essential part of professional email communication. Some companies now tend to include gender information in their email signature policy, while others ban them. In this article we’ll highlight the importance of gender pronouns and show you how to use them in email signatures in your organization.

The importance of gender pronouns

Pronouns in email signatures show how the email senders identify themselves and how they would like to be referred to in the third person. Using them in email signatures can send a message that the company is inclusive of everyone and acknowledges gender diversity. Moreover, gender pronouns are not only a nod to the LGBTQ+ community, but also an important matter for people with a gender-neutral name who do not have thoughts on their innate gender identity. On the other hand, some people might not be comfortable adding those pronouns to their signature. Numerous representatives of both mindsets can be found on internet forums, confirming that this topic remains controversial. Take this into account and be sensitive when making the decision to include gender pronouns in email communication. Giving the employees a choice whether or not they want to include pronouns in their email signatures can help companies avoid friction among their staff. And remember, pronouns alone shouldn’t be treated as the company’s only effort to be more inclusive of gender identity.

Adding gender pronouns to email signatures can make things easier and save time. Some people spend a lot of time wondering how to address the person they are writing to. Wrongly assuming someone’s gender can have a horrible impact on the first impression and might even hurt someone’s feelings. To remedy this problem, some people try to avoid using pronouns at all costs. The result – rephrasing an email – might take even more time and, in some cases, can end with the message sounding simply awkward.

2025: the year of the pronoun ban

If you still think that pronouns are not important, I’ll show you why you might be in the minority (no pun intended).

Before 2025, gender pronouns found themselves rather comfortable within email signatures, as well as social media profiles and some other places. No matter if it was treated as a part of DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) efforts, or merely as a useful email signature element, the importance of this element was regularly discussed on Reddit with strong opinions both for and against adding pronouns to professional communication.

And then, the US government decided to ban pronouns from email signatures in all federal agencies.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that heads started rolling, but the discussion about this inconspicuous signature element became rather heated and wasn’t limited to Reddit anymore. Articles about this decision started cropping up on a daily basis, with opinions getting stronger and louder.

The whole situation proves three points:

• Gender pronouns are important. It wouldn’t become political and trigger those events on such a large scale if nobody cared about them.
• Email signatures are important. If they weren’t, nobody would care about removing any element from them.
• Central email signature management is a good idea. Instead of updating a signature template and informing everyone of necessary changes, any organization can edit the signature design and deploy it automatically in minutes. Without sparking a nationwide discussion.

Gender pronouns in M365 profile cards

Microsoft 365 profile cards are useful for finding out more about your coworkers. They show up, for example, when you hover over your colleague’s email address in Outlook. Profile cards are similar to business cards – they include information such as phone numbers, team membership and, for a while now, user-defined pronouns.

Profile cards are a smart place to include this attribute, since you can easily access them and open them exactly when needed. The problem is that pronouns defined directly in a profile card cannot be synced automatically to an email signature. And to see someone’s profile card, you need to be in the same Microsoft 365 organization. As a result, pronouns added to email signatures guarantee better visibility and can be seen even in external emails.

Examples of gender pronouns in signatures

How you add pronouns to your email signature template depends largely on your signature design. Pronouns should form an integral part of the signature. If you decide to include gender pronouns in your email signature, it’s best to add them next to your name. That’s where most people expect to find this information.

The most common format for listing pronouns is:

(she/her) or (she/her/hers) directly after the name.

While it might seem a bit baffling to see subject, object, and sometimes even possessive pronoun forms, it does make sense. Adding only subject pronouns might seem out of context or even look like an unfinished sentence. On the other hand, (he/him), (she/her) or (they/them) added directly after names leave no doubt.

See the examples below to learn how to best include gender pronouns in email signatures:

Sample signature 1

Sample signature 2

Sample signature 3

How to set up

Now that I’ve explained the basic concept, I’ll show you how to set up signatures with gender pronouns for the whole company. Since setting it up is different for Microsoft 365 and Exchange Server, I’ll present a separate guide for both platforms to you:

• How to add gender pronouns to email signatures in Microsoft 365
• How to add gender pronouns to email signatures in Exchange Server

How to set up gender pronouns in Microsoft 365

Using CodeTwo User attributes manager

In this example, a company called Company is using Microsoft 365 for their email needs and manages email signatures using CodeTwo Email Signatures 365. This service lets admins update email signatures for the entire company in a matter of seconds, regardless of email clients and devices used to communicate.

To add pronouns to email signatures, you can use the User attributes manager which is a free feature for all licensed users of CodeTwo Email Signatures 365. This way, you can handle the entire setup and control over gender pronouns conveniently within the cloud-based email signature management service.

Normally, all personal information found in signatures is taken directly from Microsoft Entra ID (Azure Active Directory). However, User attribute manager lets you manage personal information without making any changes to Entra ID itself. Learn more about User attribute manager in this short video

Sign in with your Microsoft 365 admin credentials at attributes.codetwo.com. The Attribute visibility page lists all users’ attributes stored in CodeTwo Entra ID (Azure AD) cache and added to email signatures. Here, you can choose which of the listed attributes you want to make visible and editable for end users.

The page also lets you create custom attributes – all you need to do is select Add, create the new Pronouns attribute, click ADD and Save.

The next step is to ask all employees to fill out the requested details (within a specified time frame) at The next step is to ask all employees to fill out the requested details at user.codetwo.com (this is possible only after the setup at attributes.codetwo.com is complete). To ensure structured feedback, ask everyone to provide one of the following options:

• (he/him/his)
• (she/her/hers)
• (they/them/their)

Also, it can be helpful to point out that users who would rather not have any pronouns included in their signatures should leave the field blank.

Within the User info editor, the users can see a list of attributes you’ve made available to them previously in the User attributes manager. Items set as read-only are grayed out.

Note: You can make only one specific attribute visible and available for editing. Although, depending on your scenario, you might want to make more fields editable or simply visible. This way, you provide end users with more context.

Once the feedback has been provided, make sure that the data is correct and free of typos – another task made easy thanks to the User attributes manager. The Import/Export page at attributes.codetwo.com allows for bulk management and editing of attribute values for multiple users.

To bulk edit Entra ID attributes stored in CodeTwo Entra ID cache, first click the Export to CSV button, download the CSV file and open it with Microsoft Excel (text editors such as Notepad or Notepad++ will also work). The file contains a list of end users and the attribute values they have provided. Empty cells represent attributes for which values have not been modified and remain the same as in the organization’s Microsoft Entra ID.

Now, do a quick review of the values listed in the Pronouns column. That’s where you can fix the typos and clear more creative entries like “I’d rather not have this information in my signature”. Once done, all you need to do is save the file, click the Import from CSV button and choose Selective import. Click IMPORT afterwards to finish.

Once the update of user’s details is complete (this usually takes a few minutes but in very rare cases may take up to several hours) head over to app.codetwo.com (or click the Signatures tab in CodeTwo Admin Panel) and select a signature rule you want to edit. The quickest way to start editing your signature template is to click its thumbnail as shown below. You can also click the rule, go to the Design step and click Edit signature to open the template editor.

In the signature template editor, place the cursor where you want the new placeholder to be located in the signature. Then, go to Placeholder > Message Sender > Additional attributes and select the desired attribute, as shown in the image below.

Note: If pronouns are added in a separate line or have a signaling phrase before them (like Pronouns:), you can use the Remove if blank option to add RT tags before the phrase and after the placeholder, for example:

{RT}Pronouns: {Pronouns}{/RT}

This way, if the {Pronouns} attribute value is empty, both the additional line and the signaling phrase will be removed from the design. Learn more about using RTT tags

When done, save your changes and close the template editor by using the Publish & Close button. Or, for example, if it’s a new signature rule, click Apply & Close button and submit changes by clicking the Save button afterwards.

Learn more about the User attributes manager

Alternative approaches

The following collapsible part of the article covers two alternative, more time- and effort-consuming methods for setting up gender pronouns in Microsoft 365 – without the use of the User attributes manager. In both of them, a company called Company is using CodeTwo Email Signatures 365 for email signature management in Microsoft 365. Admin access to the Microsoft 365 tenant is required in both cases to proceed.

Click to expand/hide alternative approaches

Preparation

Before you start, you need to gather information from employees on which pronouns to include in their signatures. To achieve this, you can send a survey to all employees with the following options to choose from:

• (he/him/his)
• (she/her/hers)
• (they/them/theirs)
• I’d rather not have any pronouns included

You can gather the survey results in a CSV file with two columns: User (represented by the user’s UPN) and Pronouns with possible values: (he/him/his), (she/her/hers), (they/them/their), blank. Here’s how a sample CSV file looks like, viewed in Microsoft Excel:

The sample CSV file can be downloaded here. But instead of relying on the sample file, you can speed things up by using PowerShell to create a pre-filled CSV file.

As the first step, you need to connect to Exchange (Online) or run Exchange Management Shell. When the console is up and running (and connected), apply the following script:

get-mailbox | select @{n="User";e={$_.UserPrincipalName}},@{n="Pronouns";e={""}} | export-csv c:\pronouns.csv -NoTypeInformation

This script creates a CSV file with two columns:

• The User column prefilled with UserPrincipalName of all mailboxes in your organization.
• The Pronouns column without any values.

You can set a different location for the output file (c:\pronouns.csv in this example), filter mailboxes to include only user mailboxes (add the “-RecipientTypeDetails UserMailbox” attribute to the Get-Mailbox cmdlet) etc.

After the file is created, simply open it, specify values in the Pronoun column for each user and save changes. Once done, you’re ready for the next steps.

Using Groups and Conditional Placeholders

In this method, you will create 3 distribution groups in Microsoft 365, add members based on the CSV file and configure an email signature rule to add pronouns to user’s email signatures.

First, connect to the Microsoft 365 tenant using the Exchange Online PowerShell module (see instructions on how to do this). Or use the session from the previous step. Then, import the survey’s results from the CSV file (see how to create a CSV file):

$pronouns = (import-csv C:\pronouns.csv)

After the results have been imported, create 3 distribution groups:

New-DistributionGroup -Name "Pronoun-He" -Members ($pronouns | where -property pronouns -like "*him*").user;
New-DistributionGroup -Name "Pronoun-She" -Members ($pronouns | where -property pronouns -like "*her*").user;
New-DistributionGroup -Name "Pronoun-They" -Members ($pronouns | where -property pronouns -like "*they*").user;

Now, go to app.codetwo.com (or click the Signatures tab in CodeTwo Admin Panel) and select a signature rule you want to use. Then, go to the Design step and click Edit signature to open the Signature template editor.

When the editor opens, you need to add a new conditional placeholder. To do so, go to Placeholder > Conditional Placeholders > Manage.

In the Conditional placeholders manager, add a new conditional placeholder, name it Pronouns and add placeholder rules, as shown below. Leave the default placeholder value empty. With the current setup, if a user is a member of one of the groups – they will have their gender pronouns added to their signature. If someone is not a member of any of those groups, they will receive a default (blank) placeholder. After having set up placeholders, click Save to close the manager.

Finally, in the editor’s main window put the cursor where you want the new placeholder to be and add it by clicking Conditional placeholder > Pronouns.

Note: if pronouns are added in a separate line or have a signaling phrase before them (like Pronouns:), you can add a Remove if Empty tag. This way, if the attribute value is empty, the additional line and the signaling phrase will not be added: Learn more about using Remove Text tags

Now save the template, close the editor and apply changes to the signature-adding service.

Learn more about using Conditional placeholders

Using Custom Attributes

In this example, you will add custom attributes to user’s mailboxes and use them in an email signature rule afterwards.

As a reminder, you need to have the CSV file created in one of the steps above. The CSV file is filled with data about users and the pronouns they wish to have in their email signatures.

Like in the previous method, first you need to start a remote connection with Exchange Online (see instructions on how to do this). Next, import values from the CSV file and upload them to the users’ custom attributes. In the example, the CSV file is located in C:\pronouns.csv and the custom attribute used is CustomAttribute7:

$pronouns = (import-csv C:\pronouns.csv);
foreach ($user in $pronouns) {Set-Mailbox $user.user -CustomAttribute7 $user.pronouns}

Now, I head to app.codetwo.com (or click the Signatures tab in CodeTwo Admin Panel) and edit the email signature rule to which you want to add pronouns. To do so, go to the Design step and click Edit signature.

In the signature template editor, put the cursor where you want the new placeholder to be located in your company signature. Then, use the placeholder menu to add the custom attribute you’ve just modified in PowerShell (in this example it’s CustomAttribute7) as shown in the image below.

Note: if pronouns are added in a separate line or have a signaling phrase before them (like Pronouns:), you can add {RT} tags. This way, if the attribute value is empty, the additional line and the signaling phrase will not be added: Learn more about using Remove Text tags

After you’re finished with the setup, save changes, close the Signature template editor and Apply the changes to CodeTwo’s signature service.

Learn more about using custom attributes

The result

Regardless of which method you choose, all your users should have their pronouns automatically added to their email signatures. Like this:

Thanks to CodeTwo Email Signatures 365, every user in your organization can have a personalized email signature containing their preferred gender pronouns. The signatures are managed centrally without user involvement, making sure that no employee is excluded and that the signatures will work on every device and in every email client.

How to set up gender pronouns in Exchange Server

If your company uses Exchange Server, there are two easy ways to add gender pronouns to each email signature. The only requirement is to manage email signatures centrally with CodeTwo Email Signatures On-prem. Thanks to this program, you can set up and update email signatures for each and every user. These signatures are added on the server level, so it doesn’t matter what devices and email clients are used in the organization – the right and up to date signature will be there every time.

Preparation (gathering data)

Before you start, you need to gather information from employees about which pronouns they want to have included in their signatures. In this example, data is gathered using a survey to all employees with the following options to choose from:

• (he/him/his)
• (she/her/hers)
• (they/them/their)
• I’d rather not have any pronouns included

You can gather all the replies in a CSV file with two columns: User (represented by the user’s UPN) and Pronouns with possible values: (he/him/his), (she/her/hers), (they/them/their), blank. Here’s how a sample CSV file looks like, viewed in Microsoft Excel:

You can download the sample CSV file here. But there is a much better way than relying on the sample file. I’ll show you how to create a pre-filled CSV file using PowerShell.

Before you begin, you need to connect to Exchange (Online) or run Exchange Management Shell. When the console is running and connected, you can use the following script:

get-mailbox | select @{n="User";e={$_.UserPrincipalName}},@{n="Pronouns";e={""}} | export-csv c:\pronouns.csv -NoTypeInformation

This script creates a CSV file with two columns:

• The User column prefilled with UserPrincipalName of all mailboxes in your organization.
• The Pronouns column without any values.

You can use a different location for the output file (c:\pronouns.csv in this example), filter mailboxes to include only user mailboxes (add the “-RecipientTypeDetails UserMailbox” attribute to the Get-Mailbox cmdlet) and so on.

After the file is created, all you need to do is open the generated file, specify values in the Pronouns column for each user and save the file. After that, I’m ready for the next steps.

Creating dedicated distribution groups and conditional placeholders

In this method, you’ll create 3 distribution groups, based on the CSV file you’ve created earlier. Run the following code:

$pronouns = (import-csv C:\pronouns.csv)

After the contents of the table have been imported, create 3 distribution groups:

New-DistributionGroup -Name "Pronoun-He" -Members ($pronouns | where -property pronouns -like "*him*").user;
New-DistributionGroup -Name "Pronoun-She" -Members ($pronouns | where -property pronouns -like "*her*").user;
New-DistributionGroup -Name "Pronoun-They" -Members ($pronouns | where -property pronouns -like "*they*").user;

Now you can check if the DGs have been correctly populated using the Get-DistributionGroupMember cmdlet:

Get-DistributionGroupMember "Pronoun-He"

If everything seems fine, you can launch the CodeTwo Email Signatures On-prem Administration Panel, choose the signature rule you want to modify and go to Actions > Insert signature > Edit:

In the signature template editor, go to Placeholder > Conditional placeholders > Manage:

Now, you need to add a new placeholder using the plus button. After providing the name for the new placeholder, click OK and create a new placeholder rule using the plus button on the right:

In the Placeholder rule conditions builder window, choose the condition Sender is a member of group and select one of the distribution groups you’ve created earlier. Next, click OK to select the group and OK again to create the first placeholder rule. You’ll need 3 separate rules, each with one of the Pronouns groups. When three conditions are specified, specify placeholder values for each group and leave default as blank (for those who have chosen not to specify their pronouns preferences). Click Save to create the pronouns conditional placeholder. Here’s how the conditional placeholders manager looks after the setup is finished:

Now, move the cursor to the location where you want pronouns to appear in the signature and go to Placeholder > Conditional placeholders > Pronouns:

Note: if pronouns are added in a separate line or have a signaling phrase before them (like Pronouns:), you can add a Remove Text tag. This way, if the attribute value is empty, the additional line and the signaling phrase will not be added: Learn more about using Remove Text tags

If you ever need to update the pronoun values for any user, remove them from one distribution group and add to another.

Using Extension Attributes

Another way to add pronouns to each email signature in the company is using Exchange Extension Attributes (or custom attributes). The easiest way to set them up is to use PowerShell via the Exchange Management Shell:

$pronouns = (import-csv C:\pronouns.csv);
foreach ($user in $pronouns) {Set-Mailbox $user.user -ExtensionCustomAttribute5 $user.pronouns};

You can verify if pronouns have been correctly added by using the following cmdlet:

get-mailbox | select UserPrincipalName,ExtensionCustomAttribute5

Now, run the CodeTwo Email Signatures On-prem Administration Panel and edit the email signature template in the rule of your choice:

Now place the cursor wherever you want the pronouns to show up and click Placeholder > Message Sender > Exchange Attributes > ExchAttr5 (or any other extension attribute you’ve updated earlier):

Note: if pronouns are added in a separate line or have a signaling phrase before them (like Pronouns:), you can add a Remove Text tag. This way, if the attribute value is empty, the additional line and the signaling phrase will not be added. Learn more about using Remove Text tags

After you’re done, apply the changes in the signature template editor by clicking Apply & Close. Then, back in the Administration Panel, click Submit changes to go live with the updated signature.

The result

No matter which method was used to add gender pronouns, they will be added to the specified users’ email signatures. Here’s an example of how it can look:

CodeTwo Email Signatures On-prem can be used by organizations to centrally manage their email signatures and disclaimers, as well as control mail flow in Exchange Server. It lets companies of all sizes ensure unified brand identity and email compliance, while allowing IT to save a lot of time and resources.

Start your 14-day free trial

Read also

• How to measure customer satisfaction with email signatures
• Direct Teams link in an email signature