Salon launches pronoun badges to be more gender inclusive

Not Another Salon has launched pronoun badges to help normalise expressing your pronouns. The company’s initiative will help customers and colleagues know whether to use ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘they’ when talking with employees. It’s the latest move from the London salon, which claims to be the UK's first official gender neutral salon, to make it more gender exclusive. Founder of Not Another Salon, Sophia Hilton, said: “By wearing your badge you are signaling to other people that you respect them. For you, it’s such a small insignificant change, but to those that it is significant for they will be left with the feeling of acknowledgment and acceptance. "In an ideal world everybody would introduce themselves along with their pronoun which would normalise the conversation, but I do believe we’re a far cry from that. "This is a small subtle change that can be implemented with little backlash from those that don’t understand. A badge opens conversations and gets people talking which is how we move these conversations forward.”

Dos and don'ts when it comes to pronouns

If you accidentally misgender someone, the tendency is to over-apologise and ultimately make the situation bigger than it needs to be. Sophia suggests to "softly apologise, take a little breath, correct yourself and continue to talk. Avoid making a big fuss and repeatedly apologising." Remember, it’s perfectly acceptable to ask someone’s pronouns, "but you can also do this in a more subtle way," Sophia advises. "By simply introducing yourself and your own pronouns you create a safe environment and naturally invite the other person to share their pronouns too. "For example: ‘Hey, I’m Sophia, my pronouns are she/ her’. It really is that simple. By acknowledging these things we can make all the difference in salon environments worldwide!" Always ahead of the curve, Not Another Salon first introduced gender neutral pricing back in 2017.