Halifax Bank in the UK decided to do some virtue signaling, unveiling ads celebrating their pronouns. When customers objected, the bank tweeted “If you don’t like it, close your account.”
Customers: “Your terms are acceptable.”
Halifax’s pronouns badge PR disaster has sparked an exodus of customers and their savings today as its bosses were branded ‘old fashioned bullies’.
Britons are closing their accounts en masse after the bank’s social media team told them to leave if they don’t like their new badges to help avoid ‘accidental misgendering’ of staff.
One account holder told MailOnline that he and his family has already pulled out investments and savings worth £450,000 while many more said they are closing ISAs after they accused the bank of ‘alienating’ them with ‘pathetic virtue signalling’.
Another reader cancelled his Halifax credit cards online today and told customer services: ‘Pronouns matter when used properly, I will not be told by a bank what I can and can’t’. Other critic said: ‘I care because they paid someone to come up with this rubbish but they keep closing branches’.
Branding expert Martin Townsend said Halifax’s policy is a ‘Ratner moment’ and an ‘astonishing’ mistake that will be considered one of the biggest PR blunders in recent history.
He told LBC: ‘It’s a Ratner moment I would say.
For those unfamiliar with the saying, Gerald Ratner was a jewelry store chain owner who joked that his products were crap. “Within a few days of the speech, Ratners Group shares dropped by £500 million (US$1.8B today); by the end of 1991, its stock was down 80%.”
It’s astonishing that they do something to make themselves look right on and virtue signalling – and they end up looking like the most old fashioned bullies, telling them: “If you don’t like it you’re welcome to leave”. It’s extraordinary. Who treats their customers like that? I’ve never heard of a company inviting their customers to go. How is that inclusive?’.
Natwest, Nationwide and HSBC all have optional pronoun policies for badges. HSBC entered the debate and shared the Halifax post, tweeting its 101,000 followers: ‘We stand with and support any bank or organisation that joins us in taking this positive step forward for equality and inclusion. It’s vital that everyone can be themselves in the workplace’.
The row began this week when Halifax, which was propped up by the taxpayer to the tune of £30billion as part of a 2008 bailout, tweeted its 118,000 followers on Tuesday revealing that it would allow staff to display their pronouns on their name badges, in a post that read ‘pronouns matter’.
It showed a photo of a female staff member’s name badge, which featured ‘she/her/hers’ in brackets under the name Gemma.
One customer replied: ‘There’s no ambiguity about the name “Gemma”. It’s a female person’s name. In other words, it’s pathetic virtue signalling and is seen as such by almost everyone who has responded to the initial tweet. Why are you trying to alienate people?’ Within 20 minutes a member of the Halifax social media team, calling himself Andy M, replied: ‘If you disagree with our values, you’re welcome to close your account’.
Andy M’s response has outraged customers, and seen hundreds claiming they will boycott the bank with many saying they have closed their accounts. Others have cut up their credit cards or getting rid of insurance policies and said the threat was the final straw after it cut 27 branches alone in 2022.
One told MailOnline: ‘My entire family have now transferred their accounts to Nationwide, cards etc. Loss to Halifax is in excess of 450K in investment accounts and savings’.
Sky News covers the story:
Get woke, go broke.
Tags: banking, Halifax Bank, Social Justice Warriors, UK, video
I recently registering for a local meeting about something which should have been apolitical. I was politely requested for my pronouns, and replied “Take a look at me and fill them in.” She explained that she couldn’t guess. I explained that this was my personal Turing Test, and if the organization was unable to make this decision by inspection, they did not need my time or treasure. After a brief silence, I wished her a good day, and left. Checkbook still in pocket.
While planning a recent trip to New Orleans, I was making restaurant reservations for my group. Visiting one businesses’ website I saw a notice given on their reservations page: “xxxxx would like you to know that if you are uncertain whether or not you support Black Lives Matter, or if you are unsure of the need to undermine the patriarchy, this is not the restaurant for you”.
Obviously that was indeed not the restaurant for me and my friends, and I’m delighted they were so upfront about not wanting me and my kind to give them our business. Going elsewhere is a win-win for us all. Best of luck to them in the depressed tourist traffic of the covid era…
I’m thinking that a need for outlandish personal pronouns ought to have its own listing in the DSM as one explicit symptom of . . . some sort of unbalance.
My pronouns are I/me/mine. The pronouns you use to refer to me are a matter of complete indifference.
Next time you’re asked for you pronouns, tell them Deez/Nuts.
Ridicule this bullshit every chance you get.
Confession through projection. Malignant narcissists obsessed with what other say about them, combined with an overwhelming desire to control the actions of others.
A pox upon them.
I wonder if anyone got fired? Any marketing consultants get dismissed? I really do wonder. I often think of Steve Jobs at times like this.
Lefturds pronouns are me; me; me. My pronouns are Master; Lord; Holiest; Lord; Majesty.
Take your pronouns and pivot.
Like many others, I refuse to discuss my personal pronouns. I do, however, have personal adjectives, and those who demand that I use their pronouns are then required to use my adjectives.
My adjectives are: “handsome”, “brilliant”, and “humble”.
So if you insist I call you Xim, you must call me “handsome Steve”. Or brilliant; I’m really ecumenical in how people distribute my three adjectives.
A bank’s job is to securely store its customers’ money for convenience. If a bank is not merely incompetent, but arrogantly and defiantly incompetent at basic public relations, why in the world would I trust them with my funds?
-jcr
My pronouns are:
Milord / Master / Your Imperial Majesty
Go ahead, tell me I can’t use them….
I’m actually glad when people do this; their self-identification as mentally ill makes it easier for me to avoid them.
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Mine, personally are STOP, STOP, STOP. Always capitalized. :)
“Within 20 minutes a member of the Halifax social media team, calling himself Andy M, replied: ‘If you disagree with our values, you’re welcome to close your account’.”
I’m guessing Andy M is out of job by now.
Judging by today’s update to the situation, I surmise that he’s actually been promoted to CEO.
Gotta wonder how long it’s going to take for it to sink in with the “woke” crowd and their fellow-travelers: The reason they’ve been ostracized and “put into the closet” has less to do with the normies being bigoted assholes, and a lot more to do with their essential inability to function as decent normal human beings.
The transgressive types are always f*cked in the head, to use the terminology I learned from my drill sergeant. And, the common denominator there is their essential nature of being f*cked in the head, not that they’re “differently preferenced” as far as their sexual partners go. It’s been my observation that there are usually two varieties of the “differently preferenced”, in that there are those who are genuinely into the other sex, and then there are those who are just into pissing everyone else off with their “transgression”. The way you can tell the difference is that once you start treating the first sort like anyone else, they go home and just do their own thing. The other sort are actively pissed-off that you’ve taken away the frisson of their specialness and transgressive differences, so they go to ever-lengthening stretches in order to regain that quality of “pissing people off”. For them, it’s not at all about “loving another man”, and more about making other people uncomfortable and disturbed. You want to really piss this sort of person off, just be accepting and tolerant; they can’t stand that, and will keep on escalating until they do manage to find something you won’t tolerate, whereupon they’ll be happy and justified in calling you a bigot. That’s why they’re moving on from gay marriage and into pedophilia… They don’t want acceptance; they want the frisson of being hated and persecuted, and will not rest until they achieve that. They need victimization the way an alcoholic needs alcohol…
My pronoun is Sir. Works in both second and third person. If that won’t satisfy the woke crowd, I’ll opt for “my superior”.
So I work for the Department of Defense, got told I needed to put my pronouns in my email
I never got called your Majesty or The Bullgod but I did get told I was exempt from the policy. However, they’re still on my signature block because after all. Not special, just making them regret their decisions.