National membership application requires gender and pronouns. Confused.

[TexasTurf]

West U.S., low tier private club with a national option. How would you answer to not get your application tossed out? I don't know what to do. 

[ND2005]

I would just answer truthfully

[ShortGolfer]

I just saw this in an email signature

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Director, Publications and Editorial Department

 

Like it or not, how people are addressed is changing.

I have an older mom who proudly posted a picture of her transgender daughter.

It is hard to say who may be offended these days  by  gender issues.

Edited July 30, 2022 by ShortGolfer

[ChipDriver]

8 hours ago, TexasTurf said:

West U.S., low tier private club with a national option. How would you answer to not get your application tossed out? I don't know what to do. 

This is the modern day version of "Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms" - nothing more.  No biggie.  They're trying to show they are woke - b/c woke is attractive to many.  Otherwise - avoid political or religious commentary and you're golden.  They accept or reject you on your own merits.  🙂 

 

 

[TexasTurf]

10 hours ago, ChipDriver said:

This is the modern day version of "Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms" - nothing more.  No biggie.  They're trying to show they are woke - b/c woke is attractive to many.  Otherwise - avoid political or religious commentary and you're golden.  They accept or reject you on your own merits.  🙂 

 

 

Got it, thanks!

[gato_plomo]

Maybe they'll reject anyone that would actually put their pronouns down

[caniac6]

If correct/incorrect pronouns could get an application tossed, I wouldn’t apply.

[Mitchell]

If saw that line on an application, I would be the one tossing it, not the club. 

[bobfoster]

I wouldn't make a big deal about it. I have seen that question popping up in numerous places. 

 

Truth be told (as strange as this may sound), IMO when an organization puts such a question on an application or form, it is far less about getting information about you than it is about the organization trying to convey something about itself - it is mainly virtue-signaling. 

 

Don't make it an problem. You don't need to strategize or anything. Just say you're a dude that uses he/him (or whatever you are), and let it go. You aren't going to be rejected by anything you answer, unless you try to make some sort of statement or refuse to answer it or something ... i.e., it is (probably) entirely up to you whether you want to make a huge issue out of it, or make it almost irrelevant. 

 

If you like the course and want to join the club, just go with the flow, answer the question, and put it out of your mind. 

[dtx-1983]

I’d like to see what happens if you leave it blank. I’m shocked that a club in west texas is asking someone to do the “current thing.”

[bobfoster]

2 hours ago, dtx-1983 said:

I’d like to see what happens if you leave it blank. I’m shocked that a club in west texas is asking someone to do the “current thing.”

All due respect (especially to a new member) ... the dude just wants to join a club. And it isn't just west Texas - he said that club has a "national option", which quite often means that club has partnered with multiple other clubs in other places, and choosing the national option means you have access to those other clubs. I've actually seen growing numbers of these sort of club "networks". But membership gets slightly more complex. The sensibilities of all the clubs in the network have to be taken into account. So yeah, if you want to join a club in Plano Texas, they probably don't give a flying crap about gender or pronouns, but if membership gives you access to courses in Austin (for instance), clubs there very well might want to ask about that. 

 

Bottom line - if he wants that membership, leaving that line blank would be likely to raise red flags for the membership committee. And (as someone who has been a member of numerous clubs, and served on membership committees for some of them), I'll tell you this about membership committees. About 1/3 of assessment has to do with the positive traits an applicant has. Maybe 2/3s has to do with filtering for possible negative traits. Or, to put it another way, "is this guy likely to cause trouble". Leaving a question like that blank (or even worse, doing something sarcastic), is a really good way of saying "I'm likely to cause trouble!"

 

Taking the time to convey this perspective not so much to you as to the OP (and anyone else thinking about applying to a club for the first time). While it varies widely, I'd say (just from experience) most private golf courses have three or four basic committees - the Management committee (that oversees everything, talks a lot about finances), the Operations committee (they care about how what shape the greens are in and etc.), the Membership committee, and the Rules/HC committee. Quite often there is a lot of overlap in those Venn diagrams. The Membership committee concerns itself a lot with tone. They are trying to cultivate a particular sort of environment. 

 

And if this club is in a network, and some of whose courses care about LGBTQ+ issues, they'll put that question on there not to find out who you are (they could probably care less what gender you identify with, or what pronouns you like), but whether you are going to be a pain in the a** about answering the question. 

 

To go into a bit of further depth (and this is just from the Membership committees I've served on). We wrote membership applications with specific intentions. Almost always to try to filter problems out. The questions were often quite subtle. We tried to exclude (for instance) drunks. Cheaters. Angry club throwers. Overly religious or political or other such fanatics. 

 

Anyone that wants to join a club? Pretty easy. answer any questions you are asked on an application with the intention of putting yourself in the category of "won't cause problems for any Committee". 

 

Love it or hate, but this is reality. 

 

 

[GoldenAges]

They likely are just as afraid as you are about all this, and they just want to be sure they address you properly so they don't upset anyone. It's smart of them to avoid someone being addressed improperly and that person taking it to social media.

[kidrobot]

Confused about what? They're just asking your preference on how you're referred to. If you're someone who goes by their middle name or a nickname exclusively, it'd be weird if other people insisted on using your first name.

[RossDonald]

bro/dude/bruh

[stratgolf]

such a non issue and strange thing to be wound up about. 

[TNwanabe]

On 7/20/2025 at 7:22 PM, stratgolf said:

such a non issue and strange thing to be wound up about. 

Disagree. If it was a non issue no one would care. 

Edited July 23 by TNwanabe

[WesternRacing]

20 hours ago, TNwanabe said:

Disagree. If it was a non issue no one would care. 

 

I think he meant non-issue for most people.  By your argument, nothing in life would ever be a non-issue, because there’s always someone, somewhere who cares about anything.

 

BTW, shocked this thread didn’t get locked immediately.

[TNwanabe]

1 hour ago, WesternRacing said:

 

I think he meant non-issue for most people.  By your argument, nothing in life would ever be a non-issue, because there’s always someone, somewhere who cares about anything.

 

BTW, shocked this thread didn’t get locked immediately.

I disagree again, but whatever. 

Edited July 24 by TNwanabe
Grammar