Dear Anne,  

When you take action with us online, we want to ensure that your message makes it to your senators or representative. Because of that, we must use the same gendered title options the majority of Congress requires; Mr., Mrs., Ms., or Miss.

This a problem. Why? There are many people who do not identify with a gender at all, including many supporters of the Sierra Club. Their identities are not recognized in these limited title choices. And Congress refuses to do the logical thing: get rid of titles altogether.

As a result, the message this sends to the many gender non-conforming Sierra Club supporters is that their voice isn't recognized, and that it isn't respected. If someone has ever excluded you from a conversation, then you know what this feels like.

Our mission statement¹ asks us to "protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment." Are we fulfilling that mission if we aren’t being inclusive of all of humanity? 

We began doing environmental justice work because we recognized the inequalities and the disproportionate harm that frontline communities face, whether from coal-induced air pollution or a lack of clean water. When we excluded these communities from our environmental work, we were questioning the ability of these communities to decide best how to protect and restore the quality of their own environment. By excluding gender non-binary environmentalists from title options, we exclude people from the movement to protect the environment. 

The goal of our campaign is to get EVERY member of Congress to offer the gender-neutral "Mx" title option. Everyone should feel recognized when writing their members of Congress, just as everyone should feel welcome in the environmental movement. 

TAKE ACTION: ask your members of Congress to add the "Mx" title option to their contact webforms

Thank you,

Ryan
AddUp Community Manager

Resources: 1) Sierra Club Policies. Retrieved from https://www.sierraclub.org/policy