Elon Musk and Texas governor celebrate firing of worker over pronouns in email signature

The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, and, later, Elon Musk showed support on Wednesday for the firing of a state employee who refused to remove his pronouns from his work email signature.

Frank Zamora, 31, was let go from his job as a program manager at the Texas real estate commission (TREC) last month because he refused to comply with a mandate from the organisation to employees to remove gender pronouns from email signatures.

“I actually anticipated this coming, just because we knew that many changes that were being made at the federal level were being mimicked at the state level,” Zamora said.

Abbott celebrated the move on X, sharing a report from the Austin American-Statesman on the firing and writing: “A Texas state employee refused to remove pronouns from email signature. He was fired before noon.”

Musk, who was appointed by Donald Trump to lead the so-called “department of government efficiency” tasked with reducing federal spending, replied to Abbott’s post with two fire emojis.

Soon after Trump signed an executive order on 20 January titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”, which recognized only two sexes – male and female – Abbott issued his own directive for the state on 30 January with similar language.

State agencies like the TREC interpreted Abbott’s directive for themselves and issued rules and guidelines to employees accordingly, which included removing gender pronouns from official work communications, including email signatures.

“Greetings all. It was a beautiful weekend in Austin and I hope you were able to enjoy it … On a very different note, based on a recent directive from Governor Abbott, the agency is modifying its employee email signature block template by removing preferred pronouns,” read an email seen by the Guardian from Zamora’s supervisor at the TREC.

“The new template is attached. Please look at your signature and make sure yours complies. I understand this change may have an impact on employees and I am sensitive to that. The Governor, however, has directed the agency to act and so we will.”

It was the first time Zamora had been asked to comply with an order that went against his personal beliefs, he said.

“While I have long felt that there was a disconnect between my personal beliefs and my personal politics and that of the state which I live in, I always sort of wrote it off as separate entities,” Zamora said.

“Politics can change every two and four years, but a good career can be for life, so I sort of kept those two entities compartmentalized. I kept them separate. But I was firm in my convictions and I made the stand that I felt was right.”

Zamora announced his refusal to comply in a letter penned to his supervisors, which read in part: “I recognize that my employer has the right to dictate the manner in which I address the public. I also recognize that in the grand scheme of things, the layout of an email signature block is a fairly innocuous and inconsequential piece of our daily duties.

“However … it is clear that this latest directive is part of a broader effort to wipe out the acknowledgement of non-binary, intersex and transgender persons throughout Texas as well as sending the societal message that these individuals are not accepted in this state.”

After sending the letter, Zamora said he was “ultimately given the choice between removing the pronouns, resigning or being terminated”.

He chose to keep the pronouns and refused to resign. He was then fired in the first week of February.

When asked about the response from Abbott and Musk, Zamora said: “I don’t really have a response to that. They are doing what they must to appease the groups that have kept them in power. That would be my only comment on the subject.”

Zamora added: “Pronouns are grammar. They’re a function of almost every sentence that we speak. Their origins go back to old English and the Vikings.

“However, we have chosen to make them a politicized topic and a hot-button issue. I felt that this order was strictly passed down to appease a certain political movement, and that it was strictly done, essentially, to win a culture war. And I do not believe that the LGBTQ+ community – trans individuals, non-binary, intersex or any individuals who choose to display their preferred pronouns – deserve to be made political collateral or to be put on the chopping block.”

The TREC did not respond to a request for comment.