Maybe leave a spot in the application for "if you would like to share your pronouns, do so here" then it's more of a "hey if you think it's something that we might get wrong, let us know in advance" and people who get offended can just ignore it and move on. I'm wondering if you asking "what are your pronouns" made them think "I'm obviously a (man/woman) are you saying I look like I might be the other gender?"

Pronouns are goofy as hell. Just can’t wrap my head around this nonsense.

Just ask what the person’s pronouns are, they aren’t a preference. A preference is I like hot sauce on my Mac and cheese but it’s fine if you don’t have any available. Their pronouns aren’t an optional thing for you to choose to respect.

Sounds like an excellent way to weed out bigots and homophobes. I hope that person was not offered the position.

Introduce yourself to them with yours. “hi, I’m Maggie, she/her.” If they want to state their’s it gives them a perfect “in” to do it.

Stop asking

Just call everyone “ya’ll”. Problem solved ;)

If your workplace is normalizing asking preferred pronouns and someone during an interview throws a fit about it, that’s not the type of person you want in your workplace anyways. They’re just outing themselves as intolerant and ignorant, not qualities you want in a workforce.

I did this with the most masc appearing and acting young teenage girl when I was a (usually very good) youth leader. She hated it and said “female!” Ugh I am not quite sure the right way to be because I don’t want to make someone like her upset by my question but also don’t want to misgender someone who so blatantly is complex in the way they express their gender. I guess I could have used the context clues that she’s from a small town in a southern state but that feels like stereotyping…