I see it the same as telling colleagues they are fat etc. It is rude. If you keep it up when they ask you to stop likely you get fired, even if you are right.
Anyway, in my opinion if they make a bigger deal out of it than if when you call people fat then it is just politics. But I still wouldn't do it myself, just like I don't call people fat even if I think they are. If they push me then I will tell the truth, but if they push me to hear my opinion about their pronouns or gender then it is hard to say that it is me bullying them rather than the other way around.
Edit: But I think this was originally about being forced to show your pronouns online. Not sure I'd like that, seems pushy and bullying to me. I'd rather people not have that information, even saying they/them is information that I am not comfortable showing my gender, why would I want to give people that information?
The way I see this, my sexual preferences has nothing to do with software development. I know a bunch of people disagree, sometimes even claim you can't develop software without sexuality but that's actually discriminating against asexual individuals and often against people on the spectrum that are not in able to express their feelings. It's all deeply troubling.
In my language (non-indoeropean ) there is no difference between he and she, that regularly puts me into trouble for somehow "intentionally" mis-gendering others and there's never any lenience expressed towards me for that.
Anyway, in my opinion if they make a bigger deal out of it than if when you call people fat then it is just politics. But I still wouldn't do it myself, just like I don't call people fat even if I think they are. If they push me then I will tell the truth, but if they push me to hear my opinion about their pronouns or gender then it is hard to say that it is me bullying them rather than the other way around.
Edit: But I think this was originally about being forced to show your pronouns online. Not sure I'd like that, seems pushy and bullying to me. I'd rather people not have that information, even saying they/them is information that I am not comfortable showing my gender, why would I want to give people that information?