More colleges are embracing the fact that their students may not identify as male or female. That’s why schools like Harvard and American University aren’t just welcoming individuals who don’t fit into a gender binary, but inviting those students to register their preferred pronouns — ‘ze’, ‘e’, ‘ey’, ‘they’, among others — with the school so that officials can address them appropriately. Some schools, such as MIT and Cornell are also offering students guides to gender pronouns, so that even those who have never come into contact with people who don’t identify as male or female can understand how these pronouns work.
The Associated Press reports that this is just the beginning of gender identity inclusion. Many schools, those which previously only allowed students to officially identify as male or female, are realizing that not changing these policies can lead to hurt, alienation, and a feeling that individuals who are trans, genderqueer, or genderfluid (among others) are not deserving of the same basic respect as those students who identify with a gender identity that matches their sex.
Beyond pronouns, more colleges are updating forms that in the past let students pick between male and female only. Applications to the University of California system include more options starting this year, letting students choose from labels including trans female or genderqueer. The move is meant to welcome those students, but for the first time it also lets the school track data on how transgender students fare on campus, such as their graduation rates.
And:
Last week, the State University of New York, one of the nation’s largest public college systems, announced that it’s working on a data-collection tool to let students choose among seven gender identities, including “trans man,” ”questioning” and “genderqueer.”
Of course, The AP notes that there’s been some backlash against students using their preferred pronouns, and some “grammarians” are even upset by how far “the English language has been stretched.” But even if the pronouns do present some grammar challenges, the benefit of students being able to openly express their gender identity far outweighs any potential problems.
According to The AP, no school has yet made it mandatory that instructors, officials, or other students use the preferred pronouns that students identify with—hopefully, though, any decent person will do their best to respect others’ gender identity—but Harvard is working on facilitating trainings that will allow faculty to “look up a student’s preferred pronoun,” understand its meaning and make it easier for them to address the student by how they’d like to be called. And that’s some excellent progress.
(Via The AP)
