Gender diversity help?

[liv]

So my brother (here known as Screwy) is a sessional teacher in a university. He decided, on the advice of a trans friend, that he would include asking for preferred pronouns during the intros in the first class of term. However, one fresher in his class, whom Screwy read as trans but who isn't out, was made visibly uncomfortable by this. This student later wrote in Screwy's teaching evaluation that this exercise could potentially out them, and respectfully requested that Screwy should not do that again.

As a result, Screwy feels really bad because his good intentions of making his class a safe space for people with diverse gender expressions backfired and actually made one of his students directly unsafe. He asked me to mobilize my right-on gender queer friends and seek advice for how he can do this right in future. I definitely share Screwy's aim of wanting my classes to be gender diverse safe spaces, but I have never dared ask for pronouns at the same time as asking for names, even though I can see the arguments for why it's good practice. So we would both like to know, what would be the most sensitive and helpful way to make both genderqueer people and gender normative, stealthed trans people feel safe?

I would prefer advice from people who have some personal experience or at least informed activist background with this stuff, rather than random speculation from cis people. I mean, I can come up with plenty of random speculation on my own. However, I fairly obviously don't want to out people or in any way force you to state your trans credentials to be able to comment. I think the best way round this is to encourage people to comment anonymously if you are willing to help but don't want to put the complexities of your identity in comments to a public post. I certainly welcome PMs if you have some advice that you don't want to put in the comments even anonymously.

And to give people as clueless as I am something to talk about, I also note that my uni LGBTsoc has declared November to be Trans* Awareness Month. They have Transgender Day of Remembrance shoehorned in there somewhere, but mostly it seems like they're showing a lot of films with trans themes, some of which seem to me to be quite, um, problematic, things like Priscilla queen of the desert and TransAmerica and Rocky Horror. They also sent round a survey to students and staff which basically assumed everybody answering the question would be cis, and had a lot of questions about whether people feel informed about trans* issues, the most egregious being Do you feel confident you could politely address a trans* person? which is making me very much side-eye. I can't figure out whether I should attend some of the events to show solidarity, or studiously ignore them because I don't want to pat myself on the back for supporting "diversity" by means of watching a bunch of chasery, cis gaze films. Maybe just go to the TDOR ceremony, but even that I've seen seriously criticized by activists. The vibe of the whole thing really does feel like it's aimed at making cis people feel good about themselves, but at least actively including trans* stuff within LGBT events is a small step in the right direction. And maybe I'm too cynical, maybe it will help actual trans* students as well?

Any ideas?

Comments

[liv]

Thank you, current is a really really good point. And doesn't make things more fraught than asking about pronouns at all does, but is more helpful. For me I think if I ever did do this, the point would be precisely to normalize asking, more than to actually gather information. The other thing I've sometimes seen suggested is that cis people should introduce themselves with pronouns: I'm Dr Liv and my pronouns are she, her, so that rather than directly asking, you're making it clear that's an acceptable part of introductions.

Part of the problem here is that my students are not taught to ask for or offer pronouns when meeting patients for the first time. And if I start doing it, well, I'm more or less directly challenging what the school teaches about how intros are supposed to work.

I think ensuring the students it's ok to correct me on pronouns just as it's ok to correct my pronunciation may help a bit. At least by introducing the idea that I am aware that misgendering is a thing and I care about avoiding it, even if nobody actually wants to email me. It's not enough because it still puts the burden on gender minority students to do the horribly fraught and embarrassing thing of correcting a teacher, but it may help a bit.

[jjhunter]

Mm-hm. And the bit about correcting pronunciation / name mix-ups - that also gives a bridge analogy to help more people relate to why it's important to avoid accidental misgendering as a matter of basic etiquette without framing it in a way that implies it's an unusual accommodation. It's safe to assume that everyone has experienced someone calling them by the wrong name at least once, and many people have personal or via-friends secondhand experience of what it's like to have one's name mispronounced; if one's students associate the cognitive dissonance of being referred to by a 'wrong name' with the cognitive dissonance of being referred to by a wrongly gendered set of pronouns, then knowing someone's current preferred pronouns will seem more obviously a basic part of treating them with respect even to those with no wisp of a clue re: what it might be like to be trans*.