By HALLE SCHALL ’20
Inclusion Committee
He/Him/His & They/Them/Theirs pronouns
I have spent the last two blocks creating a presentation about the importance of Colorado College’s pronoun practice and have recently presented it to various departments.
The pronoun practice, for the purpose of this article, refers to the act of including pronouns as part of introductions at the start of a new class, be it verbally or on a nametag. As a trans student, I feel strongly about having my pronouns out there. When professors show concern for my pronouns, I feel they recognize my existence and respect it. In those classrooms, I feel much more comfortable knowing my professor and fellow students know how to refer to me.
While I do not presume professors who do not engage in the pronoun practice do so out of any vitriol toward trans students, I maintain that education is a vital part of understanding, you can’t do better if you don’t know better. With my presentations, it has been my intention to contribute to this education. I was not, though I should have been, expecting to provoke dialogue.
Many professors brought to the forefront nuances of the pronoun practice I had failed to consider, specifically the risk of stereotype threat for femmes in male-dominated classrooms and the privileging of one’s gender over the other identities that form their whole. These are important points to consider in improving the pronoun practice. We, as an institution, must remain committed to the well-being of our trans students, but doing so will have limited effect if we don’t place positionality at the forefront of our conversations.