Making Classrooms Welcoming for Trans Students

[cruciferous]

I wrote up this sheet of tips for professors at my school to use and several other people have asked me for it. It is geared toward law school culture, but may be useful for others as well. I thought I'd post it here in case others can make use of it

Comments

this is great! thank you! and

[anonymous]

I realize this applies way less to law school...but in so many other classes, it might be relevant: In class activities, don't separate into groups by gender (e.g. - all the women will be be on debate team A, and all the men on team B).

also, in language classes (especially when it is a more gendered language than English, such as Spanish, Arabic, etc.), the same guidelines you outlined regarding pronouns need to apply to any statements that would indicate a students' gender. For example, being addressed with the wrong gender of verb or adjective is just as humiliating as being addressed with the wrong pronoun.

[sable_twilight]

When facilitating a group discussion, ask people to identify their pronouns when they go around and do introductions. This will allow everyone in the room the chance to self-identify and to get each others’ pronouns right the first time. It will also reduce the burden on anyone whose pronoun is often misidentified and may help them access the discussion more easily because they do not have to fear an embarrassing mistake.

Can we reaffirm that facilitators in pronoun-go-rounds should be ready to address cis privilege? I have experienced cases were cis participants throw off flippant answers about how evident their pronouns are (i.e. "female/feminine/male/masculine, of course" or similar sorts of comments).

[cruciferous]

Hi Sable!
Yes, non-trans people can have really problematic responses to these go-rounds when they aren't use to them or don't understand the point. Frequently I find people who are not trans will make a joke of it or will say they don't care which pronoun is used for them in a way that implies "look how cool and flexible I am" without understanding the privilege that can make that a very different statement for them than for a trans person whose gender identity is regularly ignored, mistaken or punished (kind of like when non-trans people in trainings I do report that they have used the "wrong" bathroom on occasion because a bathroom had a long line and it was fine for them, not realizing that a person who is trans appearing or gender non-conforming appearing gets a very different response when entering bathrooms than a non-trans appearing person entering a "wrong" bathroom because of a particular circumstance). Thanks for pointing this out!

This is a GREAT resource

[anonymous]

I wanted to check and see if I can distribute your "making classroom safe" posting on my website iamsocialjustice.com.

I have a lot of downloads there for my viewers and I also have a monthly newsletter where I could highlight your resource.

If you are willing to allow me to share it, can you email me at jess@iasocialjustice.com with how you would like me to cite your original posting as well as some of the comments it got concerning additional ways of being inclusive.

Thank you very much for your work.

Jessica Pettitt

[anonymous]

thank you SO MUCH for this resource. i would like to second how damaging and harmful it is when teachers do "gender groups" in games without thinking about how this will feel for students who do not easily "fit" in either group, or who cannot join the group they do identify with because of the lack of trans awareness in the classroom.

[tutms]

With respect to pronouns, you advocate asking everyone, and I feel like I should add that if you do ask everyone, you need to make that clear. Asking someone who "looks transsexual," but who presents hirself in a binary way, in the context of not asking other people, often feels more disrespectful than making an assumption based on that presentation. And when someone asks the-one-person-in-the-group-they-think-is-trans, it can out that person to everyone else in the group, and is exceedingly othering. So while I support asking everyone/doing pronoun checkins, it needs to be done in a way that doesn't just reify cis privilege/cis-as-real-and-normal all over again