Sorry, Miss Gender, I didn’t see your pronoun badge
by Ann Farmer, The Conservative Woman:
Student union officials at Edinburgh University plan to hand out pronoun badges to freshers so they know whether to refer to each other as ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘they’.
This is intended to avoid any potential misgendering of non-binary or transgender students who may display the physical attributes of one gender while associating more closely with another, or none at all.
Kai O’Doherty, vice-president for welfare at Edinburgh Students’ Association, said pronoun badges would be available through ‘Welcome Week’ which precedes the start of term.
The students’ union has also published a guide to correct pronouning which explains why it is important to ‘normalise’ the practice of making gender pronouns public. It says: ‘Many people assume that the pronouns they should use for an individual are obvious: people who look like men should be referred to using he/him, and people who look like women should be referred to as she/her.’ But these assumptions can be ‘frustrating and harmful’ for transgender or non-binary students, who may prefer to use gender-neutral pronouns. The guide warns: ‘If we choose to make assumptions about which pronouns are correct, we risk misgendering people and/or singling out trans people who want to clarify their pronouns.’
Resistance is useless, as the guide adds that students saying they don’t care which pronoun is used is offensive, as it ‘suggests that trans folks are silly for requesting that their pronouns be respected’. It adds: ‘Asking people about their “preferred” pronoun should also be avoided, as it can imply that pronouns are a mere preference rather than a necessity.’ Apparently individuals cannot be expected to dress in the manner of their chosen ‘gender’ to aid strangers in the task of identifying the correct pronoun – although, with so many to choose from, their ‘gender choice’ may be too obscure to be easily recognised.
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