Saying Goodbye To 'Mr.' And 'Ms.' And Hello To 'They'

Despite the damaging public obsession with Bruce Jenner’s sexuality, there have been recent strides for those who don’t identify with the traditional male and female genders. (Illustration: Getty Images)

Words matter. And raising awareness about how much help — and harm — a given pronoun can yield is a most critical issue for transgender individuals.

The University of Vermont Now Allows Students To Choose Their Preferred Pronouns

Tuesday’s New York Times profiled a University of Vermont student named Rocko, and the measures that the university, a pioneer in its practices regarding LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) policies, has taken to ensure that students like Rocko can live their day-to-day lives just like any other students — students who take it as a given that they will be called by their professors, peers, and other school employees by the pronoun that correctly reflects how they self-identify their respective gender.

And for students like Rocko, that gender is neither male nor female, but rather, to use Rocko’s preferred language, “they.”

Rocko is but one of many who identify outside of the traditional male-female gender binary, instead finding their identity within a third, neutral gender. And the University of Vermont has taken great pains to ensure that Rocko and others who identify as genderqueer, trans, or, simply, “they,” are free from the pain that being called the wrong pronoun can cause.

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The school allows its students to select their own identity — a new first name, regardless of whether they’ve legally changed it, as well as a chosen pronoun — and records these details in the campus-wide information system so that professors have the correct terminology at their fingertips. These measures did not come without any effort however, but rather are the result of “a decade of lobbying, the creation of a task force of students, faculty members and administrators, and six months and $80,000 in staff time to create a software patch.”

The City University of New York Bans “Mr.” and “Ms.” 

Likewise, the Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY) announced late last week a new policy that bans the use of gendered salutations such as “Mr.” and “Ms.” by faculty, staff and administrators when addressing students. CUNY “has cited Title IX, the federal law banning gender discrimination in government-funded education systems, as an explanation for its new speech code policy.”

Such Measures Are Far From Frivolous.

They are essential to ensuring the health and well-being of all students, regardless of their gender identification. A study published in late January in the journal Psychological Science showed that transgender children have as strong a sense of gender identity as those children who self-identify their gender as male or female in accordance to their sex (that is, their biological, physical sexual organs). The study is especially significant because it shows that transgender children are not “confused” about their gender identity, but rather are just as psychologically secure in their sense of who they are as their cisgender peers.

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Utilizing a standardized test called the Implicit Association Test, which measures speed of response, the children in the study were asked to identify as “me” or “not me” in relation to gender-based descriptions. Transgender girls — that is, those children who were born with male sex organs but identify as female — had the same patterns of response as cisgender girls and transgender boys had the same patterns of response as cisgender boys.

“Our results support the notion that transgender children are not confused, delayed, showing gender-atypical responding, pretending, or oppositional — they instead show responses entirely typical and expected for children with their gender identity,” the researchers wrote. The data reported in this paper should serve as further evidence that transgender children do indeed exist and that this identity is a deeply held one.”

The Public Obsession With Bruce Jenner’s Gender Identity

The new measured being taken by universities such as CUNY and University of Vermont seem especially relevant in light of the troublesome media speculation in regards to Bruce Jenner and his own gender identity. The former Olympian and reality TV patriarch has not yet made any public statement in regards to his own gender identity, and the media obsession with of Jenner’s gender identification blocks Jenner from the basic privilege of being able to self-report his own gender identity.

The gossip — rarely objective, often mocking — reached a fever-pitch last week when Jill Soloway, creator of the Amazon series Transparent — which just won Best TV Series Musical Or Comedy at the Golden Globes — posted an Internet meme which re-configured the show’s logo with the Kardashian family’s images, re-imagining the show’s title as “Transdashian,” in reference to the rumors that Jenner is said to be transitioning to female in private.

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Instantly, Soloway’s social media post garnered criticism; by the next morning, Soloway issued an apology on her Facebook page, saying, “Bruce Jenner has not said he is transitioning; his identity is his to share and no one else’s to determine. The well-being of the trans community is of utmost importance to me. As a cis woman I will never know what it is like to be trans. I acknowledge the hurt and pain of the trans community and welcome their feedback. I made a mistake; it was horrible judgment. My complacency is checked and it won’t happen again. Please accept my apology.”

The public’s treatment of Jenner, however, is far from exceptional.

While promoting her book Redefining Realness last year, trans activist and writer Janet Mock said in an interview with Slate, “For so long, the media has been telling our stories through the filters of journalists, some well-meaning and others super-disrespectful, and I think it’s empowering to have stories [from transgender individuals directly] that are unfiltered, coming directly from the source.”

And the same sentiment speaks to the students whose own identities are so often callously disregarded by the world at large, which is why the actions being taken by the University of Vermont and CUNY are in fact so important.

As Dominique Nisperos, co-chair of CUNY’s Doctoral Students Council, says “Allowing students to use their preferred name and eliminating the use of pronouns and official correspondence is a necessary step toward protecting the rights, privacy, and safety of students.”

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