Teachers & academics - seeking advice about squaring GC conscience with NB/trans students

[FarEast]

New academic term & new list of students, several of whom are obviously women, but are claiming a male title (Mr) and first name.

So what are strategies for dealing? I'd like to stay open & polite, but I do not like or want to participate in the gaslighting of using "he" for people who are so obviously female.

I have a young transman in my extended family & tend to use "they" (or "she" - when you've changed a child's nappies you tend to know their sex), but that's family & things are different.

Are there ways round sucking up the "fiction" (as Prof. Stock calls is) without feeling I'm gaslighting myself?

How have the rest of you dealt with this (I am probably overthinking)

Also to add: certain amount of covering my back as I'm a clear academic feminist, teach (2nd wave) straightforward feminist stuff, and start one module I teach with an explanation that we'll be using the terms "sex" and "gender roles/stereotypes" in quite specific ways, for good scholarly reasons which I go on to ennumerate.

Avoid pronouns and use names? It's cognitively much harder but I also wouldn't want to use wrong sex pronouns.

Yes, I think that'll have to be a tactic. It's the load of the cognitive dissonance I find to be the issue. For some reason, I don't find using first names so problematic.

It's a tricky one. Look what happened to Professor Stock - hounded out of her university and relocated abroad.

I agree, maybe avoid pronouns and titles as much as possible and use first names.

I don't have a problem using a male first name for an obvious female, but I find it harder to refer to this person as 'he'.

Use their names as on the lists, hopefully not too hard to avoid saying “he” or “she”. You could blanket “they” everyone if it makes it easier?

These students are your prime audience. They really really need to understand that feminism is for them, they don’t have to pretend to be male.

I agree that mostly ignoring it all (who cares what title they’ve picked) and just, when referring to the person - directly or indirectly - use the name you’ve been given.

It doesn’t have to be a matter of conscience or belief. It’s more like using Jamie (the name you’ve been given) regardless of his birth certificate saying James. Or Jimbo if that’s they name he’s given you. Regardless of what you think of that choice.

You’ve just got a group of students this year whose name choices are driven by this particular trend.

I once taught a class with quite a lot of Chinese students in it. The Chinese students usually gave me a ’british’ name they chosen themselves rather than their actual name. (I certainly didn’t make them or expect them to). One year all but one of the Chinese women had decided to pick the name Maggie. No idea what had made about 9 young women decide they wanted to be known as Maggie that particular year. But I went with it - even though it was a complete pain in the arse dealing with a room full of people who all wanted to be called the same thing.

I don't mind using masculine names and pronouns for obvious women (and vice versa) so much although I think it's ridiculous, just as long as they stay out of my toilet/hockey team/swimming competition/changing rooms/.....

From my experience, most of the theys go back to shes in Year 12/13. The theys that stuck at this stage were the neurodiverse ones or ones that had messed up home lives and were fearful of relationships.

Obviously just from my experience. Since this may be a new cohort, and if it’s university they will be quite stressed leaving home, I would try particularly hard to avoid pronouns altogether and just go by names. However, as others have said you are in the ideal situation to broaden their outlook on what a woman is and why women have had a history of joining together to fight for rights.

Yes, show them the outrage women feel! 💪

Out of curiosity, any guys in a class on feminism?

Be very careful. Some, though by no means all, transmasculine people seem to take particular pleasure in putting recalcitrant women in their place. If you have several of them in your teaching group, you could soon be dealing with an unhealthy group dynamic.

I’d be respectful and polite, use chosen names but avoid any pronouns. It’s perfectly possible and people have written entire articles about someone without referring to them by a pronoun.

I’d also stand my ground on academic matters regarding sex and gender. Your students may not like it but ultimately, you are in charge of your teaching and all students will have to respect that. If you just treat them like any other student, and focus on the serious academic stuff, perhaps they’ll remember that they’re at university to learn.

This made me laugh so much. It would also be my dream as I was hopeless at remembering names.

I’d be respectful and polite, use chosen names but avoid any pronouns.

Yes. I try this but inevitably forget.

Be careful OP. They will sniff you out ...

To be honest, I'd be more challenged squaring my conscience with doing anything I felt was supporting or enabling a child I was responsible for and cared about in being used by a political agenda which mostly just cares about the freedoms of male adults, and which may lead that child into long term very serious harm, distress and damage to their life prospects. That would be a massive, massive concern to me.

But yes, I get that the immediate mess of pronouns etc is difficult to manage.

Its a good aim to avoid pronouns but very difficult in practise. I've found listening to the peers of trans I'd students they tend to revert back to she all the time without noticing as well. Once we've acquired language, pronouns become unconscious and if we're concentrating on something else we'll inevitably mistake. Luckily all the trans I'd students I've taught so far have been pretty relaxed about this and I haven't been challenged. (I don't teach a particularly 'woke'demographic) It's a point of principle for me that, although I'm happy to use a preferred name whatever sex it's stereotypically used for, I won't use wrong sex pronouns and offer any support to the notion that a lesbian teen with short hair isn't a girl.

Hasn't the EHRC just issued guidance that says you shouldn't have to be complicit in gender identity at schools?

On the other hand, this could be a tricky one.

You could say something like in the spirit of fairness I am going to use they as pronouns, to include both people who believe in gender identity and those who don't. It is, after all, the most inclusive thing to do.

I might wait a bit, though, and see how the land lies. Get a feel for the dynamics.

Several years ago I taught a mature student who shunned pronouns altogether and insisted on being called (and referred to) by their chosen name. It’s really hard!

Thanks everybody - and for the solidarity!

Glad I'm not the only one who finds the cognitive dissonance tiring. Most of them I won't need to deal with directly this year - I'm just lecturing this intake (so no small group teaching) - but in a couple of years' time they may end up in my small group taught module.

The other thing is it just makes me so sad that these young women find being female so difficult that they think calling themselves male will change things. They are so tricked by the TRAs and gender-affirming "care" (I don't think it's particularly caring to trick vulnerable young people).

This is when I wish I were a raging butch dyke - to show them there are many ways of being a woman.

Well, if you can pull off a slightly GNC style, perhaps you can send them a subtle signal. They’re not that special.

It should be possible for you to avoid the issue altogether in terms of direct contact with students (although per your OP, not necessarily in relation to your subject matter). If you speak to a student, you'll just be using second person. If you're replying to an email, you can just go 'Dear X', where X is their name in the email system (which they'll be able to set for themselves as a preferred name) or their sign-off. Even if it's a name that reads female to you, just think of it as a pseudonym. I don't think pronouns will come into it.

As you say you're only lecturing this semester, almost certainly you won't need to use their names in-person at all.

I'm GC but not very bothered about the pronouns issue. If someone wants to be called 'she', I'll try to use that pronoun. though I may often forget / get it wrong.

But I think it is polite to address people as they choose, in the same way that we should use the nickname someone prefers and not assign one to them.

there are plenty of points to make a stand on (e.g. single sex changing rooms) but pronouns isn't one of them.

I disagree. Academics are supposed to be able to search for the truth with integrity. How does this sit with being forced to pretend that somebody who is clearly female is male?

If Galileo had been ‘polite’, he would have recanted. If Judith Butler had been polite, she wouldn’t have written Gender Trouble, with its deeply offensive passages on ‘hermaphrodites’ and on the women’s movement.

I’m already being polite by avoiding pronouns. That has to be enough.

My full name is obviously female but since midteens I've gone by a shortened version which could be either sex. In hindsight, I think that might have been deliberate, I wanted to be seen as a bit tougher (not quite laddette culture but not far off) and wear baggy clothes instead of tight stuff.

I am midgendered over email all the time and couldnt care less. My family still use my full name and it doesnt bother me (it did for a while as I felt like 2 different people) but now I see it as a 'work and friends' me who is quite tough in a male-dominated industry and 'family' me who is more accommodating and dutiful daughter etc. Women have to play so many roles in life anyway, the names are partly reflective of that. I hope your trans students spend this period exploring their personalities without pressure and agree with PPs, using names and avoiding pronouns probably best for everyone. They will get the message through your teaching.