Avoid misgendering in class, communicate with students

By Claire Denne,
Newsletter Editor

In an already stressful social environment where students face peer pressure, heavy courseloads and personal troubles, invalidation from teachers only makes school harder for transgender and nonbinary students.

When teachers create an inclusive classroom, students can focus on their work instead of correcting others on pronouns or deadnames. To achieve this, teachers must ask for pronouns at the beginning of the year and continue to make corrections. 

Using the correct name and pronouns is a sign of respect necessary to make our school a more welcoming place. When chosen names and pronouns are not respected, it can increase mental health risks and feelings of isolation. Misgendering transgender and non-binary students stigmatizes them. 

The duty of correcting others should not fall on the non-cis person, but instead, cisgender students and teachers should correct them in the case of misgendering. 

“Sometimes people are kind of stubborn, when it comes to these things like they’re not willing to learn,” junior Kaitlin Tran said. “I identify as agender, which means that I don’t have any connection or like any personal connection to gender. It’s hard for people in the binary to comprehend that there are people that don’t feel like they are in the binary.” 

In order to learn someone’s name and pronouns before addressing them, it is easiest to start off a conversation by introducing yourself and pronouns, and then asking the other person to do to the same. This allows for the conversation to begin with respect, as each individual knows how to address the other, eliminating uncomfortable moments later on. 

In a classroom setting, it can help teachers to implement this by having students fill out a Google Form on the first day of school. This option lets students have a private way to communicate with the teacher that they have a different name from the one on the attendance sheet. This would prevent teachers from calling out the student’s deadname to the whole class, further avoiding social embarrassment and uncomfortableness.

A common concern when talking about respecting pronouns is that individuals simply forget. However, it is simple to practice someone’s pronouns in your head so that when you use them, it’s smoother. 

For example, if someone asks you to use they/them pronouns with them, you can rehearse them in your head, even when they aren’t present. Everyday phrases like “they dropped their keys,” or “I saw them yesterday” can help you feel more comfortable using these pronouns more often. 

It could also help to normalize using pronouns other than she/her or he/him by including them in examples in schoolwork, or even by sharing your own pronouns first. 

According to the University of North Carolina Wilmington, sharing and correcting pronouns is beneficial to all students and staff because it helps destigmatize the use of different pronouns and communicate that it is safe for transgender and gender non-conforming people to share their own names and pronouns. 

A positive, inclusive classroom is the key to creating successful learning, and students who feel supported by their teachers. For non-binary and transgender students, supportive teachers are necessary for fighting the stigmatization that they face because of their gender identity. 

Similarly to how a teacher would spend more time helping a struggling student in academics, they should also take initiative to learning how to help transgender or nonbinary students feel accepted in class. A relationship based on respect from both the teacher and the student is fundamental to a welcoming school environment.