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Talking to Professors and Teaching Fellows About Pronouns
Occasionally, professors and TFs will ask you to introduce yourself with pronouns. This often occurs in seminar classes. People have different relationships to this question; some don’t want their professors to know their pronouns, some don’t feel comfortable asking them to, and some do and find their own avenue to do so. You never have to talk to anyone about your pronouns. But, if you want to, you have a few options. If you feel comfortable talking to them by yourself, go for it. You can choose to explain gender to them at the same time, or you can just tell them your pronouns and, if you want, point them to resources. Alternatively, Director Samuel Byrd (samuel.byrd@yale.edu), who runs the Yale LGBTQ Center and advocates for LGBTQ students, can send emails to your professors for you explaining your pronouns to them.
As of 2016, all professors are given a short brochure at the beginning of the school year with an overview of why pronouns are important and a few suggestions for creating inclusive spaces for trans and nonbinary students in their classes.
Names
Canvas or Gmail is generally the format for communicating with professors. Canvas uploads preferred names into the class rosters that faculty have at the beginning of the year, and that’s what professors and other students will see. You can change your preferred name on Canvas, although it will not change it in other parts of the university’s system.
Still, there are a variety of reasons you may choose not to enter a preferred name in SIS. If you know ahead of time that this will be an issue, it would be perfectly fine to send an email to your professor to warn them and ask that they don’t say your legal/listed name out loud in class. Also, it is your prerogative at any point to ask your professor to use your name—if you don’t do this right away, it doesn’t mean you can’t ever do it.
You can choose the first and middle names on your diploma and in the commencement program. Contact Director Samuel Byrd to find out how to go about this or if you encounter any difficulties.
If a professor/faculty member/etc are not respecting your name/pronouns...
You are allowed to report this to Title IX. This constitutes gender-based harassment and Title IX is incredibly responsive to these concerns. You can find a few options for reporting here. The quickest and most responsive option is to contact one of the Title IX coordinators listed here by email and CC Director Samuel Byrd of the Yale LGBTQ Center (samuel.byrd@yale.edu) on your email.
If you are employed under the individual whose conduct you are concerned by, you can also reach out to the Office of Institutional Equity and Accessibility and file a report here.
Add/Drop Period While Trans
Yale has a week of add/drop for classes at the beginning of every semester, during which people try a variety of different classes before deciding on their schedules. This can be difficult to navigate for trans students, since it is hard to decide whether or not to talk to professors of classes we may not be taking about our names and pronouns. In lectures, section will not start until after add/drop period is over, meaning you won’t have to worry about talking to your TF before the end of shopping. In seminars, professors may start to learn names right away or wait until after add/drop ends, but it is definitely possible that they will ask for names or call names for attendance, especially in classes that require pre-registration, so bear this in mind.
Queer-Friendly Majors/Departments
Every professor in every department is different, but these are some departments that either explicitly address queer/trans issues or anecdotally are welcoming to queer students and/or have a lot of queer people.
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Ethnicity, Race, and Migration
African American Studies
American Studies
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Environmental Studies
Linguistics
Anthropology
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