What Should I Call You?
The Faculty Senate Gender Inclusivity Task Force and the Vanderbilt Student government–with input from Office of LGBTQI Life–have initiated conversations regarding third person personal and produced a poster to offer ways to affirm our commitment to gender inclusion on campus.
Gender pronouns are the small, potentially powerful, words used to refer to others when not using names. Individuals may feel strongly about their gender identity, gender expression, and their gender pronoun(s). Some gender pronouns fit into the gender binary of man and woman; these pronouns are often she, her, hers and he, him, his. Other pronouns expand the construction of the gender binary by serving as non-binary pronouns; these can be they, them, theirs or ze, hir (pronounced “here”), hirs. This list is not expansive.
The decision to use a certain set of pronouns is significant and often times reflects a greater sense of self and how one wishes to navigate the world and its systems. There are many ways in which we as staff members at Vanderbilt and as higher education professionals can affirm and provide space for each other and our intersecting identities, and the poster articulates a number of them.
Some of our staff whose roles have changed are having their pronouns placed on their new name badges, and all staff will have the opportunity to do so this summer when we place our annual order. In addition, LGBTQI Life is currently working on pronoun preference buttons.
We are glad to see the measures that VSG and the Faculty Senate have undertaken in support of inclusion initiatives regarding the use of personal pronouns, and appreciate the leadership role of LGBTQI Life in this regard.
If you have further questions or any feedback please contact Liv Parks (liv.parks@vanderbilt.edu) or the KC Potter Center (615-322-330).
