I recently came out at school, and for the most part, my close friends already knew my name and pronouns, and now my teachers know too. The issue is that there are some people in my classes that are acquaintances and didn't know, and I don't really know how to approach the conversation. Some people have figured it out from teachers, my friends have corrected some people, but there's this one class where I don't have any close friends and the teacher never refers to people by their names, so everyone is still calling me my deadname, and I'm too shy to correct them. How can I correct these people and inform them of my pronouns without making a big thing out of it?
With teachers, you could speak to them personally after class about it. Or what I did, because that makes me anxious as hell, is I emailed the ones who were having difficulty understanding what was going on. This is what I wrote: I had a request, if it is alright. I would really appreciate it if you could address me with masculine pronouns (he/him/his). I'm currently in the process of changing my name and pronouns legally, and I greatly appreciate any the support from the university. If there are any questions in regards to this, I am open to answering them. Thank you for understanding. Keep in mind that teachers are professionals and part of their job is to ensure the students are in a healthy learning environment. There is no reason why they would refuse to correct pronouns and names after being informed. If they did, honestly, that is what the administrative staff is for and you can report their behaviour. Best wishes.
