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University stories?

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by SimonSaid, Jul 19, 2019.

  1. SimonSaid

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    Hey so, long story short I'm starting at a new school and am debating how to go about introducing myself to people… I don't generally stress out too much about things like gender or sexuality and whatnot but I guess what I'm wondering is if people have any personal stories/experiences about this sort of thing? Thanks
     
  2. VeetotheX

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    In my experience they've been getting better about including pronouns in introductions at universities. Like when we did ice breakers at orientation they would ask name, pronouns, and one interesting thing about you. Only a couple people in my group used anything other than he or she, but it was still a nice gesture to make things more comfortable. So introducing yourself with pronouns might be a good way to start.

    I go to a large state university, so I'm not sure if this just applies to larger places.
     
  3. Chierro

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    The university I just graduated from is, I'd say, a medium-sized state university, and including pronouns in introductions has started to become more common but it varies. For my on-campus job during my junior year for our training we had our pronouns on our name tags. One semester I took a Queer Theory course and the professor had us tell our pronouns on the first day of class. There were also many situations where it wasn't required but when people introduced themselves they stated their pronouns. So I'd say it's starting to become more common, at least at bigger, more progressive universities.

    My favorite little story about using pronouns actually came from last week. I did a program on campus with teenagers. One of our kids was trans so he was housed in the boys' wing but on medical and official paperwork he was listed as his dead name. I was in charge of the medical paperwork for one event and when I passed it off to the facilitators I was like, "Hey, just so you guys know, one of the names won't match on one of the kids because they're trans in case anything were to happen." And immediately the facilitators (who are college students) were like, "Cool, that's fine, what pronouns do they use?"

    I think, personally, if you want to introduce yourself with your pronouns at your new school...go for it!
     
  4. Lin1

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    A new university is the best place to start anew and introduce yourself as who you want people to know you so you never have to come out.

    If non-binary let them know.

    I travel all the time and constantly meet new people and I always mention the fact that I am gay (so I don't have to do the whole talk about men) and it's great because it means I meet a lot of unexpected (or not so unexpected :wink: ) queer people that way. Nobody cares, they might do the "oh" and then tell me how great it is or how gay they are too. I was in Utah last weekend and ended up making new queer friends, same in Mexico a few months back, and both aren't the most queer friendly places but, we are many more than we tend to assume.


    I am who I am and so that's how I introduce myself to the world.
     
  5. croftrs147

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    I'm still in high school, but at the Science Olympiad regional event we were at a collage that actually had gender neutral bathrooms so I think it's starting to become more common/accepted
     
  6. BradThePug

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    I came out while I was in college, so I had to re-introduce myself to people. Most didn't care at all. The ones that did came around with some time. I just introduced myself, told them what pronouns I preferred and they went with it. Sometimes people would slip up, but they would apologize. The good thing about colleges is that most people are pretty accepting.