Alex C. Lange:
One of my favorite quotes from a sort of public thinker and theologian and Krista Tippett, she talks about how words make worlds. Right. And the idea is that folks are trying to find language that helps affirm them in the world that sort of see themselves as.

Heather Shea:
Welcome to Student Affairs NOW the online learning community for student affairs educators. I’m your host, Heather Shea. Today we are exploring pronouns as an affirming practice on campus with three incredible folks. Student Affairs NOW is a premier podcast and learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We hope you find these conversations make a contribution to the field and are restorative to the profession. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays, you can find us at studentaffairsnow.com on YouTube or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Before we jump into our conversation and introduce our guests today, I want to acknowledge our sponsors. Today’s episode is sponsored by Anthology. Learn more about their innovative data-driven platforms to build and foster your campus student engagement experience. Learn more by visiting anthology.com/engage. This episode is also sponsored by LeaderShape, go to leadershape.org to learn how they can work with you to create a just, caring, and thriving world. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Heather Shea. My pronouns are she her and hers and I am broadcasting from East Lansing, Michigan on the campus of Michigan State University, where I serve as the director of women’s student services and interim director of the gender and sexuality campus center. I am also an affiliate faculty member in MSU student affairs administration program, Michigan State University occupies the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the three fires Confederacy of Ojibue, Ottawa and Pottawatomie peoples. The university resides on land seated in the 1819 treaty of Saginaw. I am so excited for this conversation today, and so grateful to the three of you for joining me what promises to be interesting and enlightening. What, what let’s all go around and I’d love to have you each introduce yourselves, share a little bit about your backgrounds, please share your pronouns. And also if you could just give us give us an overview of why this topic is of interest to you. So I’m going to start with, with Alex. Welcome Alex.

Alex C. Lange:
Thanks Heather. Hi everyone. My name is Dr. Alex Lange. I gotta put that on there because I worked so hard for it. My pronouns are they and them. I am an assistant professor of higher education at Colorado State University.

Alex C. Lange:
Specifically. I study the experiences and development of LGBTQ college students, and I’ve worked on a national study of trans students for the past four years. While I moved to Colorado in January, currently, I’m in Coralville, Iowa on the ancestral homelands of 15 tribal nations removed from the land through nine separate treaties in the 18 hundreds. Specifically the Omaha and Winnebago nations continue to thrive in what is called the state of Iowa. So I think it’s important to sort of lift up that as a continual sort of colonization process and who is resisting colonization still. I look forward to being a part of this great conversation today with some really fantastic people.

Heather Shea:
Thanks, Alex, Oprah. Welcome to Student Affairs NOW.

Oprah Jrenal:
Yeah. Excited to be here and thank you for having me I’m Oprah Jrenal. I use she, her hers pronouns. I’m the assistant director for the gender and sexuality campus center at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. I have been in that position in January, 2022. It’ll be four years. And so I’m excited to have that anniversary and I’m excited to serve a LGBTQ two S plus students at Michigan State. Affirm them, give them permission to explore and be, and get to love on them. We do so much more than pizza parties and drag shows and I’d love all the in-between and I love the pizza so shows and the drag shows and pizza parties too. It’s all awesome. And I’m excited to be here. I am from California. I did my undergrad at the University of Arizona, you know, Bear Down and whatnot,

Heather Shea:
Bear Down.

Oprah Jrenal:
And I did my graduate work, my masters in student affairs and higher education at the University of Kansas. So rock chalk y’all thank you for having me.

Heather Shea:
Thanks Oprah Petey. Welcome to Student Affairs NOW.

Petey Peterson:
Hey, thank you so much for having me. Hey everyone, my name’s Petey Peterson, I use they, them, their pronouns. I have the privilege and honor of serving as the director for the office for gender and sexual diversity at Tulane University, which is housed within the Carolyn Barber Pierre center for intercultural life who we just actually celebrated that ribbon cutting for that center being named after her this weekend at Tulane’s homecoming. And she’s also my amazing supervisor, so, so excited that she gave gets all of her like prayers and love and acknowledgement for the work and labor she’s done over the past 30 plus years, specifically for students of color, for and trans students for students with disabilities at Tulane University. So I just feel so lucky to work amongst that team and work alongside offs, multicultural affairs within the center for agricultural life at Tulane University. So as a transplant here, who’s been here for about two and a half years. Just feel really and privileged to be here, especially amongst so much amazing queer trans organizing, specifically being led by black and trans femmes right now. And historically in the city where I more just ran for district and union fourth place. So really excited to see some of the change happening in the city.

Heather Shea:
Awesome. Can we to go back and visit again. Very soon, hopefully. So Alex, I know we decided to start this conversation today from kind of a place that’s a little bit basic probably for our audience. But just in case let’s review, what are pronouns and why do we need to know them?

Alex C. Lange:
Yeah, totally. So pronouns are essentially words that serve as replacements for nouns or noun phrases. We want to take the sort of really basic definition of them, right. But it’s often how we refer to folks when we don’t use their name. Right. We know this most commonly because of a variety of reasons as he and she in our culture, but there are a variety of ways people like to be referred to and using people’s pronouns are typically an indication or about the degree of respect you have for a person. It’s also just one of the ways that I think I realized how much gender sort of is so present, particularly in romantic current languages of which English is a part of it’s about demonstrating respect, but it’s also about sort of just believing people when they say I am blank, right. And taking them for their word. Oftentimes when we, when people say I am X thing, we often give a lot of degree of deference and belief to them without questioning it, whereas pronouns, a lot of people sort of decide to pick and choose when they believe and when they question. So that’s sort of the basics of them and why do we need to know about them?

Heather Shea:
So who should share their pronouns and should that be obligatory?

Alex C. Lange:
Yeah. Yeah. So who should share? I think I really respect people who have thought through their agency, right. And so I think I’ll really, in some ways it should be the default to sort of share pronouns. I think, I think all of us agree that that is in terms of like the broader trans equity inclusion project. It is a very low bar, perhaps the bar is in the basement of the house that we’re trying to build. And we’re trying to maybe sort of build up to the second or third floor at this point, but I think at the very, the very basic thing folks can do is share their pronouns and space, particularly folks who are sort of student leaders or designated leaders on campus, because it does send a signal to people right. In my own research. You know, I’ve, I’ve worked with the same sort of cohort of trans students across the country for the past now four years.

Alex C. Lange:
And one of the things that has become very clear in the research to me is that that signaling function of pronoun sharing is actually really important to students. Trans students may not feel comfortable sort of sharing their pronouns in the space when asked, right. They have agency, they have to make this decision all the time if they’re going to share their genders or not with people. But they know that that person may be a person that they can go talk to later. Right. And so it’s sort of, it’s sort of serves as its really important function of getting people connected and connected obligatory there’s something really, we make obligatory in higher education besides class. So could it be more obligitory maybe, but I also trust that the people that we fear where are going to be most harmed by these practices can make very good decisions for themselves. Cause they have to do it everyday anyway. And I think what my research is also finding is that pronoun practices may be very important for people to signal in sort of orientation experiences. But then it’s, she’s got to back it up later with more as folks progress post their first year as well.

Heather Shea:
So Oprah I’m a CIS woman. I think people make assumptions about my pronouns. I know shocked. So my pronouns are she her and hers and they may be like, of course those are your pronouns. Right? So as a facilitator of a group, as a CIS woman, how do I make it comfortable with everyone who wants to sharing their pronouns?

Oprah Jrenal:
For sure. So, you know, I’m a cisgender woman as well. I use she, her hers pronouns 10 times out of 10 people get my pronouns, right. When they’re just making assumptions. I still try to push them and say like, oh, you know, you didn’t really ask me, but yes, I do use those pronouns. So thank you. And that sort of thing, but really setting the tone for your space is really important. So how are we going to engage with each other in this workshop? How are we going to engage with each other in class and give people different levels of sharing? So professors can do a syllabus quizzes if they have like a D2L setup or some other type of online learning thing and they can incorporate a intake form, what, what name would you like me to call you in class versus, you know, what name, when we’re over in this kind of arena with each other what pronouns would you like me to use in the larger class versus when you and I are just one-on-one and let people indicate what will make them feel the most safe?

Oprah Jrenal:
Cisgender students with a bunch of cisgender privilege, it’s going to go over their heads. They’re going to, they’re going to be like, oh, okay. I don’t know what this is, but sure. But for that one trans student, that one gender nonconforming student, it’s going to give them voice. And the ability to say who they are and believed because the other hope is that someone asking this information is actually going to respect it and use it. And that’s where some people fall short because they’ll say, oh yeah, tell me your pronouns. And then they’ll go ahead and prescribe pronouns to you based on their own perceptions and their gender attribution to you. So if you’re going to ask, you actually have to use the pronouns that person told you to use.

Heather Shea:
Thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah. I think the other question that I sometimes hear is like, is as a CIS person, me sharing my pronouns, is that coming off as performative of inclusion?

Oprah Jrenal:
Yeah. I’ve heard that too. And I’ve heard people say, well, I’m just not going to do it because it is performative to just do that. And I’m like, okay. So then your choice is to do nothing. Is that what I’m hearing? Cause that’s what I’m hearing is that your choice is to do nothing that you are just going to allow for folks to continue to be mispronounced and harmed because you want to jump to this like higher level of DEI that we’re all still figuring out as we work to achieve it. Right. All this is a journey and a destination at the same time. So so yeah, no, don’t do nothing. Do something start with pronouns and don’t stop there. So make sure that your policies and practices actually aligned with this new, like asking of pronouns practice, if it’s new for you make sure you go into your guidelines and your websites and your pamphlets and all that and get rid of those.

Oprah Jrenal:
He, or she can pick up their key card at the front desk, like get rid of that stuff. You can say, they, you can say residents, new residents can pick up their key cards at the, you don’t have to gender pronoun anything. Because we have more than enough words in all languages to figure out how to say things. Other part of that is really do the work. So you can’t just stop at memorizing certain words to use for people. This person says they, this person says she, and I just have to memorize that, but actually do some deeper work on breaking apart, the gender binary in your mind, like and how it doesn’t serve any of us, it’s restrictive and limiting and harmful and dangerous. And how do I actually keep that going as a cisgender person? How do I, in what ways can I get rid of that out of how I’m engaging with people?

Oprah Jrenal:
When you meet someone, what if you actually met them and you like, let them tell you who they are and then you believed them as opposed to pulling from some stereotypes, some bias, some socialization that we all have. And we can’t avoid it. But you can’t unlearn it. So just because it was given to you doesn’t mean you need to keep it. You can give away your socialization, you can choose the path of change and resistance to that. And that’s what I would hope everyone would do is to move beyond just memorizing certain things, but actually break apart that gender itself is a construct and not really rooted or real in anything. And the way that we treat people based on a gender binary and gender structure is real. That harm is real.

Heather Shea:
Yes. Yeah. And as you were talking, I was thinking about the assumptions, like I’m talking about my doctor and my doctor recommended that I take care of such and such and somebody I’m talking to says, oh, did he say dah, dah, dah? And I was like, well actually you assumed my doctor uses he him, you know, assume that he’s a man. Like what if my doctor? Right. So it’s, it’s again, it’s putting against all of those things that are so ingrained in our society for us to even know. So Petey, that, that was the basics. Now I’m going to, you know, we’re going to go to the harder questions. So pronouns are everywhere, right? I mean, I’m seeing them on email signatures and introductions and business cards, name, tags, buttons. You know, I’m assuming that means that we all are in favor of these practices as a community, what does, what does this mean? Do you think we’re not questioning or complicating this practice? How could, how might we go a little bit deeper beyond pronouns?

Petey Peterson:
Yeah, no, I think that’s such a great question. You know, I think, you know, similar to just what Oprah was just speaking to of, you know, these are good practices, right? That let a lot of cisgender folks are doing right. It’s and then we’re asking CIS folks to do, to create a climate that feels like trans non binary folks can share their pronouns. Right. And other pornos will not only they can share them, but they will be used then accurately and consistently for them. Right. again, not just students surprise trans and nonbinary faculty and staff are all over. So these are also be your supervisors the folks, your colleagues, the folks you mentee right. Like all of those, all of those folks, right. Like exist everywhere. And

Oprah Jrenal:
They’re even training you.

Petey Peterson:
Perhaps, or they are. And you know, so yeah, these are all really, I think it’s really great effective tool that they, especially now, you know, so many great colleagues in the field who have right hyperlinked their pronouns in an email signature to write a really great resource of why we do this. So there’s some deeper learning with that. Right. and it also is a great way for us, like trans, non binary folks to do that, to do less labor of having to why we do this, or like here’s an easy way vetted homework for you to do, and to watch these videos and look at this resource. Right. and so I think those were all great things, right. And again really pushing through like pushing past just the pronoun piece. Right. because really, as Oprah was saying of that, like deconstructing that gender binary because how often I also hear they identify as a they, right.

Petey Peterson:
Their gender is a, so it’s still this kind of, even not full understanding of like, because you know what, like, because, you know, the pronouns you use for someone does not mean know anything specifically about someone’s gender identity or gender expression you just know how to, how they want to be like referred to in a way that feels the most, right. That it is accurate enough for me and respectful right. As Alex was saying earlier. And that, right. So I still sometimes question like, am I still being seen right. As my full self. Right. I was like, even if like, as Oprah was saying, like you memorize the correct pronoun for me. Right. And I think as I’ve built relationships with CIS folks in my life, right. I can kind of tell the difference of our level of intimacy as friends, as colleagues.

Petey Peterson:
Right. Of how much they really see me, you know, how will they can just also just use my program correctly. Right. And my full self and same with how they engage with students. Right. And kind of how they really see them in their full selves. And I think, right, none of this, are we talking about like queer and trans or like trans, non binary, specifically like identity development and like the space to give the folks, but also to like explore their gender, to explore how they want to express that gender, to explore what feels best and how folks, when they speak, how folks speak about them, the name that feels best. Right. and I think, right, we’re just getting here in some ways like pronouns, right. As we’re having this whole panel together, we’ll also right. We have generations of queer trans folks in every generation, deeply creating spaces where they get to explore and continue to write engage in more liberatory ways of being right.

Petey Peterson:
And really like futuristic ways of existing. Right. and what else when we moved beyond right pronouns. And so again, just really kind of exploring what, like, what else are you doing in your practice and how you engage with folks and also in your own and your own gender identity development as a cisgender person, right? Like that’s the work, that’s a lot of that interpersonal work because that gender binary, I would argue harm cisgender and heterosexual folks, just as much as it does queer and trans folks. Right. and right. It’s all comes from like a colonization, like white supremacy way of thinking and to uphold bytes from Saint patriarchy. Right? So like we all lose by upholding that and not spending time on learning that and creating our own definitions of womanhood, manhood that are connected to the rest of ourselves, our cultures, our experiences even if that is right. That’s what your connection is to may a hundred womanhood. And that there are so many other genders that exist and all that have always existed right. Through all the time. And that again, the, the English language and the colonization right. Has really erased those, those ways of right. At least. Right. For most folks.

Oprah Jrenal:
I just, I love everything you said. And I just want to like, take, have existed through all time and all the things that you, the thing you just said and just make it huge and paint across the sky because trans non-binary gender queer folks, gender nonconforming folks, anyone who is pressing and pulling apart and expanding gender expression and identity, those folks have existed since the beginning of time in every culture, all over every continent, every country, every plot of land since the beginning of time. And it was the threat of death, it was Christian colonization. It was the threat of harassment. It was shame. It was all the things that oppress all of us in some way that made people unable to talk about who they are unable to claim the pieces of themselves that they feel on the inside and no more.

Oprah Jrenal:
So yeah, so I just, I appreciate you saying that and putting that into the space, because some folks from cis-gender people, to me, another cis-gender person, they say things like, where did this all come from? Like, this is just all of a sudden, we’re talking about pronouns. And it’s like, there are some folks who’ve been using. They, them theirs as pronouns for 20, 30 years. Like you just showed up to the party. So welcome, have some and learn something and unlearn something along the way, because that unlearning piece I feel like I hit the wall with folks on that. Because it takes really looking at yourself. And, and some folks aren’t ready to do that. You know, they want to take the education that they got from higher ed, and they want to push it back out onto the students and their staff and like all that. But to really turn that onto yourself can be really hard for folks. But I encourage us all to lean in.

Alex C. Lange:
Yeah. I think just even further echoing both Petey and Oprah, I think, you know, I would, I would sort of say like, what about your life circumstances allowed you to avoid this conversation for so long? Right. what about you know, just because something is new to you, MSU joke something just because something is new to you doesn’t mean it is new in the culture, right? And so we’re, we’re all sort of, I think in our digital age of everything now being much, quickly, more quickly accessible culturally than it was, I can get some of being anxiety about it. Right. I can get some of that, but I think it’s more about asking yourself, who am I doing this practice for? Do I care how I do it? And then am I prepared for the work that comes next? Right. I think, you know, when I used to train orientation leaders around this stuff, I would, I had to have 30 minutes and I would sort of do the basic stuff that I would cover.

Alex C. Lange:
And I would say, and when you don’t know something, you need to refer out, right. Do not take this as your personal crusade. You need to have a degree of humility to understand what is the limits of your knowledge. And I was always more appreciative when folks said, I actually don’t know this. I need to know it better, but right now there’s something happening and I need to address it. Right. And I’m going to do it imperfectly. And we’re going to talk about that in a second, but I think that there I really appreciate the people who sort of say, I don’t know this more than I appreciate the people who try and sort of pass off that they can do it well.

Heather Shea:
Yeah. So I’m wondering if that’s part of the pushback, right. Is there additional work that, you know, really we’re calling upon people to engage in? Right. So what pushback have you heard? I mean, besides the singular they them complaint and what is the pushback against pronoun sharing rooted in Alex? I’m going to push that back to you

Alex C. Lange:
You’re going to pushback, the pushback

Heather Shea:
Yes! Pushback the pushback.

Alex C. Lange:
Yeah. I, I, so I think that some common things I’ve heard of both as a trainer and as someone who teaches classes, I think I’ve heard the singular, they, them I’ve heard the there’s so many things. How do we keep up? Right. Which is both about pronouns, but also sort of a larger, I think, multicultural anxiety, particularly on behalf of a lot of white folks, quite frankly. I think that there is like accusations of, well, these things are made up, like how, how do I like this isn’t real language, but these are the same people who will say words like bay, humble brag, binge catfish, all like all of these words. Correct. So like, it, it’s part of this, like I think cultural anxiety around change and who, who is being represented, who’s being represented less than they were before.

Alex C. Lange:
And I, one of my favorite quotes from a sort of public thinker and theologian and Krista Tippett, she talks about how words make worlds. Right. And the idea is that folks are trying to find language that helps affirm them in the world that sort of see themselves as, I don’t know any person who is adopted the pronoun other than he or she, that does not fear the repercussions of that decision, the violent repercussions of that decision through multiple dimensions, this sort of social consequences of that decision. I think a lot of folks sort of use the counter of, well, my pronouns are, I am a unicorn, right. And that’s the sort of worry people have about this, but one, those are sort of, so so rare number one, but two, it’s not a person trying to see themselves in the world. It’s a person trying to make fun of the practice.

Alex C. Lange:
That’s meant to be a little bit more inclusive. Right. And so I think that so let me address these anxieties and get one at a time, right. To their name, right. Singular. They, them it’s existed forever. For everyone worried about Shakespeare being taken out of curriculum, Shakespeare is singular. They them, so like pick a battle and stick to it. Number one, number two, I think that the sort of like make up language. Yeah. We make up language all the time as human beings, Oprah. And I just gave some examples of those. Right. And I think pronouns are a great example of how we’re trying to take something so complex as gender and distill it to three words for a person. Right. I think it’s, it’s the as Oprah was saying before, the sort of like the deep getting to know you stuff that this sort of these terms sort of stand in for is why they’re imperfect, is that language is imperfect.

Alex C. Lange:
You know, we drop and break words all the time, but we renew them too. And so I think part of that is that’s just a cultural practice. We have, I think the, how do I keep up? I think it’s, again, particularly for those of us in academia, particularly for those of us, for whom schooling was the way to succeed in life. We’re so tied to getting things right, and being quote unquote, the most knowledgeable in the room. And so I think part of it is taking a position of humility. Right. You know, when I used to it’s, it’s really fun to have this conversation because I was in the position, Oprah is now in prior to this. And so I did trainings at Michigan State’s campus all the time. And one of the ways that I really opened up to folks in trainings was like, folks always wanted a glossary of every freaking term under the design.

Alex C. Lange:
And you know what we did, we said, fine, we’ll do it. And we made a 27 page, I believe it’s 11 point font glossary. And it was quite a project. And I said, I don’t know, half the terms on this list, but you know what I do now that if someone asks like told me, this is how they identify, I go look it up right after. Right. And so I think part of it is teachers are taking a position of humility and sort of saying, just because I am the trainer in front of you doesn’t mean I have it altogether either. But it also means I have to commit to the work that is required to learn this stuff. Really well. So I think there is that anxiety that exists, but it’s really about sort of saying that anxiety is driven by, I’m uncomfortable with what’s happening often because I don’t know what’s happening. And the way for me to know what’s happening is to find further resources. And so I think that pushback is more rooted in less intentionally hateful responses. And I think some of the others are so yeah, that’s my initial thought.

Heather Shea:
Yeah. Other thoughts on pushbacks? What the rooted in what you’ve heard.

Oprah Jrenal:
Yeah. white supremacy. So which we are all in and we all have our complicity levels in. And some of us have our benefits in as well. And so let’s just be honest about it. Like, we don’t have time to not be honest about it. So one of the white supremacy characteristics that comes up when we’re talking about pronouns and getting pushback is well, I don’t like when people correct me, they’re being rude when they correct me. So you don’t want to be right. You don’t want, like, you don’t want to talk about this person intelligently and in a way that is respectful to them instead, you’re centering your comfort and a sense of a desire for comfort. Feeling like you have a right to be comfortable is a characteristic of white supremacy. So I’m feeling uncomfy. There’s nothing wrong with feeling uncomfortable.

Oprah Jrenal:
No one is attacking you. There’s no threat of harm when someone says, oh, Heather uses she, her hers just want to make sure you knew that there is no harm in that to you. They’ve helped you in that moment. And so that’s one thing, like always wanting to be comfortable. There’s the good, bad dichotomy thing where like you told me that I messed up on Heather’s pronouns. You’re telling me I’m a bad person. That I’m just the worst person ever. No. I told you that you use the wrong word for her. That’s it. And now go and do work on why do you use the wrong word? Have you used the wrong word multiple times today? And what does it mean about how you see Heather or me or whatever, like that’s where you go and do that work. But there, we don’t have time for like the guilt and shame and the anger that comes from being corrected on something like it, it is it’s it’s okay. Like, especially if you’re a cisgender person you’re going to survive being corrected, you’re going to be fine.

Heather Shea:
It puts a lot of ownership on the person though, right? Like the person who’s made the mistake and oh, I feel so bad. You corrected me, you know, versus like, what about the person who was mispronounced and the harm you did to them. Right.

Oprah Jrenal:
Right. So if you’re a cisgender person and you get corrected and your initial reaction is to be like, wow, this really hurts my feelings. I’m so upset right now that you corrected me. You are centering your feelings as a cisgender person, having cisgender privilege in a moment where harm was done to a trans or non-binary person. So if we’re talking about privilege, there it is. So it’s not about you. And I think that’s another hard thing for folks, especially when you have a bunch of privilege, right? Like it is not about you. It is about that other person. We are respecting people. That’s the name of the game. Yeah. And I think as folks who work in education one thing that’s been kind of wild is like the amount of folks who work in an educational setting that are abhorrent to the idea of being educated really are like, don’t tell me anything I don’t want to know.

Oprah Jrenal:
And I know that’s not the people listening to Student Affairs NOW these folks came for an education, but you know, there are some people that are, I see your face, Alex. There are those people that are like, no, don’t tell me anything new. I don’t want to know I’m not interested. And that’s, that’s the part of the, in my world where my brain just doesn’t click where I’m like, are we supposed to be like lifelong learners? Don’t human beings change over time and this thing becomes a thing. And then it goes to the end of that thing. And shouldn’t we be rolling with it because we’re working on creating like spaces where humans can human and grow and learn. And, and isn’t all this social justice, DEI, inclusion, equity, whatever you want to call it at your institution. Isn’t this all about teaching people, how to love each other better, because we have been raised up in systems of oppression that have harmed us. So why would we want to continue that harm when we have the ability to stop? Like, I just don’t want to hurt people. Okay. Well, this is how you do that too hard.

Heather Shea:
Thank you. Thank you. Perfect.

Alex C. Lange:
Well, I think we can go home now. I think the episode is done. I think

Heather Shea:
I love it. I do want to get to the, what do we do when people get them wrong? Because I do think so centering the person is, you know, that’s often where the person who has gotten them wrong, like goes to, oh, I’m such a bad person. I feel so bad. And no, this is so hard. And these are all the reasons, but like, I do want to talk a bit about like, what does it do when someone is not just mispronounced, but mis-gendered, what is the harm there? And, and ultimately like your point of, we just need to love each other. Like, I think we’re talking also about saving lives. So Oprah, do you want to expand on that a little?

Oprah Jrenal:
And then I, a hundred percent want a Petey and Alex to add in. But the Trevor project has done really good research the past few years with their mental health survey. And they found what people in this work knew, but now we have the numbers to put them out there into our presentations and stuff, but found that, you know, if a young person has at least one accepting adult, that they are incredibly less likely to attempt suicide, complete suicide. And those kinds of things, we found that if you respect someone’s pronouns, that they are 70% less, the depression rates, suicidal ideation, all that drops significantly by respecting a pronoun, by respecting the names, someone tells you is their name and not being like, well, that’s not on my roster or that’s not on your ID and that sort of thing, but you actually respect what that person told you.

Oprah Jrenal:
And we’re saying this is suicide prevention work. While people say, oh yeah, it’s a drag shows and pizza parties and binders and whatever else we are doing in our center. We’re trying to keep people alive. In a world where the overall ideology is, they would rather them not be there. They would rather us not be there. And we are trying to make sure that folks have a space to figure out how to live in this world, the language to call out when things are happening that are hurtful, the space to heal from those things when they’re hurtful. And it is everyday work, it’s everyday work, trying to make sure that that students are seen that the staff are seen because like Petey mentioned earlier, their staff and faculty on our campus on all of our campuses that are trans, queer and non-binary all the things.

Oprah Jrenal:
And so it’s important to know that they’re struggling too. And when you look at your numbers for faculty, which if your institution is allowing people to click their accurate gender and your gender option is not male, female, which those are sex terms, those are not gender terms. So if people can actually share their accurate gender with you and you look at your faculty or your professors or your student population, and you’re saying, oh, well, the Trevor project says about 16% of gen Z are somewhere in the LGBTQ community, but we actually don’t have those numbers. Or we don’t have as many trans people or trans professors or whatever, ask yourself why it is not because it is hard to get a trans person to want to work as a professor at an institution or insert identity to work somewhere. We want to work.

Oprah Jrenal:
We like to eat and house ourselves, we’re in capitalism. We have to, and most of the time. And so you ask yourself, what is it about our institution that can’t keep people that are transgender, queer, non-binary or it doesn’t attract them? What are, what are people looking for to feel safe and be safe, not just feel safe, but actually be safe at our institution. And if we’re not creating that space, why would they want to show up? Oftentimes when students come to an institution and then they leave same with faculty and staff and all that, the, the story that’s told as well, they just weren’t the right fit. Or they just weren’t academically prepared. And that’s why they left. No, we were not prepared. The institution was not prepared for those students, for those professors, for those staff members. And that’s why they left because we did not create a space for them. In what we know to be a white supremacist, patriarchal, sexist place, like institution, we did not make space. And then, so, yeah, so we could tell ourselves whatever story we want at the end of the day. But still at the end of the day, we’re losing some talented people to either other institutions or out of higher ed completely. Because we are continuing to reduplicate the harm, that largest society enacts on folks every day.

Alex C. Lange:
Well, I think, yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say, it’s like, we know that making space for people’s names and pronouns, isn’t, evidence-based good practice, right? It’s not like, like we now have, even if I only think we needed the empirical data to prove this point, but now that we have, it it’s even stronger of a point that like this does like access to facilities, names, pronouns, all of these are proven to be associated with reductions in depression, suicide, bad mental health outcomes, bad physical health outcomes. And to suggest that this is just sort of some performative practice for sort of like what I would call like DEI drag, right, is, is really missing the point in many ways. It really is something we know is going to help people. And especially now that we have a generation of students, who’ve been able to think about gender meaningfully before they come to college.

Alex C. Lange:
Right? College is where I thought about it a lot more. And really grad school is what pushed it over for me. But we have students now who are coming to our campuses who are coming to our centers who are logging in virtually through zoom, who now have really different expectations of us than we did 10 years ago as staff and faculty. And I think we have to evolve with those times rather than thinking that like well, no, I went to grad school. I got my master’s like, I’m done. I don’t need to learn anything else. I have nothing more to sort of take in unless it’s on my own time.

Heather Shea:
Yeah, really, really well said, Peter, what about you? What do you, oh, you gotta, you gotta go.

Oprah Jrenal:
The thing that Alex made me think of but when you mis-gender someone, when you mispronoun someone it is an indication that you believe yourself more than you believe that person, that you think, you know, that person who they are because we’re ascribing sex technically your, what their genitalia is. And you’re letting that inform how you treat them. You think, you know more about them than they know about themselves, and that is not okay. Because when someone tells you who they are, you believe them that’s, the default should be.

Heather Shea:
100% agree. So Petey in your experience, what happens when people mess up and let’s specifically go to talking about people in positions of power, potentially. So the vice-president, you’re in a meeting, vice president, mis-pronouns someone. Talk with me a little bit about, you know, what, what happens next? What’s the best next step.

Petey Peterson:
Yeah. well, I think it depends on who we’re talking about in the situation, like, right. Cause there’s multiple bystanders in that situation. So if we’re talking about a meeting, right. Where in that meeting, right. A person with a VP title does that right. Use the wrong pronouns for a colleague? I think, I think for a lot of CIS folks in the room, right? The, usually the right, this is the question they’re asking is like, what do I do? Right. Like, I know, I know this colleague, I care about them. I know that’s not their pronouns. Right. I want to like, right. You’re probably scanning the room to see who else may be noticed for some non-verbal or even a nudge by someone usually sitting next to you. Right. We know that’s how it goes. Right. Maybe you text someone under the table.

Petey Peterson:
Right. And that’s, that’s all right. And I’ve done these things as well, to be clear, right. I’ve done these things as a white person when I witnessed racist things. Right. Versus verbally intervening in the moment. Right. And what I know is that that didn’t change anything or benefit the person that was impacted rather than where they were not right by that racist comment. And when no one said anything, right. That just perpetuate that we’re all okay with this, in this space. Right. and I named that. Right. Cause I think this is a fear, especially I think Alex name is early, right. As white folks, right around intervening in general, how we’re socialized as white people under the white supremacy culture. Right. right. To come for right. You’re either good or bad. And if I tell someone made something wrong, then I’m gonna make them feel bad.

Petey Peterson:
And I don’t want to do that by all of these things that come up. Right. And I think what, what the reality is is nothing will change if we keep doing that. Right. And that as Oprah already modeled so beautifully, right. There’s nothing wrong with saying, right. Hey, VP, person’s name. Right. Or however you engage with that human, right. Like, Hey, like you’re like, that’s not that person’s pronouns. Right. They use these pronouns. Right. Or I just wanna remind you, or right. Or like, Hey, to the group. Right. Like I just want to remind everyone why like the importance of pronouns. Right. And that we’ve been talking about as you folks, right. Or I’ve noticed, right. Or you can name it. I think it’s the coordinator named explicitly. I also think it’s important and I’ve named this and I appreciate this. Right. When folks check in with me right.

Petey Peterson:
When my accomplice has asked me how, like what they want, I’m okay. With what I’m on. Right. So I’ve had some really phenomenal colleagues will say right there in space all the time where I’m talking about. Right. And vice versa. Right. And it’s also how we show up. Right. In a, like collective, like a collective, right. As colleagues, that whole marginalized identities in working in the worlds we work in right together. And how we show up, especially when folks are not in the room. And she’s like, Hey, people like are constantly hearing you like are equal. If I say something, can I say something to that group? Like, do you have a preference? And I was like, Sienna, I trust you director of office of multicultural affairs at Tulane University. And I was like, I deeply trust you to handle that in whatever best way that you will handle that.

Petey Peterson:
And I would appreciate it, whatever that feels comfortable for you to do that. Like, and thank you so much for asking me. Right. and I think that’s so important then for folks to start doing that. Right. And, and then you’re also modeling how to do that in a way that is like, no matter what anyone will tell you is not unkind, unprofessional, rude. Right. Like it’s what we should be doing. Right. and that’s actually an act of love. That’s an act of community. That’s an active, right. I think Oprah says earlier too, like I care enough about you to make you aware of this harm, Hallie to this person, but it also hurts you. Right? Like it hurts, it hurts the community. Right. And you all carry this tension. Cause everyone witnessed that. And I was still feeling like, what do we do now? Right. It has to be folks in leadership. Right. Cause the few of us trans non binary folks in those spaces, like were exhausted, right. Again, like, so it has to be more of those CIS folks not allies. Right. But like what are you doing in your behavior? Right. I just care about how you act. Right. and that’s really, what’s important.

Heather Shea:
Yeah. And I think, I think the other piece that we talked about earlier, like in that moment as the VP, like your role modeling, how to respond with grace to apologize, to commit, to doing better, like that’s a powerful statement too, right? Like we don’t expect people to be perfect, but we do expect people to recognize when they do something harmful to not make excuses for it. Apologize and do better. And to me, like as a, as a if I, if, if I mess up, that’s the most important thing I can do is to model that messing up happens, you know, it just is going to happen and practicing saying, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I mis-pronouned you. So I think that’s, there you go.

Oprah Jrenal:
Yeah. I was gonna I was going to say something about oh, white supremacy characteristic again. I have a pamphlet if anybody wants one.

Oprah Jrenal:
Perfectionism and cause perfectionism will stop me from doing anything because you’re like, oh, I haven’t read all the books. I haven’t watched all the Ted talks, so therefore I’m not going to do anything. So you’re not even going to like try, so then maybe folks can help. So what, so then there’s that piece, there’s also a conflict avoidance. That is a white supremacist characteristic. So because we are in the institutions that we’re in folks will not be direct. And so we get the passive aggressive stuff emails or not invited to the meeting anymore. People get removed from a committee all of a sudden because they corrected someone or they introduced a concept of, maybe we should have people give people a space on their name, tags for the conference to put their, their pronouns. And people didn’t like that.

Oprah Jrenal:
Or they didn’t like being challenged or pushed. And now all of a sudden, you know, we’re kicking people out and that conflict avoidance is a thing that is super rooted in whiteness and super rooted in all of our offices and institutions. And we have to do better. Because me telling you anything is not me trying to fight with you. It is me showing that I care about you, that I believe that you can do better than this moment. So it’s a gift and especially if a trans or non-binary person who you just harmed, takes a moment to say, Hey, just want to remind you, I use these pronouns. Like that is not a time for you to be angry, that they corrected you. That is a time for you to be grateful that they corrected you that they still believe in you. And I think that that makes me feel, or it makes me think about how we sometimes get pitted against other like offices and institutions and all that when we should really be like my success is tied to yours, like I want you to do great. And I hope that you want me to do great too. And so that’s why I came to you and reminded you about those pronouns because I want us all to do great. And I, I think that sometimes we get lost in competition which really sucks.

Heather Shea:
I 100% agree. So we always run out of time and I’m going to move us to final thoughts here. This has been such a fabulous conversation. We are going to stick in the show notes, a whole bunch of different resources that we have re you know, institutional websites, books, articles, things that we’ve used as, as educational tools for folks. And so this podcast is called Student Affairs NOW. So always kind of interesting to end with the question, your final thought, what are you thinking about now? So Petey, I’m going to go to you first.

Petey Peterson:
Yeah. first just thinking about feeling really grateful to be in the space with all three of you and to just get to talk about this topic and expand it, complicate it, deepen it. And so, so, so thankful for that. And then also just you know, one of the, one of the things in our office for gender and sexual diversity that me and the amazing Renee Bradley, who’s the associate director of QTBiPOC engagement assessment within OGC that we both really wanted to shift our mission and vision for the office was around identity euphoria, and really pulling from Adrian Marie Brown pleasure activism. And, you know, just what Oprah was saying around right. Perfectionist specifically. I was actually just in a first year, summer, of course I co-teach with Sienna, we were talking about pleasure activism, some in class and perfectionism, right.

Petey Peterson:
We’re reading the Timo Kuhn, white supremacy culture document, and the student, all the students like perfectionism, they were all like, it steals all my joy. And I was like, yeah, perfectionism, it steals our joy. Yes, it does. It steals our humanity and it seals our joy versus like, and I know for me, right, I’m learning so much of that shame of being told, I especially hurt someone or I didn’t do something right. Or I’m not good. Right. How I internalize those messages to verse now right. I’m reframing, right. Receiving those messages, no matter how they’re given to me, actually, I don’t care how they’re giving me as a gift. Right. And that, that is information too, that I’m unaware of or improves my behavior right. To cause less harm. Right. And that’s right. That’s such a gift as Oprah just said. And so like really grounding that in our work and, and creating time for that. Right. right. I think all sins, right. The high-rise unfairness rush, rush, rush, go, go, go with that. Right. Like really creating for those spaces to have those conversations and build those deeper relationships with each other.

Heather Shea:
We love the Adrian Marie Brown. So, so, so good. We will put some of those links in there as well, and one of my favorite books and several of her other things are also great. Oprah final thoughts.

Oprah Jrenal:
Yeah. Well now Petey has got me thinking about emergent strategy also by Adrian Marie Brown, that person.

Oprah Jrenal:
Yeah. That’s on my stack of books right there too. But just what’s the next move. So I’m thinking right now about our pronouns training that we have, you know, it’s a handful of slides and we do some breakout rooms in this and it to the person next to you, whatever practice doing that. And I’m thinking right now, what is the next move to really push folks in continuing their education. And we have some pieces, you know, we, we try to deconstruct gender, talk about gender attribution versus versus identity versus expression versus your birth assigned sex and all that. But I’m really thinking like, what is the, what’s the real tripping point for folks in all of this, like DEI, social justice, equity stuff. Like what, what are the handful of tripping points where folks are like, you’re either in it or they’re out of it completely.

Oprah Jrenal:
And then there are those folks to kind of dabble, but I’m really like, I want folks with a bunch of privilege, right? If you are white, cisgender straight, like whatever the privilege is to do whatever work you have to do to reclaim that part of your humanity, that can love a trans person and see them as fully human and whole and beautiful the way that you see cis-gender people as fully, whole and beautiful. And I would want a white person to also reclaim that part of their humanity and their soul. Jessie Biel taught me about this in case they’re watching. Hello. but you know, I would also want a white person to reclaim that part of their soul and humanity that can love a black person, a native indigenous Aboriginal person, just as much as they love a white person and see their full humanity and grant them that like, and not have to make people who are different from you work for it.

Oprah Jrenal:
So I’m thinking about a lot of things, like how do we take this to the next level? Because our students deserve it and our faculty and staff deserve it and our visitors to our campus deserve it. And the experiences of people are too drastic across campus. Like one department is getting better than the other office over there, and that department is completely botching it. And I just want, I want more of a, I want our students to be able to exist outside of our office. Like better than they are right now. Thinking about a lot.

Heather Shea:
Yeah. Wow. Sorry. I got a little teary for a second there as you were talking Oprah. So thank you for, at the end of the day, the end of the podcast Alex, your final thoughts,

Alex C. Lange:
Can you just insert these before Oprah’s and then have Oprah’s and this out today? No, that was what both my colleagues shared was really gorgeous. I think that for me, I I’m a life. My like lifelong purpose goal mission is really to understand practices that instill humanity in people and practice it and sort of deconstruct practices that de-humanize people often. And I think that I’m thinking about now is how we all have names ways we want to be referred to as, and that I want folks to imagine if someone just completely denied that to you upfront and upright, right. That in some ways is a dehumanization practice, right? To sort of say, to take away the very agency of naming yourself or name, or have a controlling the way you want to be referred to as, and how for everyone else that would sort of be a huge humanitarian crisis for them.

Alex C. Lange:
But that’s sort of what’s happening every day on our campuses, right? It’s people are making decisions about other people’s humanity all the time. And sort of saying, you are human or you are not human. If you do or do not do this X, Y, and Z. So I’m thinking a lot about starting people really like grounding themselves in humility and really thinking about starting from where they are. Right. Do not do not try and be. I think we all are very clear as to what one-on-one information is. I think we’re all a lot less clear what 102 information is. Cause we’re trying to get everyone to one-on-one to then dream of 102. And I think that I don’t want people to, as I think Oprah whisks doesn’t really sort of rush to the advanced levels before we all get the sort of baseline down because the baseline is what we need to build the basement of the house before we can build the first floor, right. We need to build the first floor before we can build the second floor. And so these, these steps are important and I think if you take nothing else away from this episode is to understand that we just talked for 40 plus minutes about these terms that just are so ubiquitous in our language, but they have larger meaning and impact than we ever give them credit for.

Heather Shea:
Yeah. I had no doubt. We would be able to do that talk for 40 minutes, 40 plus minutes at all, because you all are amazing guests and I am so grateful for your time and for all of the energy that you put in to this to this conversation, and I do believe this is a, you know, a service, right. And that this goes out into the world. And hopefully it does good. So thank you so much for your time. Also sending heartfelt appreciation for our dedicated behind the scenes, assistant Nat Ambrosey. Thank you for all that you do to make us look, sound transcribe out all the words. Thank you so much Nat. If you are listening to a podcast and not receiving our weekly newsletter, please visit our website, scroll to the bottom, and we’ll add you to our MailChimp list.

Heather Shea:
We also have a growing archive of great episodes like this, but across a variety of topics on Student Affairs NOW. And if you found this conversation helpful, share it with colleagues, students, subscribe, et cetera, all the, all the things final heartfelt shout out to our sponsors. So just a little bit more about each of them. We really appreciate their support. As I said at the beginning of this episode is sponsored by Anthology transform your student experience advanced co-curricular learning with Anthology Engage. With this technology platform. You are able to easily manage student organizations, efficiently plan events, and truly understand student involvement to continuously improve your engagement efforts at your institution. Learn more by visiting anthology.com/engage. And second sponsor is LeaderShape. LeaderShape partners with colleges and universities to create transformational leadership experiences, both virtual and in person for students and professionals with a focus on creating a more just caring and thriving world. LeaderShape offers engaging learning experiences on courageous dialogue, integrity, equity, resilience, and community building. To find out more please visit https://www.leadershape.org/VirtualPrograms or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. To all of our audience and listeners. Thank you for joining us today on Student Affairs Now. Again, my name is Heather Shea. Thanks for spending time with us listening, watching, and engaging. I hope you enjoyed this episode wherever you are, go out and make it a good day.

Websites: 

https://www.mypronouns.org

https://pronounsday.org

Books: 

Jaekel, K. S., Catalano, D. C. J. (2019). What are the risks of assuming the sharing of proper pronouns is a best practice for trans* inclusion? In P. Magolda, M. B. Baxter Magolda, & R. Carducci (Eds.), Contested issues in troubled times: Student affairs dialogue on equity, civility, and safety. Stylus. 

Nicolazzo, Z. (2019). What happens to a dream deferred? Sharing proper pronouns as an act of gender self-determination. In P. Magolda, M. B. Baxter Magolda, & R. Carducci (Eds.), Contested issues in troubled times: Student affairs dialogue on equity, civility, and safety. Stylus. 

Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Modern Manual By And For Trans People:

Articles: 

Spade, D. “We still need pronoun go-arounds”

Trevor Project Survey Oprah

Tema Okun White Supremacy Culture Oprah

International Pronoun Day Resource Page & home work/practice sheets!!!