Syracuse University is far behind the times when it comes to officially recognizing students’ preferred names and pronouns across campus platforms.

In the past, gender-neutral housing and bathrooms have been instituted as a means to better accommodate transgender and gender nonconforming students at SU. But another discussion has been rekindled when it comes to trans* inclusion at SU and the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Keelan Erhard, the co-chair of student life for the Student Association, said in an email to The Daily Orange that there is an initiative on track to be launched next semester that would allow Syracuse University students to enter their preferred name on MySlice. Not only will this take care of nicknames, but this will allow transgender and non-binary students to have their preferred names show up on class rosters.

With this initiative, SA has taken an important step in furthering its allyship with the LGBTQ community. Still, it is imperative that SU allows students to list their preferred name on all official campus mediums — including Blackboard, university email addresses and the SU student directory — in a move to further validate trans* students’ identities at the administrative level.

While the term used is “preferred name,” the importance of these names for trans* students cannot be overstated. Calling a trans* student by the wrong name, or their “dead name,” is incredibly disrespectful, as is using incorrect wrong pronouns when addressing someone.

What’s more is that being called the wrong name and subsequently being misgendered or having to correct professors and give an explanation has the capacity to be a traumatic experience. And as a school that brands itself as progressive and inclusive, SU should be doing everything in its power to ensure trans* students are recognized on their own terms and can specify preferred names and pronouns on MySlice, Blackboard, SU emails and the directory. It is important that birth names are kept on record in some capacity, but are never used on the front-end of any channels.

Looking at some of SU’s peer institutions that accommodate trans* students, using preferred names would not be out of the ordinary. Cornell University allows for primary and preferred names — primary names for degrees and student ID cards, but preferred names for class rosters. Like Cornell, SU peer institutions Georgetown University and Northeastern University, and Northwestern University also extend its preferred name policy to Blackboard.

Considering how commonplace it is to keep a primary name on file for transcripts, financial aid purposes and academic records appears, this update to SU systems is absolutely feasible. Apart from making the Office of the Registrar open to requests for name changes from students, SU can also consider reminding students to update their preferred names and pronouns when they update other personal information on MySlice each semester.

And given that SA — with help from the LGBT Resource Center, Information Technology and Services and the registrar office — has been pushing for a preferred name change option since November 2015, this improvement to campus life has been a long time coming. A student’s name makes up the core of their identity and it’s time for SU to value that as an institution and implement these options as soon as possible.

Published on November 28, 2016 at 3:58 am

Contact: opinion@dailyorange.com