Preferred name and pronoun usage, gender-neutral bathrooms and campus safety were key topics at Tuesday night’s Transgender Policy Panel in the Georgian room.
The panel was facilitated by Stop the Kyriarchy, an IU student organization that combats oppression such as racism, sexism and homophobia.
The panel consisted of Associate Dean of Students Carol McCord, Assistant Director for Diversity Education Barry Magee, freshman Leo Mohlke, sophomore Josie Wenig, senior Ethan Jackson and IU alumna Kayleigh Renner.
Mohlke’s experience as a transgender student at IU has been fairly positive so far, he said. When RPS contacted him after he identified as transgender they sent him photos of the bathroom options available so that he would be able to shower and change comfortably.
Increasing gender-neutral bathrooms on campus is an ongoing issue that RPS is looking to fix, Magee said.
Residence buildings such as McNutt and Teter were renovated to have all single occupancy bathrooms for the comfort of all students, not just transgender students, Magee said.
The process of adding more single occupancy bathrooms is slow, though, because of the amount of work and money it takes to renovate the older residence halls, Magee said.
“My role in the residence hall is trying to create spaces that are accommodating and welcoming to all students regardless of how they identify,” Magee said.
The issue of preferred name and pronoun usage also extends past the transgender community as well. Issues of identification can be frustrating for international students adopting Americanized names, as well, Magee said.
For this reason, IU is looking to make their student ID name policy more consistent. Right now, some students’ IDs have preferred names while others have primary or legal names.
This can cause confusion for everyday occurrences such as visiting the health center or taking an exam.
This was the case for Jackson. While taking a Kelley School of Business exam, Jackson’s professor suggested he was cheating because his ID did not match his preferred name on the class roster. Jackson was then obligated to out himself as transgender to clarify.
These types of policy changes come from the grassroots, McCord said. It’s stories like Jackson’s that encourage change.
“The reality of life is, life’s hard enough,” McCord said. “We want students to be able to be here to study and focus on things they’re trying to do to succeed. I don’t want people to have to deal with those types of embarrassments, discomforts that we could help alleviate by changing how we manage things.”
This kind of modification will come from a greater shift in culture, McCord said.
When asked what they’d like to see changed before they leave IU, undergraduates said they’d like to see a shift in social thinking on the IU campus.
“I would like to see a change in culture or the informal policies that govern how things go down,” Wenig said. “Even if we change the policies so that trans students can have their names on things and have gender-neutral bathrooms, if there’s not larger efforts to educate all students about trans people, trans issues (and) trans safety then there’s still going to be a lot of issues of safety.”
