You’re sitting in class like any other day. Maybe you’re paying attention, maybe you’re scrolling through Tumblr. I don’t know and I don’t care.
Then your teacher starts calling on students. He gets to you and calls you John and your stomach drops.
Your classmates are ?confused.
“Who’s John?” they ?wonder.
Who is your professor talking to? Certainly not you. You’re not John. You definitely don’t look like a John. They’re pretty sure your name is Jen.
Such is the life of a transgender student at IU.
I’ve seen this situation happen before. I can’t say it’s happened often, so I can only imagine the number of transgender students who have been outed by a ?professor in class because the roster used their legal name rather than their preferred name.
Or imagine the weird looks or questions they get when they show their student ID to someone and the name doesn’t match the face.
A new policy for IU-Bloomington will hopefully be the end to all of these ?terrifying and awkward ?situations.
According to an IU press release, students can now opt to use their preferred name on their student ?ID cards.
The effort began as a resolution pushed through the IU Student Association. It was written by IUSA student representative and fellow Indiana Daily Student columnist Andrew ?Guenther.
Will Wartenberg, vice president of congress for IUSA, said the resolution passed unanimously and also gained support from the Residence Halls Association and the Graduate and Professional Student Organization.
Though LGBT groups played a role in getting this resolution attention, it will support more than the transgender population of IU students.
The change will also apply to international ?students who would like to use an Anglicized name and any students who submit “valid, appropriate name change requests.”
I’m honestly surprised it took IU this long to apply such a change.
I lost count of how many times my IU tour guide bragged about how ?accepting and LGBT-friendly the campus was.
And even in Lafayette, my home town, where it is taboo to compliment IU, I had work friends and schoolmates who ?acknowledged IU as the most LGBT-friendly ?campus in the state.
In August this year, ?Campus Pride, an ?organization designed to support LGBT groups on college campuses ?throughout the country, ranked IU in its top 50 ?LGBT-friendly colleges and universities.
It just seems as though a campus recognized for its LGBT friendliness would have enacted a change that allows students to go by their preferred ?identity a lot sooner.
But, better late than ?never. Though this was a big step, this is hopefully just one of many to better IU’s support of transgender ?students.
lnbanks@indiana.edu
