'I had no idea how I would tell a teacher:' gender pronouns aren't on rosters

Several times a day, Finn Loendorf faces two doors — bathroom doors. Both are labeled with simple, geometrically shaped stick figures: a slender man on one door and a woman in a dress on the other. The people are black and white — but for Loendorf, gender is something much grayer.

Neither door works well for Loendorf, who uses they/them pronouns.

Loendorf, a first-year, said they began experimenting with they/them pronouns their senior year of high school, but only with close friends.

“She/her didn’t really describe me as much as I feel like it should,” they said. “But neither does he/him. So I felt like they/them was a good middle ground, and I’ve really enjoyed people using they/them with me.”

Loendorf said they have just recently become comfortable correcting people who use the wrong pronouns. But they said many times they resist the urge to correct people.

Loendorf said because they are registered as female in the University’s database, but identify as they/them, some situations can get awkward.

“One time someone put up a sign that said, ‘Hey, ladies, please close the doors, the temperature’s dropping,’” they said. “It seems harmless, but not when you consider the fact that not everyone in the suite considers themselves a ‘lady.’”

These situations extend throughout their entire university life, Loendorf said. Everything from classroom situations to everyday conversation can become stressful.

“I was very, very nervous my first day of classes. I had no idea how I would tell a teacher I use they/them,” they said.

In the current version of ConnectCarolina, students’ pronouns are not included on teachers’ rosters.

Maribel Carrion, Information Technology Services’ director of business applications, said there are certain implications to building pronouns into the system.

“It would take a request, time, effort and someone has to pay for it,” she said.

She said there has been no request to include gender pronouns in the system yet.

Loendorf said being called by the wrong pronoun is jarring. “The teachers aren’t doing it on purpose. They just don’t know,” Loendorf said.

“I think it would be really cool to put your preferred pronoun so it shows up on the roster. It would make a lot of students more comfortable,” they said. “I feel like a lot of anxiety about the first day of classes would be gone if the school put pronouns in the roster.”

Terri Phoenix, director of the UNC LGBTQ Center, worked with the University to establish a preferred name and preferred pronoun option. Students can now change their legal name to their preferred name in ConnectCarolina — but Phoenix said preferred pronouns remain an issue.

“When teachers get a roster, there is no corresponding pronoun associated with it. So faculty members have to make a decision about how they are going about asking students,” Phoenix said.

Phoenix said the student’s legal sex provided by the student via the Common Application during the admissions process populates many systems on campus.

Since students must provide official documents noting their legal sex, it would be impossible for students to contradict those documents and put a separate preferred pronoun, Phoenix said.

“I think it would be really helpful if there was a way that people could identify what their pronouns were and then that information was automatically uploaded into the system ... so people would have that information and use people’s pronouns correctly.”

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