Educating yourself, listening to others and putting your preconceived biases, misperceptions and misinterpretations away will help in understanding trans, nonbinary and gender fluid identifying individuals’ experiences.
A great way to start in social conscious education is the Transgender 101 training which is a supplemental portion of the larger Safe Zone Training program.
The training is open to anyone. Students are encouraged to come but it is taught through a faculty lens because the University of Idaho awards placards to faculty members who attend Safe Zone training. These placards hang outside their office by their name as a sign to students they are a safe space to go and they either understand what they are going through or will try their best to support them.
“I think pronouns are very important,” Ace Mordhorst, a nonbinary student at UI said. “One thing I like to mention is usually people ask for the pronouns of dogs and it seems kind of silly to me. Why would you not extend that same kind of respect to a person?”
When it comes to supporting gender nonconforming students and understanding pronoun identities, the best thing to do is try your best.
“Misgendering happens,” Mordhorst said. “Usually it’s not on purpose or it’s because you haven’t adjusted your mindset to see this person, an AFAB person, assigned female at birth as a male person yet and you’re still adjusting to that kind of social situation.”
The Transgender 101 training is hosted by Julia Keleher, the LGBTQA+ office coordinator and singular professional staff-member of that office.
She begins with education on the basics; definitions, statistics, terminology and etiquette, then she opens the floor to discussion-based interactions between audience members and student panelists.
“It’s kind of a combination of best practices for serving students in general at our University, with that connection of being a trans person on our campus,” Keleher said. “Pronouns, classroom climate, social development… just a large variety of different topics that really relate to basic experience on campus climate.”
Carson Poertner said he has experienced the training on both sides as an undergraduate student and full-time university staff member, and sees the value of the training in the capacity of being a trans individual himself.
“A lot of times the genuine and authentic dialogue really does promote collaboration and communication,” Poertner said.
Every training session will be different because a lot of the training is based on the questions and interactions between the members who are in the audience and those individuals on the panels.
“Like any presentation I like to provide, it’s really dictated by who’s there and what people are interested in and the conversations we’re going to have,” Keleher said.
Keleher, Mordhorst and Poertner each acknowledged the individuality and non-monolithic experience of each individual’s personal experience with gender and the importance of listening to people.
These trainings are typically available two or three times a year through the LGBTQA+ Office and those who are interested can sign up through the University of Idaho’s Employee Development and Learning Department. The next training will likely occur in the fall semester of 2021.
Paige Fiske can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @paige_fiske10