A potentially trans student is misgendered in university records. What should I do?

Question

I have noticed* that an undergrad student in a course I teach has "female" written in the "gender" field in the university intranet database (used for course enrollment, grading, etc.), although they present themselves as male in terms of appearance and pronouns.

I would have chalked it up to a simple clerical error, but then I realized that the student's name also is of a somewhat unisex character (it's common for men but not entirely rare for women as well, think "Andy"), so there is a small but nonzero probability the student is actually trans.

Of course I could just ignore the issue completely, but that would mean the wrong gender would keep being shown to dozens of other teachers for years to come, and that might put the student into all kinds of uncomfortable situations.

I'm thus trying to balance the invasion of the student's privacy by bringing this up in some way vs the invasion of their privacy caused by the problematic gender field in the database.

I was thinking about sending them a short e-mail along the lines of:

Dear Student, I have noticed the university records show your gender as female. Should you want to have that corrected, contact the Department of Student Affairs. Feel free to ignore this message if it is not relevant, I don't expect a reply.

Is there a better (read: more respectful, safer, less likely to come across as super creepy) course of action?

*: Noticing this didn't require any investigation whatsoever. When I open the teacher dashboard for my course,I am presented with a list of students. One entry in that list looks like

Andy Smith (F) (photo of a bearded dude)

That's not really easy to miss in a list with less than 30 rows.

Answer 1

If you must do something (an assumption I would encourage you to question), then probably the best way to help the student avoid uncomfortable situations, without actually putting them in exactly the kind of uncomfortable situation you are trying to spare them, is to alert your university’s registrar to the potential error. The registrar would be in a better position to check whether this is in fact a clerical error or something that is in accordance with the student’s wishes. And the student would probably perceive an email from an anonymous registrar staff member discussing the option of correcting an incorrect entry in their university records as a lot less creepy than a similar email coming from their professor.

Edit: see also the comment by @niemiro, who said that “The registrar could send an email containing every field in the database for that student and ask for confirmation that it’s all still correct”. If/when you email the registrar, you can suggest to them this approach to minimize any creepiness factor and avoid a risk of accidentally outing the student.

Other than this idea, doing nothing is a viable, and, in my opinion, completely satisfactory approach to handling a “problem” that you neither know with certainty is actually a problem, nor falls anywhere near your actual professional duties with respect to the student in question.

Answer 2

an undergrad student in a course I teach

Your job is teaching this student. The gender in the university records has no relevance to that job that I can think of. Don't do anything unless the student asks you for help with the record.

wrong gender would keep being shown to dozens of other teachers for years to come

That's true, but I do not see what is has to do with your responsibilities to the student. Sensible faculty know that student records are full of errors, and quite frequently lack student's preferred names, such as Andy instead of Andrew.

Is there a better course of action?

If you want to address students by their correct pronoun, invite all of them to identify their pronoun at the start of the course.

Answer 3

By the use of the word "corrected" you are making an assumption. If they haven't made any declaration then don't act on such assumptions.

You could just leave it alone, and if the student wants it changed they will probably act on it. But at most, tell them that they should (might want to) review their student records with the appropriate office to decide on any desired changes.

I'd guess there are students of university age struggling with who they are. To some extend we all experienced that, perhaps.

Answer 4

Sometime every year, the central admin at my university asks me (faculty) to check the correctness of the various bits of "information" they have for me. Sure, address, phone, next-of-kin (in case of accident?), and mostly mundane-though-personal things. This also includes expressions of preference about whether bits of info will be publicly accessible, or not. In the past, the default seemed to have been that lots of stuff was public, but not so much now.

Assuming that students have the same option to adjust/update their "personal information", you should just give a blanket encouragement to students... for gender-related but many more... reasons, to be sure to look at the univ's "personal info + preferences" file for them, and update as needed.

I think this approach would avoid a lot of the invasiveness and potential insensitivity/presumption about dealing directly with the specific possible issue-at-hand.

Answer 5

I suspect that what has happened here is that your student doesn't realise that their registered gender need not match their passport/ID card/birth certificate. So when they filled out the form, they put down the gender they thought they were obliged to use, even though actually they could have picked the right option.

There is also a non-zero chance that some years ago, when they filled out the form, they weren't sure, but now they are more settled. Statistically, an undergraduate is right in the age band where that can happen, and testosterone acts very fast. It might only take a year to acquire a good beard.

Either way, I agree with the answers that suggest a blanket email rather than targeting this student. Is there an LGBT organisation at the university? Maybe you could ask them to send an email around explaining that;

• The university welcomes folks of all gender, and respects the gender that students self-id as.
• Any student is welcome to change their gender marker in the university database. It need not match any other documents.
• That can be done by going to https://..... and clicking on blah

If your student is actually trans it's reasonably likely they open an email with something like "encouraging gender self-id" in the header. Of course, it may be that they don't read their email much at all, but we must live in hope.

Answer 6

The intent is good.

I would find a way to do it that’s less likely to be professionally dubious and to the student, alarming/creepy/distressing, though. Which is the likely outcome, handled that way.

I have noticed that an undergrad student in a course I teach...

This is the key, and it’s all that is needed.

If you teach in person, then good, ask them to hold back a moment after a class or supervision session. If not, consider if it’s better to email or ask if you can have a word (adding also "it’s nothing bad, a course admin thing I need to check").

Then simply say something like this:

Hi! It’s nothing big. I wanted to double check what pronouns you want me to use when we talk [or work/during supervisions/whatever, pick one as appropriate]. It matters to get them right and I’d like to be sure rather than make a mistake.

That way you’re using a legitimate reason, that they are your student and you will at some time have to communicate to them, or with them, or about them, to someone or other, be it written course correspondence, exams, informal, educational Q&A, discussions with other staff, whatever. So you want to double check what's right, to not make a hurtful thoughtless mistake.

That’s legitimate. It comes over well. And it doesn’t sound like you trawled records. They’ll probably like and appreciate the care involved, which indeed you show.

If you feel this could be an issue affecting others, it’s also not a bad thing to ask all your students at some convenient time, and let them know its okay to advise of pronouns if they wish. Treat it like any admin thing, as routine as letting them know next class time or handing out coursework.

Hi! Before we start, I have a small administrative thing. I'm updating my records, and I like to check along with names, if anyone has pronouns that they want to let me know. For reference, mine are [whatever]. If anyone wants to make sure my records are correct, please catch me some time or drop me an email. And now, back to (subject).

The people, to whom it matters, will very much notice the invitation.

Answer 7

I was thinking about sending them a short e-mail along the lines of:

Dear Student, I have noticed the university records show your gender as female. Should you want to have that corrected, contact the Department of Student Affairs. Feel free to ignore this message if it is not relevant, I don't expect a reply.

This is a good approach, but I might tweak the wording a little, e.g.:

...You may already be aware of this, but if not, Student Affairs would be the department to talk to about updating that information.

You're right to take this to the student first and only. Never ever out somebody as trans or maybe-trans without their consent. Let Andy decide whether to take this further.

For a variety of reasons, it's possible that Andy is aware of the record and either doesn't want to change it, or isn't able to change it. Sometimes it's hard, expensive, or even impossible for trans people to get gender markers changed on official docs (e.g. the university requires amended birth certificate, but issuing state refuses to amend).

There can be safety considerations here — Andy might not feel comfortable having such a request on record, or might not want his parents seeing letters addressed to "Mr. Andy Smith".

There can also be administrative reasons, e.g. I know of trans men who've had insurance claims for health services denied because the insurer had a hardcoded rule saying that men couldn't have pap tests.

So, by all means let the student know what's on the record, but don't assume they haven't considered changing it.

Answer 8

99% of students see themselves as either male or female. Among bearded blokes named Andy the percentage may be higher.

A simple question to the person: “Hi, according to the student database you are female. Is that correct?” will give the student an opportunity to either tell you it’s correct, or to fix a mistake. And there’s the possibility that the wrong picture ended up on the database.

And please nothing like “should you want that corrected” - here you are making assumptions. A simple question makes no assumptions. If I was Andy and you said I was a “potentially trans student”, I’d be very annoyed about you making assumptions. PS. I know a lady whose complete name is the same as mine except for one letter. Had we been at the same university, any mixups wouldn’t have been too surprising.

Answer 9

Very hidden in the comments to the question, the OP states

"the student uses male pronouns."

There you go. You absolutely do not need any other information, and if you feel the urge of taking actions, simply write to the maintainer of the database or to the relevant office and point out there is a typo in that database field, but as other already pointed out, it is best to leave that to the student themselves.

Answer 10

You are seeing the tip of a tree, but there is a forest that you need to burn down as fast as possible: why are students' genders recorded?

The student can take care of themselves. Maybe it has already been done, and maybe they will be a female in three months, who knows. Maybe they already are, and this is none of your business.

You can start a movement to ban the recording of gender in students' registers.