Your University Should Have A Gender Transition Guide. Here's How To Write One.
On how to help trans students at your school.
Last week, I visited the University of Virginia to give a seminar for the Biomedical Engineering department. My talk focused on the importance of creating making universities (especially STEM programs) more trans-inclusive, providing a brief overview of biological essentialism and giving tons of actionable items that STEM departments can take to support their transgender students. (By the way, if you want me to come talk to your university to give a similar talk, please reach out!) I also got to have deep conversations with lots of faculty & grad students across UVA about everything from DEI initiatives to AI learning tools. It was such an enriching trip and I’m grateful to everyone I spoke to!
More than one faculty brought up the idea of making a “transition guide” for students in their department. A transition guide is a list of resources—a website, document, or otherwise—that assists students who are pursuing a gender transition at a given university or workplace. While no single document can encompass all the many resources that a trans person needs—it takes a village!—it’s important that universities provide easily-accessible resources for changing one’s name, accessing gender-affirming care, and more for their transgender students.
This week, I thought I would provide some pointers on how universities—or even individual departments—can create a gender transition guide for their students. Hopefully, such a document can be widely distributed, easily accessible, and updated regularly so that any trans student (or any kind of trans employee/community member) at your university can find it and follow its steps exactly!
I hope this piece helps you undertake the mission of writing a transition guide, or helping some other department at your school to write their own guide. I’ll link to a few great transition guides that can serve as a model for your own; UMass Amherst, my current place of work, has the best guide I’ve seen, which is part of why we’re in the Top 5 public universities for LGBTQ+ students in terms of policies and practices. In other words, if you want to get your own school up to speed with the best of the best in the game, this is the article for you.
Oh, and to make things even easier for you, here’s a Google Doc version so you can just fill in the blanks. You’re welcome! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VfaX3ZaJx0CTVo9cntfFn_MoysQs5oP3Oq63TaVZP_Q/edit?usp=sharing
What To Put In A Transition Guide
Name/Pronoun Change Info
The most common thing trans students look for is how to change their name in the various systems at their college, from their student ID to their transcript. Many (though not all) trans people change their legal name as part of their transition, so it’s important that this new name is reflected on as many documents as possible. Unfortunately, changing your name at a modern University is usually not as simple as walking into one office; unless your campus tech is super advanced, it’s rare for a name change in one online system to automatically update a name in another system. As a result, transitioning students may have to send dozens of emails to bespoke offices that most students never need to access in hopes of having their chosen name recognized. There are also some systems with built-in Chosen Name functionality (e.g., Learning Management Systems) where changing your name is as easy as a few menu clicks, while other systems require a person to have their name change legally recognized by the government (e.g., Human Resources may require a Social Security Card with the new name). Depending on what stage a person is at in their transition, they may be using their new name with their peers, but have not yet gotten their name legally changed, since that often costs a lot of money and time.
Finally—and this is very important—some students might want to use their new name at school, but not their households, due to a fear of transphobic backlash from their parents/guardians. A student may need to navigate a scenario where their name is reflected on their Learning Management System and UCard, but not on any documents that get sent home to their parents (transcript, Bursar’s Office documents, other random mail, etc.) In short, the best transition guides should denote (1) which name change processes require a legal name change document and (2) which name changes are visible only to students/faculty/staff and which are visible to parents! Mind you, all of this goes double for a student’s chosen pronouns, privacy and all, plus a student may want to change their actual university email address, not just the alias attached to it.
A trans student may need to change their name and/or pronouns in any or all of the following places, all of which need to be reflected in your gender transition guide…
Class Roster/NetID/Learning Management System (SPIRE, Canvas, Blackboard, etc.)
Physical Student/Employee ID card, including the picture that’s on it (updating your student ID at UConn normally costs $10, but when the person at the office saw why I was changing my name, she let me do it for free; it was unclear if this was just a cool ally move or actual University policy, but ideally it should be policy that students undergoing a gender transition can get a new ID card for free!)
University “People Finder” / Online Directory
Human Resources (if the person is employed at the university, e.g. graduate students or work-study students)
Email address (some universities allow multiple emails to go to the same inbox; for example, UConn gave me “anna[dot]lachance[at]uconn[dot]edu”, but I also created “anna[dot]marie[at]uconn[dot]edu”, all with simple menu options!)
Bursar’s Office / student loan & financial info
Diploma upon graduating
Alumni transcripts, diplomas, etc. (alumni of your university may also want to retroactively change their name on things, so make sure these resources are accessible even to former students!)
Any other systems specific to your school/department
There may be other places a student needs to change their name that are specific to your university or department. For example, the system I used as a grad student to book time on scientific instruments (the XRD, UV-VIS, etc. for the whole research building) were on a completely different Outlook Calendar system. Perhaps your university has completely separate systems for things like dining halls, housing, employee resources, and more. Make sure this info is on hand for whatever context you work in; really think hard about every place you need to use your name or employee ID to access something!
Policies on Non-Discrimination / Title IX
Trans people face discrimination on the basis of being trans (do I even need a reference for that statement??) so it’s great to have all the policies and practices related to protecting transgender people in one place. Some questions that a trans student might need to ask include…
Does our university cover trans people in its nondiscrimination policy?
Where can I report cases of discrimination, including repeated misgendering?
How should my approach to reporting harassment change if I’m being misgendered by a fellow student vs a faculty/staff vs another on-campus employer?
Which employees are mandatory reporters for sexual assault/harassment?
You can also consider having a list of who in your department has received LGBTQ+ Allyship training and is thus safe to talk to about discriminatory behavior. Ideally, everyone should take this training; perhaps your department can arrange an event where you all take the training and then go out to lunch afterward (paid for by the department, of course) to collectively reflect on what you learned? Just an idea!
Bathrooms
Related to legal issues, a student may be curious if there’s a policy on bathroom access for trans people. Very few colleges have formal policies on the rights of trans people in campus bathrooms (with UMass being one of those few). Even if your school doesn’t have a formal policy like this, you can still compile a list of your campus’ gender-neutral restrooms. Your university’s LGBTQ center may already have a list like this, or if you’re making a department-specific guide, you can narrow your guide’s focus on your research buildings.
Lastly, if you know of a single-use restroom in your research building that isn’t denoted as being All-Gender or isn’t on the biggest campus list, contact Facilities about getting new signage! It’s very common for STEM departments to have gender-neutral bathrooms that aren’t on the campus’ LGBTQ Center’s list, since it’s not common for LGBTQ groups to have relationships with us STEM folks. You can change that today by sending a simple email!
Housing
Where can a student find trans-friendly housing? Does your campus have Gender-Inclusive dorms? What are some local Facebook groups devoted to finding trans-friendly housing nearby? Aside from specifically trans-friendly housing, how does your campus’ Residential Life handle housing assignments for trans students (e.g., Are trans women housed with cis women? How are non-binary people assigned to roommates?) Answering these questions is key to a happy, safe undergraduate experience at your university!
Health Care
Does your campus’ student health insurance cover gender-affirming care? If so, what kinds of care? If students/employees are allowed multiple insurance options, which provide the most gender-affirming care options? You’ll earn big bonus points if you can point students to resources for gender-affirming care outside of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and surgery, such as voice and speech therapy, fertility services, and sexual health services (which UCSF’s guide does!) If your university doesn’t offer any of these things in-house, you can point readers to a nearby hospital or support group.
I imagine it gets into tricky legal territory to have an official University Document that “recommends” one insurance plan over another. This may be something that’s best left to the realm of trans students sharing their own personal advice with other trans students. I just know that it was quite frustrating when I first started my UMass faculty job when I picked an insurance plan that *seemed* like it covered gender affirming care, only to later find out that it does not cover FFS, thus delaying my surgery another year to wait for the next Open Enrollment period. If you have trans students/colleagues who can provide recommendations, please connect them with newer trans students so these tips can be shared!
You should also include whatever mental health counseling services your university already has to offer. I suggest looking into whether these counselors are trans-affirming; when I came out at UConn in 2017, I was seeing a counselor at Student Health & Wellness, who told me that nobody there could help me with my gender transition, and that nobody there was willing to write me a referral to an endocrinologist…big yikes. For all of these health-related items, if there’s a specific provider (e.g., a trans provider or one who handles most trans patients) who students should be asking for, write their name down in your guide.
Athletics
Trans people belong everywhere, including sports. Much like policies around bathrooms, you should look into the policies about how your student recreation center or gym is accommodating for trans students. Also, you should find out what the policies are for both campus (non-NCAA) and intercollegiate (NCAA) sports. Again, UMass has the best policies I’ve seen here.
Other Key Players
No matter how good your guide is, sometimes it’s easier just to talk to a human being about how the university can serve its trans population. Ideally, every office on campus should have at least a few key individuals who are certified trans-friendly; the UMass Transition Guide has a list of staff, administrators, and offices that have received allyship training so that anything not directly addressed in your guide can be worked answered by an affirming, caring person. You can also point readers in the direction of employee resource groups, clubs on campus, non-campus-affiliated support groups like PFLAG chapters, and any other groups of people who exist to support trans & non-binary people, either on campus or in your area!
Transition Planning/Announcements
Something you may consider is providing students with suggestions for the actual coming out process. In fact, most of UConn’s gender transition guide is centered on creating a “transition team”, a group of people chosen by a mostly-closeted trans student to help them create and execute a plan to come out within the university. This actually does mirror the sort of strategy I personally used to come out back in 2017; I told my PhD advisor, department head, and a few other key individuals at various power levels at UConn who I knew could advocate for me and help announce my transition to those who needed to know (perhaps a story for another time!)
Mind you, every transition is different, and the degree to which any given trans students’ new name and pronouns should be used publicly is 100% up to them. Discretion is key; the transitioning person should have complete control over who knows about their transition and when they get to know!
I can’t think of a single trans person who would want an email blasted out to the whole university with their deadname. That said, it may be useful for a select group of people to be told, as professionally as possible, that someone has a new preferred name and set of pronouns. For example, a department head may email a few key faculty members and staff within their own department, such as that student’s current instructors. Cornell’s transition guide has a great sample email that could be used in this scenario.
Aside from announcing a students’ new name and pronouns, a transition team can help a student decide some other key transition factors, including…
Determining when the individual will begin presenting in accord with their gender identity
Determining when the individual will begin using the sex-segregated facilities that match their gender identity
Facilitating the creation of gender neutral facilities where practicable
Accommodating any leave time that they need for medical procedures
Identifying any potential roadblocks to transition and creating strategies for addressing them
Creating a communication plan that includes when and how this will be communicated and to whom.
Key Terminology & Language
This should probably go first or last in your document if you choose to include it, in the form of an Appendix or as a list of acronyms/key terms before the main body of any report. This is so that all readers—the transitioning person and their care team—can all be on the same page. Define terms like gender expression, gender identity, assigned sex and birth, gender-affirming surgery, and more; see some other guides for examples. UConn’s employee guide even contains a table of outdated/problematic terms alongside the correct/modern terms and the rationale for using them, which is useful for those whose understanding of trans people comes from popular media (i.e., most cis people).
And Now, Even More Tips!
Tip #1: Don’t Reinvent The Wheel
You probably (hopefully!) don’t have to start this guide from scratch. Your campus LGBTQ+ center or DEI office may already have something like this, even if it’s a very barebones version. Look at what your university already has—and what other universities already have—and build on that (again, I have a “fill in the blanks” version here). If your university has a guide which doesn’t have all the info I mentioned above, consider working with its authors to update/expand it!
Here are some of the best transition guides I’ve seen, which you can use as a model:
UMass — the best guide in the business!
UConn — includes info on Transition Teams
UConn also has a separate guide for creating a trans-inclusive workplace, which serves as a nice companion piece
Cornell — includes a sample transition plan and announcement email
USCF — gets bonus points for their extensive list of health services
UVA — has some nice touches, including a downloadable transition reflection journal, non-UVA groups like Charlottesville Pride, separate guides for students and faculty/staff, and info for alumni.
Tip #2: Talk To Your Trans Students!
You may not have the answers to a lot of these questions, but do you know who probably does? Trans students! Involving actual trans students in the creation of your campus transition guide will make it far more relevant to what their actual needs are. If you don’t involve students, there could be a lot that you overlook simply because it’s not your experience.
Remember to distribute this workload equitably: try to do as much of the fact-finding as you can before handing it off to your beloved trans community members (it’s unpaid labor, after all, so you may as well make it easy for them). If you’re a university employee, it’s your job to support students, and most of these questions should be Google-able, so find what you can before having others fill in the gaps.
Tip #3: Make It Accessible
This means two things: (1) format your document in such a way that it can be read by people with disabilities and (2) make it easy to find! If a transition guide is buried on a website nobody knows how to access, or exists only as a PDF on some random staffer’s computer, does it even exist at all? You (or someone) worked hard on this document, so it should be displayed loud and proud in as many places as possible!
You can hand it to every new employee on day one. You can make it known to every freshman during orientation. You can discuss it at faculty meetings once every other year. If you’re in charge of maintaining it, you can check it every few months to make sure none of the links are broken and that the information is up-to-date.
Tip #4: Don’t Give Up!
You will hit roadblocks in finding some of this information. You will face pushback for insisting that the campus even needs a guide like this (“it’s all Google-able anyway, so what’s the point?”) Be persistent. There will be a young trans person someday who needs this information; perhaps there already is one who needs it yesterday!
Here’s a phrase you need to keep in your back pocket whenever you do advocacy work at any university: “peer and aspirant institutions”. Admins won’t care if you’re doing something for the sake of doing it, but if you remind them that some other university they’re trying to compete with is doing it, they’re more likely to hear you out. An R1 research institution will wave their hands at the actions of a small liberal arts college, but once they hear that MIT is working on this stuff too, that might catch their attention. You have to learn to speak their language; making this guide will drive up enrollment, it will increase metrics like student sense of belonging, it will get us recognition on some list of the best universities, it aligns with our strategic plan/DEI mission statement, etc. Don’t give up; you got this!!
Tip #5: Go Even Further
What else can you add that no other guide has? What’s special about your university that ought to be highlighted here? Who can you work with to make your guide as accessible as possible? Instead of a boring list of links, can you add color & graphics to your guide? Are there any research groups on campus that are being led by trans faculty, or research projects that focus on improving the lives of LGBTQ+ people? There is a whole world of untapped potential here! We haven’t even touched upon the intersections of gender and race, or how some of these resources are only accessible to those with disposable income. After all, most LGBTQ+ spaces are predominantly white; what specific community groups in your area are made by and for Black queer people, Indigenous queer/two-spirit folks, or other queer people of color?
You may be disappointed to find that your university’s policies and practices are not even close to where they should be. That stinks, but it’s an opportunity for change. With the tips I’ve given you—and UMass Amherst as an excellent model—you can organize for change at a systemic level! Get a few trusted friends together, make key allies within the administration, and you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish. Remember that a rising tide lifts all boats; if you help the most marginalized people in the room, everybody wins.
Currently Reading
I’m always skeptical of mapping personal human emotions (e.g., trauma) onto populations, but this article makes a compelling case for why we’re all so damn traumatized.
A short piece and a long piece on why everything is a grift nowadays.
The trans community is in need of more pieces outlining the differences between transsexuals and transgender people, and this piece by Lithium does a great job at that, despite seeming inflammatory at first.
Watch History
Another certified Lily Alexandre banger, this time on why 2010s pop feminism did far worse than fail to meet its goals; rather, it had terrible goals, and it met them.
An explanation for why popular music has become homogenous (hint: it’s capitalism’s fault!!)
A more wholesome video (Tears of the Kingdom spoilers, I guess?? not really???)
Bops, Vibes, & Jams
SO much good new music came out these past two weeks that I’m still pouring over, from new Mitski, to new Alan Palomo, to new Doja Cat. This week, however, I’m going to recommend you the latest Chair album. They’re an incredibly funky Japanese city pop band whose new self-titled album features bops like “PARA PARA” and “GAME”.
Also, Chappell Roan’s new album lives up to the hype, from sad gay anthems to happy gay anthems (the two genders). Check it out!
And now, your weekly Koko.
That’s all for now! See you next week with more sweet, sweet content.
In solidarity,
-Anna
P.S. I’m more than happy to receive feedback on this piece! What did I miss? What would have helped you in your transition if you were still in college? Feel free to leave a comment below, or send me an email at hello[at]ThatAnnaMarie.com :)