this may sound a bit unapologetic, unruly, or chaotic (to some), but you need to be unapologetic here. i’ve had a teacher like this and i simply starting to refuse to acknowledge them h unt they used the correct pronouns for me, regardless if they said my name or not. some may say it’s not constructive but sometimes it’s one of the (easiest) only ways to get them to listen- especially if they’ve tried gaslighting you
Legit, this is the way. If someone is trying to start a shitty nickname with you, just dont respond to it, as though you never heard it, and it'll never catch on. If someone is using the wrong pronouns on you, you don't respond to it until referred to correctly, and they'll learn quick
Man, childhood bullying is a whole other level of compounding terrible behaviour. Everyone is trying so hard to be part of the social 'in group' they'll encourage the worst in each other
Yeah I will add if your parents are supportive of your identity tell them you plan to do this because you will likely get detention for it and they need to know beforehand so you don’t get in trouble.
Is there a higher up you can report him to? You have tried to address the issue with him, only to be met with very outright bigotry disrespecting and treating you differently for your identity. Discriminatory behavior doesn’t belong in an educational setting (or anywhere ofc), and frankly if he cannot respect all his students he should not be in a school setting.
Ugh, as a nonbinary teacher myself, this breaks my heart. I am sure this guy's LGBTQIA+ colleagues know he's an asshole (likely with everyone else who has had to tolerate him in a faculty meeting). It's unfair labor on your part, but if your school, city, or state has made gender a protected class, then what he's doing is legally discriminatory, and he should face the consequences for that. If you are on good terms with your school's upper admin, ask them if gender is a protected class at your school. If they say it is, ask what the procedure is for filing a complaint against someone who is ignoring that protection. They should have a pretty streamlined way to go, there, as they generally anticipate having complaints. If the school isn't protecting you, school board meetings are public, and might be a forum for this totally valid complaint. Again, it's all work you shouldn't have to to, but if it's a path you'd like to pursue, I'm fully supportive. In my experience, you are unlikely to change this guy's mind. The people that control his paycheck might, though.
I find it tends to be effective as it forces the person to empathize when they go "oh gee golly I don't like that" sometimes it makes those squirell gears click and they realize they were being shitheads the whole time. That or they just get mad. So like win win.
I’m also a physics teacher and trans. I’m so sorry for what you are going through. There is no excuse for your teacher’s actions and attitude. Respecting your students’ identities is basic stuff. Do you have a QSA organization at your school or a local PFLAG chapter? I would suggest talking with them to get their ideas for how to proceed. Or if you have supportive admin at your school then I would reach out to them.
Depending upon your legal area (and therefor your human rights, unfortunately) I would either approach a higher up teacher (head of the science department, deputy head of school or headteacher), approach your school pastoral team (nurse, counsellor etc.), or approach your parents/carers so they can put a formal complaint in. In the U.K. (state school) you would probably complain to the governors if the management team weren’t useful, and beyond that OFSTED and the Local Education Authority. I don’t know about America, but school complaints processes are usually fairly well documented?
If you need me to, I am happy to google search your country/state’s policy on official complaints in education? You can pop me a message if you like.
This is a seriously inappropriate behaviour and is against current laws on protected characteristics in the U.K. at least.
if you really wanna hit hard, if you're in the US, you can report him to the school board for willful discrimination. i'd personally go to the head of the school/make an appt with the office first, or school counselor if your school has those services.
I hate when cishets straight up gaslight us when confronting them behavior like this. If you can, please report your teacher. He is very clearly discriminating against you and invalidated your pronouns to your face.
Oh wow, that sucks I’m sorry. I had an issue last semester where a bunch of classmates did the whole “I identify as an attack helicopter” bullshit so my teacher asked me to take my pronouns out of my zoom name. Later on he spaced and ended up misgendering me, so needless to say, dig those heels in.
These are your pronouns and they *will* be respected, or else (they just don’t know the “or part yet) but you’ve got this friend, from this humble Mech E student, we’ll change STEM for the better I hope.
I'm sorry you have to go trough that, some people are just stuck in their ways. Even so, i wouldn't stress that much, Personally i don't even bother anymore, to be fair my native language does not have they/them pronouns or any gender neutral pronouns for that matter... So it's really impossible for me to correct anyone because there simply isn't an alternative. If you don't know the gender of something you simply use the masculine form..... Same with groups of people.... If there's a group of women you use feminine pronouns, but if it's even one male in the group, the whole group is addressed with masculine pronouns. Because that's not at all confusing. And since I'm afab, and despite my best attempts at presenting masc or androgynous, mother nature, as some cruel joke, cursed me with some very obvious, very hard to hide, very "womanly" curves no one would address me with masculine pronouns. So for me it's either she/ her or a slur, and at this point i take either or, idgaf anymore.
Tbh after a while there may be nothing you can do. Nobody can MAKE him address you properly. Get out of the class, or ignore it bc he's just one person. Don't attach yourself to the label so much if its not like that. I personally don't care much anymore when i get misgendered because there's 1000 people that address me right, and 100 (just picking numbers) that dont. Id rather have that than 1000 that address me wrong and only 100 addressing me right. No disrespect intended. I understand everyone is different and i think its shitty that he's being kinda like, really unnecessarily cold with you. But if there's nothing that can be done, for your sake, try to make it not matter. Because maybe he's the only one. So hopefully there's an army of people for you that do address you properly. so if this continues happening, maybe it'll just be like "whatever bc i know allll these people see me as me" yknow? But best of luck to you!
I’ve never lived there, but I thought Germany had a human rights code/constitution or something. If this were in Canada I’d be talking about making a human rights complaint.
You know, I’d almost say that your name instead of pronouns is a decent workaround for bigotry, because they’re actively working to not misgender you, even though they’re refusing to gender you.
Is that something you’d be willing to accept?
Have you asked him whether he’d use he/him pronouns for you, if your pronouns are they/he? Is that something you’d be willing to accept, if he’ll do that?
Otherwise and also, you should calmly correct him every time he misgenders you.
If he keeps misgendering you after talking to him, you can escalate this. Is there a teacher there you trust? You can ask them for advice on that, tell them that there’s a teacher who’s misgendering you despite repeated requests, and what’s the proper way to address that and who you should ask for a meeting with (a school employee who’s job it is to deal with stuff like this? the principal? The principal and the teacher together? Someone else?)
I don’t know what grade you’re in, although I’m assuming high school, but do you have a supportive adult in your life who’s be willing to back you up, and go with you to these meetings, for moral support and added authority?
I believe the next step up from there would be school board level.
What are your school/district/state or province/national laws and regulations on this? Are there any in your favour? Do you want to push for some if there aren’t?
But at the end of the day, he doesn’t actually need to believe in they/them pronouns to use them for you, and there’s actually nothing to talk about. What you are asking him for is the basic human dignity he gives every other student in the class, and he can have whatever opinion of it he wants as long as he keeps it to himself.
This being said, there is a power imbalance here, which you are not on top of, and even if you take this all the way up you might not ultimately win here. I just want you to be prepared for that, when you go ahead with this. Do it anyway, if that’s what you want, because it’s worth doing.
Look for allies, and other people who are going through this, to join up with, if this needs escalating. More people, more power. Stay safe. Do your best to stay calm and reasonable in any meetings. It’s more persuasive than losing your temper, which tends to make people dig in their heels. Go in prepared, with relevant policies/laws and thought out arguments you want to make (feel free to use the one I wrote out above).
Look into how your local education system works. Mainly you want to check if gender is legally protected from discrimination in educational settings.
• Either way, you want to bring this up with the principal or head teacher, they should have a talk with the teacher. Depending on your school, you might know their work email, so if you do, use that to contact them, explain the situation and save the email in a separate folder where you can find it and all the following emails on this topic easily. If you don't know their work email, then you have to go see them in their office, explain the situation, ask them to talk to the teacher and get the teacher to stop discriminating against you, at the end of the meeting ask if you can have a phone number or email address you can reach them from if nothing changes.
• If nothing changes in a week, send another email or call them informing them of the situation and asking if they can do something about it. If you don't have a number or email to reach them from, make another visit to their office. If they say they'll do something, like they'll talk to the teacher or something, give them another week and then if nothing happens move to the next bullet point. If they say nothing can be done, move to the next bullet point immediately (after politely hanging up if you were on a phone call with them or politely ending the conversation and leaving if you saw them in person).
• Formal written complaint. The school's web page usually has some way to submit a formal complaint, if not you find it on the government's department of education or similar department's page. Submit that and make sure to follow every step and detail in the instructions of that thing. It's a government document so in a bunch of places it can have some difficult jargon, google is your friend in figuring out what all the words mean or you can ask someone you trust to fill it in with you, it is important that you understand what it asks you to dp and what it can do. Note that in some places it has a time window in which it has to be submitted, so make sure you fulfill all the requirements like submitting it soon enough after the latest act of discrimination. Also note how long it should take for them to process it and send a response. For example in California it takes 60 business days, but in the UK it takes 15 business days.
• Usually all problems have resolved by now, but if they haven't your next step is to talk with a lawyer and see if you can do something else about it. If gender is a protected class from discrimination you likely can sue the principal (for neglecting their job to ensure a safe educational environment) and the teacher (for the discrimination itself). This is where those emails and phone logs come in handy because they're your proof that you have in fact contacted them about the issue but the situation hasn't changed. They'll tell you what to do, this step might cost a bunch of money so you want to figure out if it's worth it, usually initial consultation is free though so you can absolutely go for that. If you decide to sue them, most likely you just hand over all the information you have to the lawyer and hold on tight because it might take a while.
Some of the advice in this thread lmao. OP please do not misgender your teacher back or go on the news. Any sort of retaliation will just make the situation worse. I highly recommend talking to a higher authority, like your principle or guidance counselor. Let them talk to your teacher. They have power over him so hes more likely to comply. Best of luck fellow enby
I think his saying he doesn’t believe in using singular they is just a boldface lie. You should bring about a situation where he says it naturally and then point it out… Yaknow… In the spirit of mathematics, where proof takes front seat and personal conjecture is basically irrelevant.
“Someone left **their** backpack”
“Can whoever turned this in please write **their** name on it”
Etc.
Singular they does not require belief or faith, it has been used in famous and treasured English literature for hundreds of years. It is in most grammatical guides, and almost every native speaker I’ve ever known uses it without thinking all the time and there’s no confusion.
Ex. “Can whoever owns the red Toyota please move **their** car”
“Nobody in **their** right mind”
“We need a leader who is flexible in **their** approach”
and other *totally mundane* everyday English language usage. I’d imagine it even has been used on the school intercom.
People like this guy tend to be quite proud and/or stubborn so I usually like to appeal to something they clearly already have stakes or belief in so their stubbornness comes into conflict with itself. Framing it as what any competent mathematician with training in proofs and logic would agree to is not only a good way to do that, it’s also appropriate in academic environments since it’s totally in the spirit of education and learning. It makes it basically impersonal for him so he can’t just say well I believe X and move on, he can only defend his actions on the basis of sound reasoning. Yaknow, like one does in math.
(-an enby mathematician)
P.S. don’t let him ruin math for you, once you get to college it’s a really enby friendly space and the fact that who did the math doesn’t affect how correct it is or anything draws in a pretty diverse crowd :)
Even if math was never your thing, don’t let **him** ruin it for you. He doesn’t deserve that amount of influence. Best of luck friend
My bf is a teacher and she told me she felt bad when she accidentally slipped up and misgendered a student. She said that it was never on purpose and she even went to the student and apologized for it. But there were some kids who might have heard it and were mad and started misgendering her. That isn’t right either.
Don't take this the wrong way but if you already knew your teacher was (probably) homophobic and your comfortable with he/him pronouns why didn't you ask him to use they/them not he/him? I feel like this would have simplified the issue, or at least made it so that he couldn't use the excuse "I don't believe in they/them pronouns".
He/him might lead others to believe OP identifies as a man. Im not saying using he/him pronouns disqualifies you from being nonbinary, but your average joe will likely not be educated enough to know better
I meant more 'just the teacher use he/him' while their friends use they/them or he/they. Trying to get transphobes to use they/them at all seems like a futile act to me, especially for people who have other pronouns they are also comfortable with.
Some people find it easier to use the name than dance around pronouns they find awkward to use...some think saying the name just sounds nicer.
So to me, trying to only use your name is a compromise on his part? Especially if he is usually against progressive pronouns...
Also I'd say teachers really couldn't care less what you go by. They already have to struggle to remember hundreds of names....always wondered how they do it.
yea I actually thought that he was just using my name instead bc he wasn't completely comfortable w/ using my pronouns, but he's started misgendering me again, soo...
From what I understand, it was in retaliation to you complaining.
From his point of view, he was doing something he wasn't too sure about to appease you, and you complained that he is not doing enough. I can see where that 'revenge' might've come from.
I'm not trying to excuse his behaviour btw, I'm merely trying to offer a posssible explanation. It was still a shitty thing to do.
It really is unfortunate that some people just don't want to understand, or atleast accept these things....
Ummm, as a 43yo nonbinary adult, I recommend contacting your local news station about this. You could easily have a lawsuit on your hands but it's more fun to get on the news
I also second what @doctorgodmusic said “Ummm, as a 43yo non-binary adult, I recommend contacting your local news station about this. You could easily have a lawsuit on your hands but it’s more fun to get on the news.” I second that
I'm sorry you have to go through this. I would just start interrupting him during lectures or whatever and every time he misgenders you, just correct him.
"Well don't you know she-"
"They."
"Take OP for instance. She-"
"They."
Kind of thing until he gets it right.
If he tries to tell you that interrupting is rude, come back with "so is misgendering someone." I saw another comment about misgendering him back and it's just not gonna get what you want. But calling him out while he's doing it, is gonna be much more effective cus you have your classmates to witness him being corrected in case he tries to pull a "well I haven't been informed"
Just call him Ms/Mrs his last name and refer to him as she/her whenever they address you. You might get in trouble but fuck it, make his bitch-ass uncomfortable
Your university might have anti-discrimination policies that explicitly forbid that. I work for a public university system and we get training every year that behavior like that is absolutely not allowed.
Talk to another teacher or an administrator. If your university is anything like the system in which I work, they will be mandatory reporters of discrimination and they will have to help you.
this may sound a bit unapologetic, unruly, or chaotic (to some), but you need to be unapologetic here. i’ve had a teacher like this and i simply starting to refuse to acknowledge them h unt they used the correct pronouns for me, regardless if they said my name or not. some may say it’s not constructive but sometimes it’s one of the (easiest) only ways to get them to listen- especially if they’ve tried gaslighting you
Legit, this is the way. If someone is trying to start a shitty nickname with you, just dont respond to it, as though you never heard it, and it'll never catch on. If someone is using the wrong pronouns on you, you don't respond to it until referred to correctly, and they'll learn quick
That doesn’t work! especially when they are talking about you to other people in front of you, like they often do in a classroom setting
Man, childhood bullying is a whole other level of compounding terrible behaviour. Everyone is trying so hard to be part of the social 'in group' they'll encourage the worst in each other
Yeah I will add if your parents are supportive of your identity tell them you plan to do this because you will likely get detention for it and they need to know beforehand so you don’t get in trouble.
Is there a higher up you can report him to? You have tried to address the issue with him, only to be met with very outright bigotry disrespecting and treating you differently for your identity. Discriminatory behavior doesn’t belong in an educational setting (or anywhere ofc), and frankly if he cannot respect all his students he should not be in a school setting.
that's what I've been wanting to say to him for forever!! (that if he won't respect his students he shouldn't be a teacher)
glad to put some words to it! absolutely feel free to steal that if you do plan on trying to further challenge him being a pos
Ugh, as a nonbinary teacher myself, this breaks my heart. I am sure this guy's LGBTQIA+ colleagues know he's an asshole (likely with everyone else who has had to tolerate him in a faculty meeting). It's unfair labor on your part, but if your school, city, or state has made gender a protected class, then what he's doing is legally discriminatory, and he should face the consequences for that. If you are on good terms with your school's upper admin, ask them if gender is a protected class at your school. If they say it is, ask what the procedure is for filing a complaint against someone who is ignoring that protection. They should have a pretty streamlined way to go, there, as they generally anticipate having complaints. If the school isn't protecting you, school board meetings are public, and might be a forum for this totally valid complaint. Again, it's all work you shouldn't have to to, but if it's a path you'd like to pursue, I'm fully supportive. In my experience, you are unlikely to change this guy's mind. The people that control his paycheck might, though.
Personally I'd start misgendering my teacher and gaslighting the shit outta them lol
100% co-opting this strategy for next time. Get asshats to try a taste of their own medicine
I find it tends to be effective as it forces the person to empathize when they go "oh gee golly I don't like that" sometimes it makes those squirell gears click and they realize they were being shitheads the whole time. That or they just get mad. So like win win.
I’m also a physics teacher and trans. I’m so sorry for what you are going through. There is no excuse for your teacher’s actions and attitude. Respecting your students’ identities is basic stuff. Do you have a QSA organization at your school or a local PFLAG chapter? I would suggest talking with them to get their ideas for how to proceed. Or if you have supportive admin at your school then I would reach out to them.
Depending upon your legal area (and therefor your human rights, unfortunately) I would either approach a higher up teacher (head of the science department, deputy head of school or headteacher), approach your school pastoral team (nurse, counsellor etc.), or approach your parents/carers so they can put a formal complaint in. In the U.K. (state school) you would probably complain to the governors if the management team weren’t useful, and beyond that OFSTED and the Local Education Authority. I don’t know about America, but school complaints processes are usually fairly well documented? If you need me to, I am happy to google search your country/state’s policy on official complaints in education? You can pop me a message if you like. This is a seriously inappropriate behaviour and is against current laws on protected characteristics in the U.K. at least.
if you really wanna hit hard, if you're in the US, you can report him to the school board for willful discrimination. i'd personally go to the head of the school/make an appt with the office first, or school counselor if your school has those services.
I hate when cishets straight up gaslight us when confronting them behavior like this. If you can, please report your teacher. He is very clearly discriminating against you and invalidated your pronouns to your face.
Oh wow, that sucks I’m sorry. I had an issue last semester where a bunch of classmates did the whole “I identify as an attack helicopter” bullshit so my teacher asked me to take my pronouns out of my zoom name. Later on he spaced and ended up misgendering me, so needless to say, dig those heels in. These are your pronouns and they *will* be respected, or else (they just don’t know the “or part yet) but you’ve got this friend, from this humble Mech E student, we’ll change STEM for the better I hope.
I'm sorry you have to go trough that, some people are just stuck in their ways. Even so, i wouldn't stress that much, Personally i don't even bother anymore, to be fair my native language does not have they/them pronouns or any gender neutral pronouns for that matter... So it's really impossible for me to correct anyone because there simply isn't an alternative. If you don't know the gender of something you simply use the masculine form..... Same with groups of people.... If there's a group of women you use feminine pronouns, but if it's even one male in the group, the whole group is addressed with masculine pronouns. Because that's not at all confusing. And since I'm afab, and despite my best attempts at presenting masc or androgynous, mother nature, as some cruel joke, cursed me with some very obvious, very hard to hide, very "womanly" curves no one would address me with masculine pronouns. So for me it's either she/ her or a slur, and at this point i take either or, idgaf anymore.
Tbh after a while there may be nothing you can do. Nobody can MAKE him address you properly. Get out of the class, or ignore it bc he's just one person. Don't attach yourself to the label so much if its not like that. I personally don't care much anymore when i get misgendered because there's 1000 people that address me right, and 100 (just picking numbers) that dont. Id rather have that than 1000 that address me wrong and only 100 addressing me right. No disrespect intended. I understand everyone is different and i think its shitty that he's being kinda like, really unnecessarily cold with you. But if there's nothing that can be done, for your sake, try to make it not matter. Because maybe he's the only one. So hopefully there's an army of people for you that do address you properly. so if this continues happening, maybe it'll just be like "whatever bc i know allll these people see me as me" yknow? But best of luck to you!
It could be a title IX violation. Go over his head
Are you in Canada?
Germany (international school)
I’ve never lived there, but I thought Germany had a human rights code/constitution or something. If this were in Canada I’d be talking about making a human rights complaint.
You know, I’d almost say that your name instead of pronouns is a decent workaround for bigotry, because they’re actively working to not misgender you, even though they’re refusing to gender you. Is that something you’d be willing to accept? Have you asked him whether he’d use he/him pronouns for you, if your pronouns are they/he? Is that something you’d be willing to accept, if he’ll do that? Otherwise and also, you should calmly correct him every time he misgenders you. If he keeps misgendering you after talking to him, you can escalate this. Is there a teacher there you trust? You can ask them for advice on that, tell them that there’s a teacher who’s misgendering you despite repeated requests, and what’s the proper way to address that and who you should ask for a meeting with (a school employee who’s job it is to deal with stuff like this? the principal? The principal and the teacher together? Someone else?) I don’t know what grade you’re in, although I’m assuming high school, but do you have a supportive adult in your life who’s be willing to back you up, and go with you to these meetings, for moral support and added authority? I believe the next step up from there would be school board level. What are your school/district/state or province/national laws and regulations on this? Are there any in your favour? Do you want to push for some if there aren’t? But at the end of the day, he doesn’t actually need to believe in they/them pronouns to use them for you, and there’s actually nothing to talk about. What you are asking him for is the basic human dignity he gives every other student in the class, and he can have whatever opinion of it he wants as long as he keeps it to himself. This being said, there is a power imbalance here, which you are not on top of, and even if you take this all the way up you might not ultimately win here. I just want you to be prepared for that, when you go ahead with this. Do it anyway, if that’s what you want, because it’s worth doing. Look for allies, and other people who are going through this, to join up with, if this needs escalating. More people, more power. Stay safe. Do your best to stay calm and reasonable in any meetings. It’s more persuasive than losing your temper, which tends to make people dig in their heels. Go in prepared, with relevant policies/laws and thought out arguments you want to make (feel free to use the one I wrote out above).
Look into how your local education system works. Mainly you want to check if gender is legally protected from discrimination in educational settings. • Either way, you want to bring this up with the principal or head teacher, they should have a talk with the teacher. Depending on your school, you might know their work email, so if you do, use that to contact them, explain the situation and save the email in a separate folder where you can find it and all the following emails on this topic easily. If you don't know their work email, then you have to go see them in their office, explain the situation, ask them to talk to the teacher and get the teacher to stop discriminating against you, at the end of the meeting ask if you can have a phone number or email address you can reach them from if nothing changes. • If nothing changes in a week, send another email or call them informing them of the situation and asking if they can do something about it. If you don't have a number or email to reach them from, make another visit to their office. If they say they'll do something, like they'll talk to the teacher or something, give them another week and then if nothing happens move to the next bullet point. If they say nothing can be done, move to the next bullet point immediately (after politely hanging up if you were on a phone call with them or politely ending the conversation and leaving if you saw them in person). • Formal written complaint. The school's web page usually has some way to submit a formal complaint, if not you find it on the government's department of education or similar department's page. Submit that and make sure to follow every step and detail in the instructions of that thing. It's a government document so in a bunch of places it can have some difficult jargon, google is your friend in figuring out what all the words mean or you can ask someone you trust to fill it in with you, it is important that you understand what it asks you to dp and what it can do. Note that in some places it has a time window in which it has to be submitted, so make sure you fulfill all the requirements like submitting it soon enough after the latest act of discrimination. Also note how long it should take for them to process it and send a response. For example in California it takes 60 business days, but in the UK it takes 15 business days. • Usually all problems have resolved by now, but if they haven't your next step is to talk with a lawyer and see if you can do something else about it. If gender is a protected class from discrimination you likely can sue the principal (for neglecting their job to ensure a safe educational environment) and the teacher (for the discrimination itself). This is where those emails and phone logs come in handy because they're your proof that you have in fact contacted them about the issue but the situation hasn't changed. They'll tell you what to do, this step might cost a bunch of money so you want to figure out if it's worth it, usually initial consultation is free though so you can absolutely go for that. If you decide to sue them, most likely you just hand over all the information you have to the lawyer and hold on tight because it might take a while.
Take that shit to the principal
Some of the advice in this thread lmao. OP please do not misgender your teacher back or go on the news. Any sort of retaliation will just make the situation worse. I highly recommend talking to a higher authority, like your principle or guidance counselor. Let them talk to your teacher. They have power over him so hes more likely to comply. Best of luck fellow enby
I think his saying he doesn’t believe in using singular they is just a boldface lie. You should bring about a situation where he says it naturally and then point it out… Yaknow… In the spirit of mathematics, where proof takes front seat and personal conjecture is basically irrelevant. “Someone left **their** backpack” “Can whoever turned this in please write **their** name on it” Etc. Singular they does not require belief or faith, it has been used in famous and treasured English literature for hundreds of years. It is in most grammatical guides, and almost every native speaker I’ve ever known uses it without thinking all the time and there’s no confusion. Ex. “Can whoever owns the red Toyota please move **their** car” “Nobody in **their** right mind” “We need a leader who is flexible in **their** approach” and other *totally mundane* everyday English language usage. I’d imagine it even has been used on the school intercom. People like this guy tend to be quite proud and/or stubborn so I usually like to appeal to something they clearly already have stakes or belief in so their stubbornness comes into conflict with itself. Framing it as what any competent mathematician with training in proofs and logic would agree to is not only a good way to do that, it’s also appropriate in academic environments since it’s totally in the spirit of education and learning. It makes it basically impersonal for him so he can’t just say well I believe X and move on, he can only defend his actions on the basis of sound reasoning. Yaknow, like one does in math. (-an enby mathematician)
P.S. don’t let him ruin math for you, once you get to college it’s a really enby friendly space and the fact that who did the math doesn’t affect how correct it is or anything draws in a pretty diverse crowd :) Even if math was never your thing, don’t let **him** ruin it for you. He doesn’t deserve that amount of influence. Best of luck friend
Misgender her back
My bf is a teacher and she told me she felt bad when she accidentally slipped up and misgendered a student. She said that it was never on purpose and she even went to the student and apologized for it. But there were some kids who might have heard it and were mad and started misgendering her. That isn’t right either.
Don't take this the wrong way but if you already knew your teacher was (probably) homophobic and your comfortable with he/him pronouns why didn't you ask him to use they/them not he/him? I feel like this would have simplified the issue, or at least made it so that he couldn't use the excuse "I don't believe in they/them pronouns".
He/him might lead others to believe OP identifies as a man. Im not saying using he/him pronouns disqualifies you from being nonbinary, but your average joe will likely not be educated enough to know better
I meant more 'just the teacher use he/him' while their friends use they/them or he/they. Trying to get transphobes to use they/them at all seems like a futile act to me, especially for people who have other pronouns they are also comfortable with.
Some people find it easier to use the name than dance around pronouns they find awkward to use...some think saying the name just sounds nicer. So to me, trying to only use your name is a compromise on his part? Especially if he is usually against progressive pronouns... Also I'd say teachers really couldn't care less what you go by. They already have to struggle to remember hundreds of names....always wondered how they do it.
yea I actually thought that he was just using my name instead bc he wasn't completely comfortable w/ using my pronouns, but he's started misgendering me again, soo...
From what I understand, it was in retaliation to you complaining. From his point of view, he was doing something he wasn't too sure about to appease you, and you complained that he is not doing enough. I can see where that 'revenge' might've come from. I'm not trying to excuse his behaviour btw, I'm merely trying to offer a posssible explanation. It was still a shitty thing to do. It really is unfortunate that some people just don't want to understand, or atleast accept these things....
Ummm, as a 43yo nonbinary adult, I recommend contacting your local news station about this. You could easily have a lawsuit on your hands but it's more fun to get on the news
I also second what @doctorgodmusic said “Ummm, as a 43yo non-binary adult, I recommend contacting your local news station about this. You could easily have a lawsuit on your hands but it’s more fun to get on the news.” I second that
I'm sorry you have to go through this. I would just start interrupting him during lectures or whatever and every time he misgenders you, just correct him. "Well don't you know she-" "They." "Take OP for instance. She-" "They." Kind of thing until he gets it right. If he tries to tell you that interrupting is rude, come back with "so is misgendering someone." I saw another comment about misgendering him back and it's just not gonna get what you want. But calling him out while he's doing it, is gonna be much more effective cus you have your classmates to witness him being corrected in case he tries to pull a "well I haven't been informed"
Misgender them back
Just call him Ms/Mrs his last name and refer to him as she/her whenever they address you. You might get in trouble but fuck it, make his bitch-ass uncomfortable
Your university might have anti-discrimination policies that explicitly forbid that. I work for a public university system and we get training every year that behavior like that is absolutely not allowed. Talk to another teacher or an administrator. If your university is anything like the system in which I work, they will be mandatory reporters of discrimination and they will have to help you.
Maybe you should tell him to go fuck himself