Suggested Practices
What does it mean to cultivate a gender-inclusive teaching and learning environment? It means to create a classroom and school wide environment that invites full participation of students of all genders and responds to harmful actions of gender stereotyping and misgendering of students, which negatively impacts student learning.
Queer Inclusion in the Classroom
The Dos and Don'ts listed below provide a roadmap to inclusive practices within the classroom, both online and in-person. The Dos and Don'ts also include intentional practices to incorporate into curriculum, policies, classroom facilitation and interactions with students.
The Dos are suggestions for cues of inclusion. Throughout the interviews conducted with current and alumni students, the need for cues of inclusion was highly recommended and encouraged. Some easy suggestions and intentional cues might be changing a class greeting from “good morning, guys” to “good morning, folks,” adding pronouns to email signatures, or posting a rainbow, Ally or Safe Zone sticker on an office window.
Most importantly, the Dos emphasize intentional, not performative actions. Students can easily tell when practices are performative rather than cultivated, learned and implemented through conscious choices.
DOs
Take Safe Zone trainings offered through the Mohin-Scholz LGBTQIA Resource Office.
Add pronouns in your email signature.
- Ex: Your Name
- Pronouns:
- she | her | hers,
- he | him | his,
- they | them | theirs
- Other
- Pronouns:
List your pronouns on your syllabus.
Add a discrimination statement to your syllabus.
List the Mohin-Scholz LGBTQIA Resource Office as a resource on your syllabus.
Review mental health resources for the LGBTQIA+ community:
Correct students when a student is misgendered in class and that student is already “out,” and your correction wouldn't potentially be “outing” them.
Make sure to correct language and behavior that is discriminatory - words are violence, too.
Add a rainbow sticker to your office door, somewhere in your classroom, etc. to signal allyship:
- Include an allyship sticker on your nametag / laptop / water bottle, etc.
- Include your pronouns on your nametag
- Pronoun pins
Take a Safezone course.
Attend Ally trainings and Queer conversations.
Add queer content to your curriculum:
- Highlight Queer scientists, artists, musicians, historians, psychologists, physicians, activists, educators, authors, engineers, etc.
- Pages/readings about pronouns, misgendering, LGBTQ+ history, etc.
- If any of your content has any “activating” aspects to it that may impact your students, offer alternatives.
- State in your syllabus “this literature touches on the topic of ____________, this could be potentially activating (triggering) for some people. There are alternative texts/options available if needed.”
- Review your roster for names and pronouns.
- Remind students they can update their name on Seanet so that all of their information is updated in Canvas and for their professors.
- Have students share their names and pronouns aloud or by writing them (online).
- Icebreakers that present the opportunity for students to introduce themselves.
- Questionnaire at the beginning of class for you to capture this information.
Be intentionally non-binary.
Affirm, Support, and Listen.
DON'Ts
Don’t pigeon hole or put your students in a box.
- Each student’s experience is their own.
- There is no gate-keeping of what gender or sexuality a student chooses to identify with.
- There is no single definition or "right" answer based off that identity.
Don't force students to share their pronouns, especially in an online setting. Forcing students to out themselves to their class community is unnecessary and potentially harmful.
Don’t assume anything, yet allow students to express who they are and who they are not.
Don’t use exclusionary language.