Editor’s Note: The author of this column wishes to remain anonymous to avoid outing themselves publicly. 

After reading the Iowa State Daily article covering transgender health on campus, I wanted to add something to the discussion of transgender issues at Iowa State. And although the progress made within the health services at Iowa State has been inspiring, I hope the university administration can add their expertise to handling this admittedly more simple problem that I present.

The current policy at Iowa State regarding names and pronouns is that students, if they wish their professors to call them by their proper pronouns and names, are encouraged to come out to their professors — often by email — and request them to do so. While it is good Iowa State has made provisions for transgender students to do just that, this solution to a delicate and private issue has some flaws.

The LGBTSS Center has posted this policy on its website, on a segment of its site given to transgender and gender nonconforming students. I would like to give the center a nod for its conduct, which has been exemplary. However, this site and segment is not easy to find, especially for students who don’t know what they’re looking for, and the center should not have to be left in a position of outreach in a matter so central to communication as this. Transgender students who are also transfer students or freshmen, otherwise new to what they might need to know when navigating a large university environment, may be unable to locate information about this crucial step in ensuring their university experience goes smoothly.

As a transfer student, this information was not immediately available to me — I went an entire year without this information, trying to figure out what I was doing wrong only to learn later that the keys to respect were available to me all along. Even then, taking the leap to contact someone else about an ultimately private issue was honestly stressful and took time and effort.

While I’ll never regret taking these steps, I feel the process of doing so is daunting enough it might delay students who fear coming out, put pressure on them to do so and generally add stress to a process that ultimately should be streamlined and painless. Coming out to a professor is not a solution for everyone, especially those who view their transgender status to be a private matter or a piece of sensitive medical history.

Students who do not know what to do about pronouns at Iowa State University or do not wish to expose their personal history by coming out can find themselves in an uncomfortable situation, wherein being addressed incorrectly by a professor in class can cause major disruption to their school semester. No student should have to be the subject of invasive questions and glances from their peers because they were not well informed enough or confident enough to personally ensure homogeneity as regards to what other people call them. Placing this as a personal responsibility upon the shoulders of students who crave respect can complicate school and private life. It can also damage mental health and divert focus away from studies and toward managing the behavior of others instead.

Transgender and gender variant students at Iowa State University just want to feel normal. A small step taken by the university could easily streamline an otherwise rocky portion of life for many students. Two main solutions present themselves.

One of these is making information about Iowa State University’s pronoun policy more widely available, for example by having a more direct and obvious link to it on the university homepage, and provide this information standard to incoming freshmen and transfer students.

A simpler and more inclusive solution, however, might only take some basic tweaking to role-sheets. By having pronouns listed beside student ID numbers and names for all students on the role sheets distributed to professors, we can ensure that confusion, humiliation and anxiety are no longer part of the picture for students who might not fit into gender norms, from more androgynous students to those who are gender nonconforming or transgender. This across-the-board equality no longer singles out transgender students or makes the actions of others their personal responsibility. This way, all students are ensured respect.

After seeing the vast, multilevel and doubtlessly complex effort Iowa State University has put into making health care a more painless experience for transgender students, I look forward to seeing their thoughts on solving this admittedly smaller, though deeply important, problem.