Informing my professors

[Darth_Taco]

Oh my God, I'm such a jackass for waiting until so close to the beginning of the school year @_@. I just found the damn e-mail addresses though ;_;!

Ok, on to topic! It's basically as the title says, but I'll go into some detail. I'm starting school on Monday (27th), and I'll be in college (university for those of you outside the US :'P). I'm in the beginning of my transition, and still legally female with my birth name XP. So, yeah... I need to e-mail all my professors and tell them that I'm transgender, the name I'll be going by, and that they need to use that name along with male pronouns. I'm a bit of a nervous wreck and at a real loss for words though, so can you guys help me? ;_; How am I suppose to word this? D:

If you end up getting to this too late, it'll still be nice to leave hints for anyone else who will be going through this crap in the near future :'D.

[justmeinoz]

I did it face to face with my lecturer  in Gender Studies at the end of the first lecture, and my tutor and tutorial group in the first tutorial.

I felt that it was a safe place where I had a certain amount of control, and the sort of students taking the unit would be okay with it anyway.  Anyone with issues was a certain Fail.

For the tutorial I was given the perfect intro when the tutor asked us whether we thought about Gender at all. After the first three said that they didn't, I said that I was part of a small group who thought about it a lot, and that sometimes it was all we thought about.  After a few questions, because virtually none of the students had ever met someone trans, it was business as usual.

  The fact that I had had to come to terms with going from a straight male to effectively a Lesbian seemed to be more interesting to the others who I am pretty sure were all straight.

If you have a chance to do any Gender Studies units, I would take them.  They are really interesting when you  see society's  Gender Order from the other side.

Karen.

[Cindy]

Oh my God, I'm such a jackass for waiting until so close to the beginning of the school year @_@. I just found the damn e-mail addresses though ;_;!

Ok, on to topic! It's basically as the title says, but I'll go into some detail. I'm starting school on Monday (27th), and I'll be in college (university for those of you outside the US :'P). I'm in the beginning of my transition, and still legally female with my birth name XP. So, yeah... I need to e-mail all my professors and tell them that I'm transgender, the name I'll be going by, and that they need to use that name along with male pronouns. I'm a bit of a nervous wreck and at a real loss for words though, so can you guys help me? ;_; How am I suppose to word this? D:

If you end up getting to this too late, it'll still be nice to leave hints for anyone else who will be going through this crap in the near future :'D.

The easiest way is the simplest way. 'Hi Prof I'm registered in your course as Jane Doe student number 12345, I'm a FtM transsexual who hasn't had a chance to legally change my name. I'm male and present as male. I would like if at all possible to be referred to by my real male name of  Mike Doe. It will certainly prevent a lot of embarrassment. Thank you.  Mike Doe.

As I Prof I don't need a story  just want the facts.

[go..ogle]

Hey Darth_taco,

I've always done as Cindy suggests and kept it simple. I would drop in office hours before the semester actually started if possible but if I just had an email I'd send something like this:

Professor Smith,
I'm taking your MWF English 101 class. While my legal name is "LN," I ask that you refer to me as "PN" and use male pronouns. If you have any questions, I can be reached at email/phone number.
Thanks,
"PN"

Good luck

[Darth_Taco]

I feel so much better about this, thanks :'D. I tend to easily freak out in the middle of the night so now I feel dumb XP. I'll also look into Gender Studies classes. Certain people around me have actually been looking into taking these classes since they think it'll make it easier to understand me. I should probably take it with them xD. So yeah, you all have put my mind to rest :'D!

[anibioman]

i am all with cindy thats basically what i said to my teachers in note form instead of email and it worked well.

[Ayden]

Like the lady said, that was what I did with my advisor. I told her face to face and she didn't even bat an eye. My professors for the next semester were told through an email. I never had a professor make an issue out of it.

[Boba]

Lol i did what exactly cindy said to do, and my professor wrote..

"im confused, what is the embarrassment?"

gg 

[Cindy]

Lol i did what exactly cindy said to do, and my professor wrote..

"im confused, what is the embarrassment?"

gg 

This is a yes I understand in Prof talk 

[limepepsi]

I considered sending an e-mail to my professors before school started...all my classes are online, so they would see my legal name on everything that I were to turn in, every discussion post that I put up...I thought writing my male name on the papers I submitted would just be too confusing, since in one spot it would have my female name and in another spot it would have my male name. I decided, meh, they can't actually see me, nobody knows who I am, so I don't really care. If I was in class with these people, though, and if I'd been on hormones for a while and was actually coming across as male (only been on hormones for 4 days now), then I would definitely let my teachers know.

[Kitteh Engimeer]

Hmm, I think I'll be having the same problem pretty soon... and I haven't given it much thought.

From a grad student perspective I think most undergrads will be fine transitioning without even bringing it up to some professors, especially in the auditorium-sized classes, such as general math, chem/physics/biology, etc. I'm not sure about some of the liberal arts courses though... I remember those being a little more tightly knit. From my experience (especially when I was a Freshman) most professors could care less regarding who I was. Most stuff was graded based on a name and student ID by TAs. Take this advice as you will, since I wasn't out during my undergraduate period and don't have any direct experience, all just speculation.

For grad school, I'm expecting the classes to be quite a bit smaller. I guess I figured I would just show up as myself, open to my classmates. Now I'm having second thoughts...

BTW, this thread's kinda old. How'd it work out for you, Darth Taco (awesome name, by the way ಠ⌣ಠ )?

[AdamMLP]

I'm not out at college so I can't really comment, but one thing that does stick in my mind was a recent lecture on e-safety, just the usual stuff about not giving out full names/addresses/meeting up with people etc. but at the end she started talking about bullying in general and how they don't tolerate homophobia, and I think she was trying to say transphobia, but she ended up saying "we have some crossdressers here, they're so good you'd never know!".  If everyone in the room hadn't been introduced to me as female then I'm pretty sure that would have outed me, most people's natural reaction to a statement like that is to see if the guy next to you is a 'crossdresser', right?  And that's just ignoring the obvious flaws in what she said...

So I dunno, it might be worth noting that although schools might try and be, and think they are, accepting towards trans people they might inadvertently say or do things that really don't help and really aren't accurate or polite.  (Or maybe I should just stop replying to things at 2am...)

[Dax]

I guess I figured I would just show up as myself, open to my classmates. Now I'm having second thoughts...

Informing professors is something I just can't do face-to-face, really. I'm too nervous. That being said, most professors won't have an issue. I'm not a grad student, but I do have 2 very small (20 students in one, 24 in another) classes, both of which require we speak, get to know each other and so on and so on, since one is a language and one is a writing course, but you should have no problem.

For example, I had a near-horror story in my Polish class. I forgot to email the prof before class, so it IS my fault, but it does show how simple it can be. She did roll call, and I had to respond given the size of the class and whatnot. So I responded to my female name and flat-out told the class "I'm not a girl. It's a long story why I have a girls name. Call me Chris." Then I emailed explaining myself and there's been no problems from anyone since! =D Not even when a new guy switched in and kept calling me "she" in Polish. My prof corrected him before I even could, and no one seems to think me any the odder for the name situation.

In the other class, however, I did email the prof ahead of time, and he's been great about it. Unfortunately, I'll probably have to come out to some extent in that one, since names on the course website can't be changed and we'll need to submit online things for our peers to read -they'll need to know who to look for/why I don't appear to be there. Ah well. I'm "established" male in that class, so we'll see what happens.

Moral of the story: Small class? Show up and be who you want to. It's scary but worth it, imo.

[tekla]

College, being a step to the real world, tends to follow real world rules, to wit: if it's important to say you should say it to their face.  I would have been much more likely to make an effort if you were making an effort.  It's what changes the entire deal from some name on endless lists of names, to a real person.  And how exactly am I supposed to know who I'm calling what if I don't know what you look like?

[Paul]

I had a similar situation with work.  The old residence I worked at was an all female house so being out there was a little difficult.  When I got offered my current position at a new residence I wanted to meet face to face and talk with them about it, but with their meetings and the hours I was working that wasn't feasible so I HAD to tell them over the phone.  They were very cool about it and we did talk face to face after I started about it and they've been amazing and very supportive.  They were able to update everything except Kronos (Payroll) before I legally changed my name.  There were forms I had to sign in my old name and my administrator actually used to feel really bad making me sign my old name haha.  Now that it's legally changed though everything is good.

[Cindy]

It isn't something to be nervous about, as Tekla said seeing the person helps. I don't have a clue who most of my students are, and I really don't care what their names, religion, colour, gender, sexual preference or shoe size are.

In the 'real' world when I changed my name, I filled in the form, scanned my legal document sent it to HR with a note to update my records, payroll, email etc with my new name and preferred gender marker and to email me when it was done or if there were problems. It was all done within 48 hours, together with new ID cards etc. No problems no issues. I sent a few meeting minutes back and told the secretaries concerned to use the correct pronouns and again it was done. It isn't anything to be nervous of, the world won't shake and Atlantis won't surface from the deep.

Cindy

[justmeinoz]

I wouldn't worry about it too much,  I am out to all of my Gender Studies tutorial group and see it as a chance to educate people.  They are totally okay with it.
If I run for the position of Sexuality Officer in the SRC elections it will be truly out in the open.  And will I use it or what!

Karen.