I started a conversation on social media about gender neutral pronouns. My initiation was a proposition to use “your majesty” or “comrade” as a way of avoiding using a gender specific pronoun when addressing students. This is all intended as a matter of respect for everyone in all of my classes. The conversation was quite educational. This inspired some online research and I learned a great deal.

I place these here as a list to help remind me of terms that I want to use in classes. Feel free to contact me so that I might add to this list. I will also try to place some educational links on this page over time. I will also link all of my classes to this page.

Here is the list:

• comrade or co or tvarische
• your excellency
• human
• humanoid
• biped with continuous external integument (which is already in my chrome dictionary btw, but btw is not)
• my friend (i will use this sparingly. i don’t need emotional entanglements with my students, nor sexual harassment lawsuits)
• yes dear (see comment for ‘my friend’)
• you again (also only to people i have already had in a class)
• y’all (if appropriate for a single person)
• sup
• fuck you want (see comment for ‘you again’)
• “And what does our esteemed friend in the back think about this?”
• padawan

Here are some ironic examples:

• “Emotive electrochemical stimulus response; cranial plate; bipedal locomotion; endo-skeletal contiguous external integument.”
• “I’m Captain Jean-Luc Picard, of the Federation starship Enterprise.”
• “Hierarchical collective command structure.”
• “Who are you?”
• “Interrogative!”

Queer Staff & Faculty Retention Program at HSU

• The Queer Staff & Faculty Retention Program at HSU has a page that explains a proper use of various pronouns here. Below is the table presented on their page. The following is content from their page.

Pronouns—A How-To Guide

• Subject: [1] laughed at the notion of a gender binary.
• Object: They tried to convince [2] that asexuality does not exist.
• Possessive: [3] favorite color is unknown.
• Possessive Pronoun: The pronoun card is [4].
• Reflexive: [1] thinks highly of [5].

Teen Vogue has a great page on this topic here.