During one of Aspen Burnham’s first tests with a new professor last semester, he had his test returned to him with his name scratched out and a name he hadn’t gone by in 5 years put in its place.
“My professor, trying to figure out who my work belonged to, crossed out Aspen and wrote my deadname underneath it, just so he could keep track of it. I said to him, ‘I know this probably was not the intent, but getting this back and seeing this really hurts.’ He apologized, but that’s something that could have hurt somebody really badly,” said Burnham.
A deadname is a word that refers to the name that a transgender or nonbinary person was given at birth, which often does not reflect how the person currently identifies.
Aspen, who’s currently a second-year environmental science student and one of the acting Undergraduate Student Government (USG) senators for the Queer Trans Student Union (QTSU), has had to correct people on his name constantly during his time here at Bowling Green State University (BGSU), because he’s not able to fully change his name in the BGSU identification systems.
MyBGSU offers a way to enter your chosen name, but oftentimes students who do it don’t see the name changed everywhere, such as in Canvas Role Call or in Microsoft Forms.
“I can’t really change my chosen name because of mail that goes home, so it hasn’t really affected me the same way it’s affecting other people, where they have their chosen name in the system but it’s still popping up as their deadname. But, your chosen name should be popping up everywhere, when you swipe your ID, when you scan it, when you log into Microsoft Forms, so the fact that ITS [Information Technology Services] is just not caring is really, really bad on their end,” said Burnham.
Because of this issue, the USG is trying to eliminate this issue by passing an initiative to have a way to choose where your chosen name is used. This way, when you enter your chosen name in MyBGSU, there’d be a drop down menu where you can pick whether or not the name goes on your mail, or if it’s just to be used when you swipe your BG1 card.
“You could pick and choose where it goes, and ITS and the university can work with that. Is it a lot more work? Yes it is. But it is for students, like me, to feel more comfortable and more accepted here at BGSU.”
BGSU ITS would like students to direct themselves to the 3341-2-48 Chosen Name Policy and the ITS Knowledge Base page about how to change your chosen name.
To make your voice heard on this initiative, students can fill out the survey.
If you have any questions, you can contact members of the QTSU at [email protected].
