Add a field for Pronouns to the Profile Page

[cifuller]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

In addition to many institutions allowing for preferred names of students, staff and faculty, there is an upcoming need to address preferred pronouns.

When addressing the preferred name options in the LMS, please allow for LMS users to indicate their preferred pronouns.

Example:

He/Him/His

She/Her/Hers

They/Them/Their

etc.

For more information, see Google or Wikipedia's article on gender-specific and gender-neutral pronouns.

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through Canvas Release Notes (2020-01-18) 

[thompsli]

Please just give a text field and accept all inputs rather than a list and "other". Students with uncommon pronouns are "othered" enough already.

[thompsli]

Please no drop down. 

Just have a plain text entry box and let people put in whatever they want. Give some examples above it that pronouns are things like She/Hers, They/ Theirs, etc. Possibly with directions like "You should put in the pronouns you'd want used for yourself in sentences like this one: "It looks like _______ turned in all of ______ work on time" (examples being "It looks like _he_ turned in all of _his_ work on time".)

Yes, some people will put in "weird" things that aren't what you meant when you asked for pronouns, but that's better than literally "othering" people with pronouns you didn't anticipate by making them choose other and then fill out a text box about it. (You will never anticipate all possible pronouns.)

[thompsli]

Question: does the "title" field on the Profile do what you need for this? I'm guessing that might be what it's for (I work in a middle/high school and we don't officially use it for anything, but some of our students have given themselves various titles since we let them edit it).

[jnickerson1]

Just a quick note on semantics - We do not use “preferred pronouns” due to people generally not having a pronoun “preference” but simply having “pronouns.” Using “preferred” can accidentally insinuate that using the correct pronouns for someone is optional.

[jlstern]

Yes! (See discussion above from August 4, 2016...)

[jnickerson1]

Pronouns should be displayed next to and along with a person's name. Then there is no chance of missing it. It should not be buried in their profile. Indeed it is already easy to add, though it is a "hack", you can just tack your pronouns on to your "last name" field.

[jnickerson1]

Instructure's handling of this has been negligent. Basic human dignity and doing right by a marginalized group shouldn't require a minimum number of upvotes — shame on them.

And who would downvote this? I could see not voting if something doesn't concern you, but to take the time to vote against showing people respect and dignity? That is also terribly shameful.

[Renee_Carney]

 @jnickerson1 

We totally agree.  We don't like to edit ideas written by our users, but in this case I did take the 'preferred' text out to avoid any further confusion. Preferred is not a word we would use.

[Renee_Carney]

 @jnickerson1 

Thank you for sharing your opinion.  This idea is something that our product team has actually spent a lot of time discussing.  We love and respect someones choice to share their pronouns as a way to 1) share who they are, and 2) influence a culture of openness and acceptance. We also understand that when developed this should be a feature that is an option for every instance of Canvas, or every user where the feature is enabled. So developing a feature like this is much more complicated that it may seem.  This is why we appreciate the public conversation and thoughts on development - for when it is time to build it.

[jleamon]

Hi Renee, thanks to you and everyone at Instructure for taking this issue seriously. However, I think Instructure's framing of the issue that you presented above doesn't accurately reflect the purpose or the value of tool: it's actually not a tool that allows students to share their pronouns and influence a culture of openness and acceptance. Jillian's statement above about respect and dignity is more accurate: It's a tool for faculty so that they avoid misgendering their students, and it's a fundamental educational resource for students, since trans students who are misgendered tend to graduate at a lower rate, and perform less well in their coursework.

If the folks at Instructure would like to have a deeper conversation about the value of supporting trans students by correctly gendering them, I would be happy to organize a discussion.