International Pronouns Day – which seeks to to make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns commonplace – is on Wednesday, Oct. 20. The Office for Equity, Equal Opportunity, and Title IX (EEO-TIX) is partnering with USC’s LGBTQ+ Student Center to raise awareness for and celebrate the day within the USC community.
Check out the actions below you can take to help demonstrate yours and/or your unit, school or division’s commitment to providing a safe, inclusive, and respectful environment for all members of our community.
- Publicly endorse International Pronouns Day on social media using the hashtag #PronounsDay, and encourage your followers to educate themselves by visiting mypronouns.org.
- Share your pronouns in your display name, email signature, when introducing yourself in meetings, etc. Let others know that it is International Pronouns Day and provide recommendations about how they can make similar changes.
- Remind your coworkers or students that they can update their gender identity, pronouns, and preferred name at any time in MyUSC (students) or Workday (faculty and staff). For additional gender-identity accommodations, students can use the dedicated LGBTQ+SC form, while faculty and staff can email eeo-tix@usc.edu (your privacy will be safeguarded).
- Visit mypronouns.org to learn more, including about how to respect others’ pronouns. Practice using “they/them” and other pronoun sets in sentences so you are prepared for real-life scenarios. Nobody is perfect, so mistakes will happen – learn how to recover from them.
- Get involved in local communities and organizations, specifically trans-affiliated ones. Try to get other organizations you work with to support International Pronouns Day.