By Katie Goss ’23
Staff Writer
In August 2020, the College implemented a new Chosen-Name Policy, allowing Mount Holyoke community members to administratively change their names from their given name to their chosen name. This new policy is an effort to introduce more gender-inclusive policies that support transgender and gender-nonconforming community members at the College.
Before this policy, transgender students could still change their deadname — their birth or former name — to their preferred name or “nickname,” by contacting the Office of the Registrar. However, if not completed before the beginning of a semester, not every document would automatically change, such as professors’ rosters.
“The policy was added to ensure that we have policies and practices that align with who we are as a women's college that is gender diverse,” Vice President for Equity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer Kijua Sanders-McMurtry said. “The motivation was to provide more gender-affirming policies recognizing the importance of demonstrating our support for trans and gender-nonconforming members of our campus community.”
Starting in 2018, the two-year project included a combined effort mainly by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Library and Information Technology Services and students, specifically Percy Child ’21 and Kai Chuckas ’20.
“I worked with teams of people including students, a multitude of LITS staff and the senior leadership to get the policy approved. This was not a solo project, it was a collective effort,” Sanders-McMurtry said.
The end goal of this project was to have one place where a community member could change their name to their preferred name, and it would automatically change on all systems across campus, such as professor roster sheets and W-2 forms. In order to do this, LITS had to recode and reorganize their system to make it as easy as possible.
“When a trans person is deadnamed [referred to by birth name] or misgendered it does real harm. It can trigger sadness, it can trigger pain. It can trigger a lot of very negative emotions associated with gender dysphoria,” Chuckas said, as quoted on the Mount Holyoke website.
“Deadnaming can be a huge setback for those who’ve gone by their chosen name for a long time, and for those who are just starting out with their chosen names and testing the waters,” added Wolfe Chen ’23. “Those who are unsupportive of name changes or unwilling to adapt could use their deadnames and cause major dysphoria.”
Chen changed their name on campus before the policy went into effect. Because they changed it mid-semester, it did not change the name on professor rosters, and they had to tell professors and students their preferred name in the middle of the semester. The only place their deadname showed up was on insurance and medical documents, but even then, Chen said the staff at the Health Center respected their chosen name and used it.
“Because of the chosen name policy, and the way Mount Holyoke has put my chosen name into their system, I can avoid that awkward phase and avoid deadnaming entirely from day one of each course,” Chen said. “I would say the policy can be lifesaving, even, for those who identify as trans/gender-nonconforming, because Mount Holyoke may be the only space I can hear my chosen name truly being used without malice, confusion or disrespect. For those who live in unsupportive environments, having this policy at Mount Holyoke really helps affirm our identities and help us navigate them as they fluidly develop and change too.”
Lauren Hirth ’21 brought up the difficulty surrounding changing your name on campus to the Student Government Association last fall. Although she was not a part of the group responsible for drafting this policy, nor is she looking to change her name, she brought it to the Senate floor after speaking to students in the Renegades org.
“I was the senator of Renegades at the time, and one of my friends in the club was complaining about how often he received mail under his dead name. We got talking, and it came up just how difficult it was to change one’s name on campus,” Hirth said. She explained that there was no information on the College’s website at that time, and the process to change your name was more time-consuming and difficult. “I asked around Renegades, and all of the trans students I spoke to expressed similar annoyance and confusion,” she added.
Transgender and gender-nonconforming members are not the only ones who may benefit from this policy, however. Those who wish to change their name for cultural reasons will also be able to do so.
“One thing I wasn’t expecting when I brought this issue to the floor was hearing from students who wanted to change their names for cultural reasons. I spoke to one girl who had gone by an anglicized version of her name for years and really wanted to start going by her cultural name,” Hirth said.
An issue students in the Mount Holyoke community may run into is how to change their name on certain documents or in specific places at Mount Holyoke, such as the Williston Library or professors’ roster sheets, when they still go by another name at home for a specific reason. Though this specific situation may be a case-by-case scenario, there is nothing clarified in the policy specifically to this issue.
The Mount Holyoke website describes the new policy and walks students through the steps on how to change their name, along with the difference between changing to their preferred name and their legal name.
“Other gender-diverse women’s colleges do look to Mount Holyoke for guidance on how to roll out policies like this and I do hope that us doing this will lead to other institutions following suit,” Child said, as quoted on the Mount Holyoke website. “I would definitely say that this is a step in the right direction and does reveal a commitment to moving forward.”