Moving to university is often a daunting and scary experience for teenagers. How do non-binary identifying people feel when starting university? Research shows that 1 in every 250 people identify as non-binary. As Michael Beattie observes in his book ‘Counselling Skills for Working with Gender Diversity and Identify’: “We have been finding an increasing number of people presenting as non-binary, of all age ranges, but particularly between the ages of 18 and 30.” I spoke to two new students about how the were settling into university life and how well they felt the university understood their gender identity and issues around this.
The first student, for privacy reasons, has requested to remain anonymous. I will therefore refer to them by the false name of Ashleigh in order to protect their identity.
Ashleigh is 18 and has recently started studying Sociology at York St John University, near to their hometown. Three months down the line from moving to university and beginning their degree, I interviewed them to discuss how they were getting on, and how easy they found settling into university life.
“I identify as non-binary, but I have no issues around calling myself transgender unless I’m with certain people. They’re similar umbrella terms so I use them interchangeably” says Ashleigh. “There is no fixed structure in non-binary and genderqueer and you may find that some people wish to identify as trans as well as non-binary” says Michael Beattie.
As non-binary isn’t as common as different sexualities, for example bisexuality, university institutes can often be unclear and unsupportive of people who don’t conform to either the male or female archetypes. The term genderqueer only came into use in the mid 1990’s, not even 30 years ago.
I asked Ashleigh if she felt as though university had understood how she described her gender identity. “The university never actually asked about my identity. The only thing they asked was a preferred name, which is what they’ve used to put on my student ID card.” Adding to this, Ashleigh said “I’m also a bit upset because they haven’t put on the registers sent out to my lecturers what my preferred name is, so in the first couple of weeks I had to tell university staff, and then people on my course my preferred name. I do understand that with emails and IT accounts it has to be the legal name, but I would’ve thought there would be a note on the system about the preferred name to avoid confusion.”
Secondly, I spoke to Jac Thomas who is happy for me to share their identity. Jac is also a first year student at York St John University, age 18, and is studying Politics and History.
“For some non-binary people it’s important to appear androgynous and to adopt unisex names and gender natural titles” says Michael Beattie. Jac told me he was born as a female, however, he said that he identifies as trans-masculine which is transgender but closer to the male side of the gender spectrum, preferring he/him pronouns.
When asked how the university approached this, Jac responded “They’ve kind of ignored it but in a good way, as in I have been approached with regards to checking things such as pronouns and names but not a huge amount more, meaning no big deal has been made” which is a particularly positive advancement to hear with regards to an understanding of non-binary identifying people.
In agreement to what Ashleigh had to say, Jac also agreed on the ignorance the university had held towards his preferred name. “My name has been a constant issue since applying” said Jac. “My legal name is still my birth name, and therefore I understand it had to be on official documents. However, it had been in almost every marketing or information email, on all send outs and on printed registers, not to mention my obviously public email address.” Jac added: “The university has met with me on multiple occasions to try and rectify this issue but unfortunately I am not aware of much change.”
Both students said that they didn’t feel as though settling into university was more difficult for them regarding their situations, and Ashleigh also mentioned “I quickly found the LGBTQ+ society which has meant I made lots of friends easily.” Even though neither student had sought out support from the university, it was agreed that there is “lots of billboards around campus about gender identity and how they’re showing support and I’m sure if I did need help or support, I would be able to find it.”
Settling into university is never an easy transition, and it can be a whole lot harder when you identify your gender differently to most people, which can often be difficult for people to understand.