When we meet in person, we encourage folks to put pronoun stickers on their nametags and share their pronouns when they introduce themselves at greeting time at the beginning of the Sunday service. Neither of those works via Zoom–but Zoom has another, very simple way to share your pronouns.
If you have a Zoom account:
- Sign on to your account via a web browser.
- Click on “Profile” on the left-hand navigation bar, then click on “Edit” on the right.
- The second line of your profile is your Display Name. Add your pronouns there. For example, if your Display Name is “Amy Zucker Morgenstern,” you can change it to “Amy Zucker Morgenstern (she).” (Since my name is so long, people usually can’t see the “she,” so I have just this moment changed it to be the leftmost part of my Display Name–watch for it tomorrow and you’ll see.)
- Scroll down to “Save Changes” and click. All done!
If you don’t have a Zoom account, you can often change how your name displays just for the gathering you’re in, by right-clicking on the upper right of the box where your face or name appears on Zoom and choosing “Change name.” In our Sunday services, however, that power is disabled. But no worries. We ask everyone to share their names in the chat box so that we can know who’s “in the room,” since oftentimes there are two, three, or more people logged in to the service together. So when you share your name, please share your pronouns too.
“Amy Morgenstern here (she)–great to see you all this morning!”
As for the why: a nonbinary author explains it here, and a transgender advocacy and education group has more about it here: “If you are cisgender, you may not be fully aware of how many opportunities you have to help make the world easier for transgender and non-binary people. Every time you send an email with your pronouns in your signature, or include your pronouns after your name in a Zoom call, you make it easier for a transgender or non-binary person to do so too.” Wednesday is the Transgender Day of Visibility, so it’s a great week to make this change.
Our congregation is subscribed to the excellent video series Transgender Inclusion in Congregations, and a group has been watching it monthly since last fall. If you haven’t attended these classes but would like to learn more, it’s not too late; email the Welcoming Congregation committee at welcoming+owner@uucpa.org to learn how to enroll for free as a UUCPA member. But you don’t have to have taken the class yet to know that if you’re cisgender, one way to express your caring and solidarity for the trans, non-binary, and genderqueer people of our congregation is to include your pronouns with your name.
See you on Sunday, pronouns and all! –Amy