 Great, hi everyone and welcome to an iSchool seminar, actually our webinar in Access and Inclusion. Also, Diversity is something that we are celebrating in our school. My name is Kristen Rebman and I am the chair of the iSchools Diversity Committee. And one thing that we've done for many years is to invite speakers that celebrate, promote, and develop programs and services relating to inclusive excellence. And this year we have a fantastic panel that was coordinated and arranged in collaboration with Dr. Michelle Villagran, one of our new faculty members. And so I'm so pleased that this webinar has come to fruition. Michelle is going to tell us more about our speakers, which are Reid Garber-Piersen, Micah Karine, Sunny Kim, and Bean Yogi. So thank you so much for joining us. We have a lot of people here today. We'll also be, if you can't stay the entire time, we will have recordings of the entire session. And it looks like some resources relating to our topic today, transgender inclusion in libraries, will be shared on the website where we also post the recording. So Michelle, I'm going to let you jump in and introduce our speakers in greater depth. Thank you, Kristin. So hello everyone. Today we have a great panel of four speakers. Their full bios are available on our website with the announcement materials related to this webcast, but I will give you a brief introduction to each one. And I'm going in alphabetical order of the last name. So Reid Garber-Piersen is the Integrated Social Sciences and Online Learning Librarian at the University of Washington, where they have worked since 2016. Garber-Piersen is currently serving as the president-elect for the Washington State Chapter, the Association of College and Research Libraries, ACRL. Garber-Piersen is interested in expanding what community looks like and talking about identity in online spaces. Micah Karine is a current MLIS student, currently one of my students at San Jose High School, and a library associate too for the Seattle Public Library. They grew up in a small town where the public library was central to the community, and have been passionate about libraries ever since. Karine believes that public libraries must explicitly center equity and social justice in order to truly provide access for all. Sunny Kim is deeply honored to live and work in Seattle as a teen librarian. They love building strong relationships with young people, geeking out over science fiction and comic books and serving the community. Before becoming a librarian, Kim spent a decade working in community for social justice. And then Bean Yogi is an Indigenous Uchi Nanchu public library worker and an San Jose MLIS student as of fall 2019, based on Kiwamish land. Their work in libraries focuses centers around the intersectional lives of queer and trans black, Indigenous and brown people through a transformative justice lens. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to our presenters who are going to be toggling in between and will introduce themselves as they transition. So take it away. This is Micah. Thank you so much, Dr. Viagran, Dr. Rebman and Nancy for inviting us here today. We are excited to be here. I'm going to pass it on to my colleague Bean, who is going to open us up with a land acknowledgement. Hi everyone, my name is Bean and I'd like to start our session today with a land acknowledgement. The four of us are broadcasting from the traditional homeland of the Duwamish tribe, who are the original present and future stewards of this territory where we live. These lands that we are situated on are subject to the Treaty of Point Elliott, though its terms have been consistently violated, and even to this day the Duwamish remain federally unrecognized. We make this land acknowledgement in order to honor the legacies, struggles and existence of Indigenous peoples, to situate ourselves within settler colonial projects, including libraries, to disrupt the erasure of Indigenous peoples, and to continue the work of collectively learning and fulfilling our obligations for those of us who are uninvited guests of this territory. Land acknowledgements are made usually at the beginning of events and gatherings. You can learn more about the importance of land acknowledgements and how they're being applied to libraries in the resources and readings document that read shared over chat, and we'll get more into that by the end of the workshop. Okay, so we're just going to quickly introduce ourselves. Again, my name is Bean Yogi, and I use they and them pronouns. My name is Sunny Kim, and I also use they, them and their pronouns. I'm Micah Karine, and I also use they, them and their pronouns. So you might notice that all of us use the same pronouns. Pronouns are just the words that we use to refer to someone when we're not using the name. And in some languages, pronouns are gendered. So using the correct one for every person requires a little bit of intention. Examples of other pronouns that you might hear folks use are she, he and Z, though there are many more than that. And you may have also heard pronouns described as preferred pronouns. And I just wanted to point out that, you know, to us pronouns really aren't preferred so much as they are mandatory. And we'll get into more of that in just a minute. Great. So this is Reid speaking again. And really quickly, I'm going to just outline the two goals we've set for today's webinar. We've done this workshop in like four hour time spans, and we've done it in one hour. So this is like a very shortened version of this presentation. But today we're going to learn about transgender queer and gender non conforming people and their experiences. And we're going to learn about some practices for engaging those folks. And we're going to also introduce some ideas for creating safer spaces for transgender queer and gender non conforming patrons through language, programming and policies. All right, so this is now sunny speaking. Before we get into sort of the meaty part of our content, we wanted to make sure that folks had some common language so that we were all speaking to each other instead of across each other. So I just wanted to, before I launch into some definitions, make a quick note about terminology. Language, especially for communities like queer communities often changes a lot over time. And it's hard to be able to predict what is going to be the term that makes the most sense for the most amount of people at any given point in time. But if you need a good rule of thumb, it's important to just remember to respect the self determination of all people. Another point is that we're going to be sharing some words that discuss things like identity so who you are, but also things like sexual orientation so who you love. And then we won't go too deeply into it but we do want to make a point that gender is a as a concept is a social construct that is defined in our society as a binary so male and female. But we know for a fact that that binary is actually false. The existence of trans folks the existence of intersex folks all of us serve to sort of explode that binary. So if you've never heard the idea of gender as a binary, please do some research into that and learn more on your own time. Okay, so the first definition we want to make sure people understand is that transgender is actually an umbrella term for people whose gender identity and or gender expression differs from what's usually associated with the gender they were assigned at birth. So this includes a lot of different identities underneath that umbrella. cisgender is actually sometimes I have heard some people say that cisgender feels like a slur to them. But in actuality cisgender is just the term that's used to describe people who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. So cis is actually Latin for on the same side as so again it's just a descriptive word. Transgender woman or trans woman is a person who is a woman is a woman and was assigned male at birth. So just to be clear, if you are talking about a transgender woman, you're not talking about cisgender male you're not talking about all you're talking about is a woman who is who is assigned male. Okay, so and the picture here shows Laverne Cox who is an incredible actress and LGBTQ advocate. The next definition is transgender man so similarly to trans woman. This is a person who is a man and was assigned female at birth and pictured here is Tic Milan, who is a writer public speaker activists and media consultant he's currently a spokesperson for glad. Okay, so now we get into the term that describes people who don't fit into the binary. So non binary or gender queer these are two terms that are used by some people who experienced their gender identity as outside the binary. And so all of the presenters here today identify as non binary, but that doesn't mean that we all experience our gender identities in the same way. There's no one experience of being non binary in the same way there's no one experience of being a trans woman or a trans man. So, for some folks you might identify as just as a as one gender you might identify as both simultaneously you might identify as one or the other depending on what time of day it is. And it's really very varies a lot and you just have to check in with the folks who identify that way to really understand. Next we've got. Did I skip one. The next definition is for gender non conforming that describes a person whose behavior parents doesn't conform with the typical ways society expects us to behave. And so gender non conforming people are not necessarily identified as trans, but they're folks who play with gender and fall outside of the ways people expect us to present. Transition encompasses a lot of different things for many people this is a super complex process for some folks opt into some parts of transition and other folks opt out of certain parts. So transition is a very personal thing it doesn't look the same way for any one person there's no valid way to transition or invalid way to transition. It is just your personal journey to being yourself as fully as possible. And intersex intersex is a term that's used to describe a variety of conditions in which a person is born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn't fit the typical definitions of male or female. I encourage you to really look into this identity a little bit more. There is a super great documentary coming out by pigeon. I think it's called a normal girl you can look into it online. That brings that wraps up the definitions I'm passing it over to Micah. Hello Micah here. I just wanted to share with you all this graphic the gender unicorn. It is created by the trans student educational resources group. And we bring it to you today it isn't our favorite graphic but we do appreciate that it was created by trans folks and we do think it helps folks see what we mean when we're talking about all of these different things. So the first thing you'll notice here is gender identity, and you'll notice that that is what the unicorn is thinking about. It's not something that's visible to anyone from it. It's not visible to anyone and so in order to know what the gender identity is, you have to ask the unicorn. So it's something that you can see varies it could be man woman it could be other. It is the gender identity gender expression on the other hand that's represented by the green dots that refers to kind of the external ways that someone might present their gender. That can be what someone wears if they paint their nails or make up it's also you know the way someone holds their body the way they walk. So this includes sex assigned at birth here included represented by the chromosomes that could include female male or intersex as Sonny just spoke to. It also speaks to attraction, whether that's physical emotional, and those are both spectrum so folks can be physically and emotionally attracted to different genders of folks and those might vary between the two. So this is just we just wanted to illustrate how complex and nuanced identities are along each of these categories, and we can't assume anything about anyone based on someone's gender identity or presentation. And as Kenny mentioned we all identify as non binary. But if the four of us plotted ourselves on these graph on this graph, we would all have very different results. I'm going to turn it over to being again. Okay. Hi everyone it's been. I know that some of you may have arrived at this workshop hoping to know more about the capital T transgender experience and unfortunately that is not what we're here to share with you today. If there's one thing that we would like you to leave with from this webinar it's that having a trans and or a non binary identity is truly full of mystery and nuance, there is just nothing you can know for certain. There's just no explanation or breakdown that's a one size fits all. But outside of a loose definition that can shift and grow over time as our cultures do. We know that trans and non binary genders look feel express and move differently for everyone. And just to demystify what is inherently fluid. I just wanted to point out a few things. One is that indigenous cultures have known for a long time that gender isn't binary. There are some examples in the graphic on the right that just describe only some of the what you could call non binary genders around the world. We want to lift this up because for some of us who are really stuck on conflating what our sex assigned at birth is and what our genders are. We just want to point out that there have been forever and for a long time different structures and gender systems through which we can understand not only our bodies but just how we like live and move in the world. And if you have any insights into these gender identities or other gender identities from your own experience from your own background, feel free to share resources in the chat. Another thing we want to point out is that many transgender folks transition socially and or medically kind of a sunny was pointing out. And so there really is no official checklist that you must go through in order to be certified as trans. And we think that's important to point out because sometimes trans and non binary folks get regulated in conversations about whether they really are trans or not. And so I think, you know, we'll get to this at the end but one thing you can just do is trust people to tell you who they are. We wanted to name that a pretty common narrative in mainstream media these days is the idea that trans people were just born in the wrong body. Perhaps they're a man who is just trapped in a woman's body and they're like struggling to get out. So that is a narrative that resonates with some people it doesn't resonate with everybody. And the reason why I think it's important to name that is because there there is a way sometimes that trans folks can have their narratives, sort of taken out of their mouths and repeated as like a universal. We just want to be really careful not to assume that we understand how any particular trans folk trans person identifies the experience of living in the body that they live in. Let's see. Another one is that sometimes when people are introducing themselves and they're sharing their gender pronouns, they may say that they identify with male pronouns or female pronouns. This is just one of the ways that we can sort of like uncouple the idea that certain language like inherently is or isn't male or female. There are plenty of non binary people who use for very personal reasons. He or him pronouns share her pronouns and so what we want to do is just focus on the gender identities that people share with us and try not to assume that we know what what those gender identities are right away. Hopefully it goes without saying that being transgender is not a mental illness, not because there is anything wrong with having mental illness but specifically because again, there are different social structures that have been put into place to regulate trans people and to other them. And we just want to say that the experience of being trans is not something that we can just easily conflate with a disabled experience. And yeah, having said all these things, trusting people to tell us who they are I think is the main thing that we'd like to impart today in our website or in our webinar. Okay. One more idea that we really want to keep front and center in the work that we're doing whenever we're talking about marginalized identities and inclusion is the concept of intersectionality. Professor Kimberly Crenshaw is a legal scholar and she was the person who first coined the term intersectionality. Intersectionality is the idea that social identities and related systems of oppression intersect to create a whole that is different from just the component identities. So in terms of gender, you could say that racism, classism, ableism, all these other forms of oppression impact the access that trans folks have to, you know, trans affirming health care, or to the legal system, and that, you know, these people, multiple oppressed identities result in an experience that is unique. There is no one transgender experience because of intersectionality. And so one way that we wanted to illustrate this is to consider how black trans people experience different levels of social discrimination that non black trans people don't experience in the same way. In 2015, 24% of all black folks in the US were living in poverty, and that we know is more than twice the rate for white folks in the US. And then according to the 2015 US transgender survey, nearly 40% of black trans folks were living in poverty. And so just seeing that kind of like confluence of anti black racism and how that impacts people and also has transphobia impacts people we can see that there is a connected but also unique experience that, you know, that black trans folks have, because of the internet intersectionality of their experiences. And what we, you know, without just sort of repeating a lot of statistics to you, we also want to name and surface that within black trans communities. When we apply an intersectional framework to understanding what those experiences are, we know that black trans women in particular face targeting and violence that is at an increased rate. And we just can't talk about intersectionality and gender without naming those differences in experience so that we honor those experiences and we, and we don't just conflate people. Because when we do that, we more often than not skew towards the folks who have the most privilege and the folks were the least impacted by multiply marginalized identities, and we just want to take care not to do that. Intersectionality isn't all, you know, doom and gloom though, if we are using an intersectional lens to think about transgender inclusion in libraries. Then what we're doing is we're getting even more nuanced and intentional in thinking about how to shift, you know, not only our organizational cultures but also our programming and our services. Having services that are more trans inclusive really isn't just about creating trans specific services and programs. It's understanding that trans people are part of all of our communities including immigrant disabled poor homeless communities, etc. And so if we make every aspect of our programming and public service more trans affirming than we're really doing the work. And I just want to point out before we move on that making our libraries more trans inclusive doesn't only benefit trans people. CIS folks benefit from gender affirming spaces too. And when we lift from the margins we really are uplifting entire communities. Thank you so much Dean this is Micah again. So being started to touch on this but we really wanted to spend some time talking about why this is important for librarians. And so we wanted to think about this in a number of contexts between the four of us we work in public and academic libraries I also have some past and special libraries. So we just wanted to let you all know some some reasons why this is so important for the work that you do. The first thing is avoiding unintentionally escalating situations by having the skill set to engage with transgender folks in ways that are humanizing. And this is really important because this is an opportunity to build connection rather than burn bridges. When you're working with students community organizations, all sorts of users and customers, you're going to be interacting with trans folks. So having the skills to have relationships with folks is really important. Also in public library settings sometimes in school library settings, you might have to engage with someone who is struggling to be in the library for one reason or another. And if you address this person and misgender them you will escalate the situation, which brings us to the next point avoid misgendering users. Trans folks are regularly misgendered in their everyday life while making a mistake about the gender is often accidental it is also very hurtful and can be very impactful and make a safe, make a space far less safe. You cannot assume the impact that misgendering someone has, but even if it wasn't on purpose it doesn't mean that it didn't hurt. So learning to refer to people and use non binary and gender inclusive language is a huge step in making our libraries places where transgender folks feel seen and respected. The next is having a deeper awareness of the barriers transgender individuals face. And this will help you advocate and make institutional changes. When we do this as a longer workshop we spend a lot of time on this in our resource guide there's actually an institutional assessment that allows you to look through your institution and think about ways that your institution could do better. I want to bring forward one example that was shared with us at our presentation at LA midwinter. There was someone who is visiting from a health science library at a university connected with a major hospital. And they had a student that they were working with who had experienced some pretty intense transphobia while receiving medical care. And that library was able to work with the university hospital in order to improve the care that that transgender individual experienced. And so, even when it doesn't feel like your library might have a lot of power in these situations that's an example that the person shared that was something that they never expected what happened but they had so much power there. Next up is just a reminder that you will have transgender coworkers, you might not realize that they're transgender but you will have them. And so don't forget the impact that transphobia has on your transgender coworkers and their transgender family members. Having coworkers that continually misgender you or don't understand their language can create a really hostile environment. There's also a lot of barriers that your transgender coworkers might face. One example is if your library or company that you work for offers health insurance that covers gender reforming care. That's something that a lot of organizations do not. There's been a lot of growth around that recently, but it is really important and can really change someone's quality of life. And finally, it's really important to undo structural violence and harm. When something is a default, you don't have to be intentional in order to not cause more harm. Transphobia is not just hate crimes, it's also continuing to center cis people and cis experiences as the norm. This is woven into how we think culturally, unless you're thinking explicitly about trans people and marginalized folks. You're going to be upholding these systems and continuing to cause harm. To not do that you have to continually and actively challenge them. I'm going to turn it over to Reid, and I'm going to turn it over to Reid. This is Reid speaking again. And following that, we just wanted to give you some really brief best practices for how you in the work that you're doing, any of us in the work that we're doing can make safer spaces or spaces where trans folks can be more seen and acknowledged in our workplaces and out in the world, wherever we are. So first is don't assume anyone's gender. So we've already said this, but until someone tells you your gender, you won't know what it is. So based on looks or appearance or name or even somebody's pronouns, you won't know somebody's gender. And also ask yourself, is it important to know somebody's gender to get their pronouns right? Those things can be distinct or can be connected, but always ask and don't assume. And if someone tells you their pronouns, use them. Even if they're not around to hear those pronouns, make sure if somebody states what their pronouns are, use those consistently for them. Third is if someone tells you their gender, use that gender. If you refer to them later, similarly to using pronouns. Again, even if they're not around. Transgender and trans are the most inclusive words to use and are always followed by nouns like person, folks, people, man, woman. Transgendered with an ED at the end, that's not a word. Transsexual is an outdated word that we don't recommend using. It's a medical word and we're not medical professionals, at least the four of us are not. Some people may still use that word for themselves and respect that those are words that people use for them. But it's a word that we don't recommend using for other people. Words are really important for some people whose daily lived experiences are filled with a lot of disrespect and continuing violence and shame. Words can be a really crucial channel for communicating that people's existence is worthy of dignity and care. Next is don't ask trans people about the particulars of their bodies or surgeries they've had or that they might want to have. This is none of anybody's business, but their own. So we should never be asking anybody about their bodies. Lastly is pronouns take practice to get. If you know people who change their pronouns or who regularly regularly change their pronouns in your life. You might get those pronouns wrong. So it's really important to practice on your own time getting those pronouns right because it does take work and it may not just come naturally. So next I'm going to hand this next I'm going to hand this over to Micah and Sunny. Who are going to show you an example of how to apologize when mistakes happen. This is Micah again and actually I wanted to bring us back one step before when we make mistakes and this is how to learn someone's pronouns so that we do not make mistakes. So one way that you can do this is when you're introducing yourself. Mind you it's not always important to know the patrons pronouns. If it's just a fleeting interaction, you can use gender neutral language which we will cover in a moment to refer to them. But if this is someone that you're building a relationship with it is important to know their pronouns. So when you're just getting to notice someone one thing that you can do is introduce your own pronouns first. So when I go into a space and we're doing introductions or I'm meeting someone one on one I start by saying my name's Micah I use they and them pronouns what pronouns would you like me to use for you. And that's a way for someone to let you know what their pronouns are and to not feel like. Often trans folks are the only ones who are being asked their pronouns and so for cisgender folks it's also very important for you to normalize that by sharing what your own pronouns are. If I don't catch someone's pronouns right away perhaps I meet someone really in passing or it's a large group I might approach them later and say you know I didn't catch your pronouns earlier what pronouns would you like me to use and then also let them know my own. Also when in meetings when we're going around it's become a norm and most of the meetings that I am at the library I work for that we not only share our names and what location we work at but also our pronouns when we're in spaces with new individuals. So just to share a couple of ways that we can do that before we talk about mistakes happen. So once you know someone's pronouns you can potentially make a mistake and so we wanted to talk about how to apologize. The first thing is it's really important to be brief. We don't want a lengthy drawn out apology that really just centers the experience of the person who made the mistake. Bringing it to the importance of focusing on the person, not the guilt that you are experiencing about having made a mistake. Finally, you we it's important not to name that you know the impact that you've had. It might not have been a big deal to the person or it might have been really significant and broken some trust that that person had built with you. And then you do want to name what you're going to do differently in the future. We have all experienced incredibly uncomfortable apologies when folks have gendered us incorrectly. So we wanted to share with you some examples of how you can do this well, and how you can do this not so well. So we're going to start off with a bad example and sunny is actually going to share an apology that is one that is based on one that they received. It is also similar to some apologies that we have received while at library conferences. So this is not an uncommon apology. Take it away, Sunny. Hey, Micah. I'm so sorry I called you here earlier. I'm trying really hard to get your pronouns right but like they is it refers to multiple people and I really struggle with that and like, I just need you to understand that I'm not a bad person and I'm trying really hard and like it would be really great if you could help me I just feel really terrible and I'm so sorry. So that's one way to apologize. He is going to offer a much more humanizing approach to apologizing. Hey Micah. I'm sorry I used the wrong pronouns for you earlier. I'm just going to keep practicing and get it right next time. So that is a way to apologize that centers the person who has experienced the misgendering and is simple. It is brief. And these are things that I'll just go back to it so you can read it one more time. This is something that is really important to use when you are. This is a great template of what's really important to use when you're apologizing to someone being likes to joke that if you can't remember it you can just get it tattooed somewhere. You can do whatever you need to do to have a good apology so that when you're in the moment when you're activated when you're feeling embarrassed and flush that you can go to something that you already know how to do so you don't get caught in your words like the person who apologized to something like that. I'm going to pass it to Bean. Okay, another another question that we've been asked as we presented this webinar is how to interrupt misgendering that we see in front of us that isn't necessarily a mistake that we've made. But just when you are speaking with your colleagues or in the work room or something. So we wanted to offer you some examples. Before I begin, I just, I want to bring up like one caveat to all of this that I think is really important. Sometimes people are not out about their gender or their pronouns. They may have shared that with, you know, those things with you because you have a trusting relationship or because, you know, you took the time to check in with them about what their pronouns are. But there are definitely people who don't want their pronouns to be common knowledge yet. And so it's always a good idea to check in with folks that you have an ongoing relationship within your life about if and when they would like you to correct people who are misgendering them. So, you know, one example of that is that for myself personally, I asked my co workers to correct other coworkers who are misgendering me but not to correct patrons who misgender me, because I have a bit of a boundary about processing my gender with patrons. And so, you know, if you if you're taking the time to ask someone hey what pronouns do you use. You might also consider asking them, you know, a follow up question which is, if, if somebody else uses the wrong pronouns for you in the break room, would you like me to correct them. Alright, so back to mistakes happening and us all being human. Let's see if somebody if somebody were to say, you know, use the wrong pronouns and they have been told the pronouns before and you're just trying to remind them of something that they already know. What I find pretty effective and pretty gentle is to like essentially repeat the thing that they said only use the correct pronouns. So it's almost like you're just like demonstrating to them what they should have said. And, you know, when I've done that in the past, I found that people usually pick up on it right away and they're like, Oh, right, right. One example of that is somebody saying, Oh, I got beans email and I forgot to reply to him. You could say, Oh, you forgot to reply to them. Question mark. If you are talking to somebody who or you're, you know, observing somebody who may not know the pronouns of the person who they're talking about. You can also very simply say when there's a break in the conversation, you know, I think being uses they and them pronouns. You're not accusing them of anything you're not shaming them for making mistake. You're simply just giving them some extra information. I have found that for the most part people respond to a gentle but from correction like that really well. You know, one thing that is also very human of all of us is to get flustered in a moment where we don't know exactly what to say we haven't practiced interrupting misgendering and we let the moment pass. There is no problem at all about circling back. I've done this not only in the context of intervening on misgendering but also, you know, if somebody says something that is, you know, like racist or homophobic or, you know, ableist. There are times where I might be sort of shocked and I might not know what to say in the moment. I take a second to kind of like center myself and recollect, and then I circle back. So you can do this in the context of gender as well. One thing you can say is, hey, I forgot to mention this but being uses they and them pronouns not he and him. You could also say, when you were talking earlier I heard you use he and him pronouns for being actually they use they pronouns. Doing that is not weird. It's not, you know, it's not any weirder than somebody doing that for you when you've accidentally communicated the wrong policy to a patron at your library I've had coworkers do that and I've been, you know, always very grateful. So I think that as long as you are approaching these interventions in the spirit of relationship building and not in shaming people but really just helping them, you know, get things right. Most of us generally really appreciate that. So they're just a couple of examples. All right, so this is back to read speaking and I'm going to go through this slide pretty quickly since we've provided the slides in the workshop and resources notes. And so you can come back and look at this but you will see and you have heard in both chat and as we're speaking to you all today that we have not been using any any gendered language like guys or men and women or ladies or anything like that. And there's these are some really easy and simple language options to use that don't assume gender on anyone so we've been using everyone. We've been using y'all and you all and folks a lot. And there were some questions earlier about how to how to ask somebody their gender or how to gender somebody if you don't know what their gender is. And so these for that question earlier these are some of your options for children for individuals and referring to groups. So I will leave it there for now and know that you can come back and try practicing talking with some of this language. Thank you so much read this is my good. This is our last slide. I'm going to try and do this quickly but it is meaty and important. So the first thing that for inclusion in library programming and spaces is going beyond pride month. So this can refer to things like book display collection development readers advisory and book talks, doing those things all year long when you're celebrating black history month including black trans folks when you're celebrating women's history month including trans women. And this also applies when you're hosting lectures social media features things like that do them your round don't just do them as a tokenizing thing during the month of June or in November. When there's a trans. Oh my gosh I can't remember the name of it now. There are some trans specific holidays in November that we can tell you more about in the Q&A. So that's really important and that's something that makes sense in archives that makes sense when you're working in a business that does social media that makes sense when you're an act in an academic setting and hosting lectures. The next thing is when you're doing the centering own voices. There are so many pieces of written by trans folks about the trans experience. For example this presentation today there I have attended presentations on this subject done by SIS folks. So when you have the opportunity to host these sorts of trainings particularly if you are paying folks to do these trainings it's very important to think about including trans folks this also applies to the books that you have at your library. But also you know if you're featuring folks in your archives or you're sharing scholarly publications thinking about who's writing about their own experiences and this applies to all sorts of identities not just trans identities. The next thing is involving community and programs and initiatives. So you're not not just inviting the community to attend these programs and initiatives you've planned but including trans folks in planning and implementing them. Every step of the way and by and showing that you value their input by paying that that's really important and when you're doing this you also want to make sure that you are including trans folks with a variety of identities not just including a white able body trans folks including trans folks of color including disabled trans folks and other individuals with a multiplicity of identities. The next thing I have on here is making your ILS trans affirming so that is things like you're having how you include folks names in your system what information you record about name changes as well as if you record gender. There's a link to it in our resource guide American libraries actually just came out with an article earlier this month about how it doesn't make sense for libraries to include data about gender. And how a lot of libraries hold on to that because they say it's important for their data, but unless you're also including data about folks is race and about their ability and things like that your data actually isn't having gender as part of your data isn't actually strengthening your data so there's a great article there. Next up, improving restroom accessibility. If you have the opportunity to create new structures adding gender neutral restrooms. But we know that that's not always the case so if you only have gendered restrooms don't question a patrons trace of restroom. Also, do you know where the nearest all gender restroom is to your work location. I've been asked that before so it's been useful to be able to direct folks to a coffee shop a building across campus things like that. And then, as we've mentioned a lot represent trans folks from all communities honor the complexities of identities, people have more than one identity and it's really important to make sure of your inclusive of trans folks with other intersections and their identities. So that's what we have for our slides today, and we want to go ahead and turn it over to Q&A. So, do folks have questions for us. I just want to jump in and say thank you so much for these presenting these slides and what a cohesive presentation you were able to extend to us. A question or actually just a comment on your final slide where you mentioned go beyond awareness a month or and how we can communicate with our community members all year long, so that it's not this sort of tourist approach to doing equity, doing access and inclusion and truly making a commitment to our community members. I thought that was a really important point. It's something that we talk a lot in serving all of our community members that it's not just about this one month. It's every day all year long. And I thought that was really important for everyone to hear. So thank you. Yeah, thank you. We just, we know that in the, you know, participants, we aren't like of this webinar we are not the only people with knowledge and ideas and resources. And so we just wanted to, you know, share some of the things that have been coming up in our chat box. First, it looks like OS and Alvar were just naming some of those observances that relate to trans experiences. One is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Another one is Trans Day of Visibility. There's even a website that you can go to to learn more. There's tdov.org. We also heard from Lori G that at Lori's library system, there are keys to a female and male gendered restroom. And Lori and other staff there have started offering both keys to folks who are asking for restroom keys, which I think, you know, is a great practice when you don't have like single user restroom options available or when you don't have gender neutral options. Let's see. This is Micah. Maggie also asks if we would recommend stating pronouns on a resume. I think that's a personal decision. I do not include my pronouns on my resume, but I do know folks that do so I think if it's up to folks, I think Sunny has something to add. So I don't put it on my resume, but I'll put it at the bottom of my cover letter. Yeah, and, you know, if you are thinking about doing this as a trans person or a non-binary person, you know, again, it's a really personal decision. And if you are a cis person who is trying to think of ways that you can normalize sharing and extending gender pronouns, you know, in more avenues of interaction, I think that, you know, those are great ways to do that. Someone else mentioned a little bit earlier in the chat that they have seen folks including gender pronouns in the signature of their emails, regardless of whether you identify as trans or not. And, you know, that that's a personal decision, but I know for me, you know, personally, I've felt really grateful when I've seen that happening more and more in the like library field. So yeah, we would definitely encourage you to do that if you feel comfortable. I noticed that Tiffany asked a question about if we have any advice for trans staff engaging in advocacy as staff and members of the LGBTQIA communities. This is personally me speaking as Micah. I think the most important things for me have been finding my people. So doing this together with being read and sunny has been a really beautiful thing to do, even though it's been incredibly difficult. We have been misgendered so many times while doing these presentations. I've had some really hard experiences with library staff. The first time I did this training, I did it for a specific population of library employees and I was asked about the particulars of my body and what surgeries I've had, which is why that's now added to our slides. I think have finding my people and building relationships, having folks that I can talk to about this work and the difficulties there. And then also having really strong self care practices. Those things have been really important to me. I don't know if anyone else has things they want to share. I would just add, like, as library employees, there's an element of our work that's always about how we interact with each other and how our systems work and all of that. But there's always, to my mind, the very important work of how we interact with our communities. And so if you're advocating for queer communities within your library. Some things that I think are very important are following up, being accountable, really doing some deep and careful listening, being transparent and honest about what you can and can't offer from your system. Following up with people and giving them updates. I've learned a lot, particularly from black women at Seattle Public Library who have been leading community engagement work in really accountable and thorough ways. How to really actually do community engagement that doesn't just surface level tokenize people. Thank you, Sunny for sharing that. I want to speak to this is my again. I want to speak to a question in the chat before I do so. Someone named Andrea asked a question that I'd like some more clarity about so Andrea if you're listening please clarify that for us. The next question I want to answer is can someone share more about the use of they them pronouns, as opposed to using singular pronouns like she her. I just want to clarify that they them is a singular pronoun. This is historically how it was used in Old English, but also, according to, you know the Webster's dictionary it is a singular pronoun it was actually the word of the year in 2016. The singular they as a pronoun so just to clarify it is a singular pronoun it can refer to one person. And it is a way to refer to an individual without gender. And so that can be used for someone that you don't know the gender of, as well as folks who have said that the pronouns that they use are they in them. I'll just add to that. You know what how I understand whether the pronouns they or there is being used singularly or plural really depends on the context. So, you know, I think that when, for example, at my library we have lost and found. And when we find a jacket, you know, on the ground we might say, oh, to the to the folks, you know, in our vicinity we might say hey did did anyone lose their jacket. And that's that's kind of a natural way that we do use the singular they and we just don't. We're not necessarily encouraged thinking to think about it in in a singular way. So yeah, like Micah said it is was Miriam Webster's word of the day in a recent year. Word of the year. You know, we just, um, yeah, we just encourage folks to check out the resources document if you need a little bit more information about that. This is Micah again I saw a really great question from Catherine. And that is my library's policy is that we have to put the name on the account that matches their government ID which I know can be problematic for some trans people. Do you think there is any way we can mitigate any harm that causes. So I have actually been involved in some rethinking about these policies that the Seattle Public Library so I'll speak a little bit to what those policies are. So for the Seattle Public Library for folks that are under the age of 18. For folks that are 12 and under you know their parents are just filling out a form signing saying that they are who they are. We don't, you know, require any photo ID for our youngest patrons. So if there is a young person who's changing their name regardless of if they have legal paperwork we just have them fill out a new library card application with their parents signature and then that way. We're entering that into our system like we would for any other child for folks that are 13 to 17. We have for our users that are 13 and older, we do not disclose information to anyone else on the account we do exclude. We do disclose fines like the amount of the fines to a parent but we don't, we don't inform them about the content that it's on. So we have special things in place for our 13 to 17 year old users so that they can change their name. And that is something that as they are under the age of 18 we recognize that they might not have full access to doing legal name changes so we don't require documentation for that. For users that are 18 and over, we have a variety of different forms of ID that folks are able to use this and can include something like a work ID. It also can include a debit card. And so we accept a whole lot of different IDs and so for someone that might not have their name on their legal ID they might from the government they might have it on, for instance their student ID and their work ID. So those are ways that we can do that. We also accept affidavits of name changes. And so our affidavits of a kind of the common name that someone is going by so even if they don't have that legal name change paperwork those are ways that we can do it. We also allow folks just to use their initials on their library card applications so that can be a way to help someone receive library service without the risk of being misgendered and having that risk of violence towards them as well. And then there's one more thing I was going to say there. Oh name changes. So when we do do name changes for folks we no longer hold any information about the prior name on the account because that was data that we were just basically needing to keep safe that we weren't doing anything with. So in alignment with our values as a library because we didn't need that information we no longer track it which is another way to protect the privacy of. Andrea Andrea brought up a really, I think a really excellent point and then sort of a follow up to their question. They wrote, if one is gender queer but not open like out or open about it at work, but also wants to support staff patrons and other initiatives, just navigating how to be supportive without having to out yourself. Andrea pointed out that it's a lot easier for us to staff to talk about their pronouns at the beginning of meetings or in their email signatures. But there are definitely a lot of people who are still navigating their pronouns and that can be that can be an uncomfortable question or situation. Yeah, I just I want to appreciate you for for raising that because I do think that, you know, as as awesome as it would be to have, you know, best practices that always and absolutely affirmed everybody's gender and everyone's like experiences. And it says, you know, that just isn't, there just isn't a practice like that. Unfortunately, there are definitely pros and cons to having pronoun check ins at the beginning of meetings. And there are definitely people who are trans or non binary who wouldn't feel comfortable, including pronouns in their email signatures. So just want to appreciate you for pointing that out. Yes, it is true. Just one thing real quick to say, for any of anybody who's on this webinar that identifies as trans. There is a slack group for library workers who are gender variant it's called gender variant LIS so I believe it's gvlis.slack.com. That's actually a really great resource. So if you have questions like that, there are a lot of people who have been sharing their own experiences and advice and navigating transition at work, which is one of the sub threads in there. And just to clarify that is a resource that is available for gender non conforming transgender and questioning folks that is not a resource for cisgender individuals. And so we are right at time so I think that that is all the time that we have for questions. You'll see that being Micah, that's me being read and I have our names and our contact information listed here. Sunny is at capacity they get so many conference requests for some other cool work that they're doing so the three of us have capacity to answer questions to pass along resources and things like that. So thank you all so much for your time today. We've, we're so glad that we are able to talk to you all about this. And this is Dr. Villagrand. I want to just thank each of you for your expertise, your time and sharing this with all of us. I think it's critical and important and I'm just grateful we could put this all together and make it happen. So thank you so much and we'll make sure to get the recording posted as well as this link and capture the other links and resources that came through the chat and shared on our website. Yes, definitely. Thank you so much. What a wonderful presentation you've shared with our community today.