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BLOG ENTRY : there is so much good i can do

published : mar 7, 2026

Recently I’ve had a realization that, due to the path I want to take in university—an education degree—I’m going to be at this school for five more years after this first one. This realization is especially crazy to me because the environment is not the most trans-friendly, especially for a school that claims to be progressive. This is, for the lack of a better word, ridiculous. It is unacceptable that for my six years in higher learning I have to be stuck in a place that restricts my expression and my comfort in regards to my gender identity when this is not the case in similar institutions where I live. Since middle school I’ve always been concerned with social issues, but never was I preoccupied with getting involved with real action for change. It’s a privilege of mine for sure, having grown up in a progressive area in and gone to progressive schools and therefore hardly having experienced any hardship needing such change, but now that I’m faced with it, it seems as if a fire has been lit under my heels.

The big thing is the name policy, which requires a legal name change if you want your name widely recognized across the university system. I know multiple people who are unnecessarily deadnamed in various places, including ones that are public to other students. Of course, it’s logical that universities have to use legal names for certain legal purposes, but the extent to which it happens at this school is ludicrous compared to other policies of other universities in the area. Because of the variety of opportunities to see a student’s deadname, as well as the very gendered nature of the French language in general (I go to uni in French), the likelihood of classmates and professors alike misgendering you seems to be multiplied tenfold.

There’s also just the general question of how much the average person here is aware of trans topics. I wear my name and pronouns (gender neutral iel, which is a neopronoun that is Not standardized) on a name tag all the time to make them clear, but I’ve never actually heard someone use the pronouns. It isn’t lost on me that we have students from all over the province, as well as a big international population that come from countries that don’t legally recognize transgender identity, though surely, being university students up to date with political issues as well as just generally being online, they must at least have some awareness. Recently, this guy that I see on a fairly regular basis asked me : « Why do you wear your name ? » This threw me so off guard. Did he really not know ? Why did he mention the name but not the pronouns ? I was so discombobulated, I began saying « Well, I like it when people know my name, and pronouns, but then we were interrupted and I’m not sure if he heard me. An eye-opening experience. Does he just. Not know ? How many people actually get it ? I suppose I’ve always been in such queer and queer-friendly spaces both online and at my old high school that it led me to take this all somewhat for granted.

The language dimension cannot be ignored in this scenario. Being non-binary in French is complicated by the binary gendering of nouns, adjectives, and even some verbs making it so that the search for something neutral is met with much linguistic and cultural resistance. The option of moving schools to somewhere that will be more accommodating looms over me, despite the low odds of it truly happening. I don’t want to have to trade French for comfort. Let alone those who are monolingual francophones/not proficient enough to even consider transferring somewhere else (and other francophones around the world who have to contend with such restrictions as well). But I don’t want to transfer. It’s my school.

Despite it being an indicator of immense privilege, my experience at my progressive high school is also now the experience of my old high school that is exactly my motivation to go on, as I said to my friend Bravo, it is proof that « enlightenment is possible ». I think back to my favourite teacher’s enthusiasm for using and making her students aware of gender neutral pronouns and inclusive language, and otherwise the efforts of the staff to support trans students and promote inclusivity. Outside of that, queer francophones’ and allies’ efforts across the world make up proof that making French spaces that affirm transgender people’s identities is possible and in fact practiced. There is also the matter of the big universities in my city, including the one with which mine is directly affiliated, having much better policies regarding students’ chosen names. It all feels so within reach.

My friend and I are planning to become involved with the GSA, which apparently, like many of the clubs at my school, was hit hard during COVID and has apparently only gotten to really start up again recently. We aren’t the most sure about the exact organization of the club, or even the amount of influence it has, but we have to try, don’t we ?

The main idea for me is that it makes me sick to imagine graduating and everything’s the same. I don’t want to become a teacher, or in any other way interact with youth in the future, trans and nonbinary youth who might consider going to my university, and have to tell them that this school might not be the most kind to them. That being transgender and nonbinary in French is even more of an uphill battle than it is in English, that it’s so hard to correct a professor about your pronouns and gender accord when professors are much less personal. That they’ll have to worry about being deadnamed to all their classmates online. That the environment might feel so, so restrictive, that it feels like no one understands them. I don’t want to leave this place the same as it is now.

Another realization I’ve had is that I have so much time to accomplish things. Five more years at my school, and then the rest of my life.

There is so much good I can do.