“What pronouns do you go by?” Not the average question to start with during an introduction, but should it be? Should pronouns be just as important as “What’s your name?”

During the Social Justice Coffee Hour “TRANSgressing: Deconstructing the Gender Binary” discussion on April 14 in the Multi-Cultural Center at Sacramento State, Jessica Castellon, Edgar Cruz and Chris Kent spoke on the topic of pronouns and their importance. They also discussed gender and sex binaries while leaving room for audience participation and reflection.

Depending on the gender an individual goes by- transgender; cisgender, a person who grows up identifying with their given gender; or queer- that person can choose to identify with different pronouns, feeling more comfortable with “him” and “his” rather than “her” or “she.”

After Castellon, Cruz and Kent introduced themselves, as well as the pronouns they go by and how they identify themselves, they started the discussion with a video explaining why pronouns are important.

“I do have peers who identify as trans, and it’s very triggering to them that they get misgendered all the time,” Cruz said. “I can compare it to race, where a lot of the time we get racial microaggressions.”

Kent said learning something as simple as what pronoun to call people can make a huge difference for somebody in the transgender community, and developing or having knowledge of these concepts is the first step.

“It’s not a preference, it’s who they are,” Kent said.

Castellon opened the floor for students to either ask questions or add to the list of community agreements if they felt it was necessary, making a comfortable environment for people to speak up, ask questions and learn about new experiences.

“What they learn here, maybe they can go out and find out some more information […] maybe take a gender and sexuality class,” Cruz said.

Cruz is a student assistant at the Multi-Cultural Center and along with program coordinator Castellon, they developed and planned the idea of having the gender binary talk.

“Acknowledging all or no genders in the environment that you’re in, especially in group settings, makes things more inclusive, and since I work in a space where that’s kind of like our mission I think it’s important to do that in general, and I also think it shows allyship,” Castellon said.

The talk was more than just learning new terms and how to properly and politely identify people, it was about having overall respect and humility. Castellon said these practices should be taught and informed to all people. It’s not only the LGBTQ community that should be aware, but the community as a whole should take part in gender binary.

“It’s less about the terms and more about experiences, it’s important for people to be open to hear about people’s experiences […] but it’s mostly, I think, about the heart and the soul, about like caring about other human beings,” Castellon said. “For me it’s important for students to learn about trans experiences, because often they’re ‘othered’ and we don’t learn about trans experiences.”

The end of the talk was opened up for people’s final thoughts and then the audience was asked what they learned from the talk and what they are going to try to practice in their every day life. For answering, participants were rewarded with a Hornet Pride T-Shirt.

“At the basic level I wanted people to learn at least one thing and to actually practice one thing, even if that’s just asking about pronouns or being comfortable with the topic, I think that’s what I wanted folks to get out of it,” Castellon said.