GSD Center to celebrate International Pronouns Day

Luke Taylor, Associate News Editor

Eastern’s GSD Center will hold an event Wednesday to celebrate International Pronouns Day.

According to the Pronouns Day website, this international day occurs on the third Wednesday each October.

The purpose of the day is to “make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns commonplace.”

On Eastern’s campus, students can celebrate this day on the library quad. The GSD Center’s rainbow door will be available outside, as well as an assortment of “pronoun pins.”

These pins simply list the wearer’s pronouns, negating the need for new acquaintances to ask about them and normalizing making that information easy to find.

Accurate pronouns can be very important for transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming individuals.

Nora Kollar, graduate assistant at the GSD Center, was the main organizer of the Pronouns Day event.

“Pronouns are just who we are, just as much as any other part of us,” Kollar said.

The Trevor Project, an organization dedicated to preventing suicide in the LGBT+ youth demographic, released data from a 2020 survey which found that “youth who reported having their pronouns respected by all or most of the people in the lives attempted suicide at half the rate of those who did not have their pronouns respected.”

While pronoun usage is a relatively small part of interacting with other individuals, respecting preferences can be an affirmation of someone’s identity.

“It’s not about what someone is asking to be called, it’s about respecting their identity,” Kollar said. “Just respect the person, respect who they are and what they want to do. It doesn’t affect you.”

The Pronouns Day event is straightforward: students and community members can stop by the table in the library quad between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. to talk to advisors from the GSD Center and the Pride club, sign the rainbow door and come out or pick up some pronoun pins and look at the educational fliers provided by the GSD Center.

Kollar said she appreciates the opportunity to educate others.

“There have been a lot of questions since we started really pushing the buttons out,” Kollar said. “I take that as a learning moment. It’s those moments that I really enjoy, of ‘Let me explain it to you.’”

 

Luke Taylor can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].