US varsity encourages students to be gender neutral

Washington: The University of Tennessee in US is encouraging its students, staff and faculty to use gender-neutral pronouns such as 'ze' and 'zirs' - rather than he and she - for people who don't identify with a particular gender.

Donna Braquet of the Pride Centre, an on-campus centre dedicated to providing resources for LGBTQ students, suggested that teachers skip roll call and simply ask students what name and pronoun they prefer during the first week of school.

"We should not assume someone's gender by their appearance, nor by what is listed on a roster or in student information systems," Braquet said in a post. "Transgender people and people who do not identify within the gender binary may use a different name than their legal name and pronouns of their gender identity, rather than the pronouns of the sex they were assigned at birth," she said.

"These may sound a little funny at first, but only because they are new. The she and he pronouns would sound strange too if we had been taught ze when growing up," Braquet said. There is no rule that students have to use the new pronouns, Amy Blakely, assistant director of media and internal relations, told TODAY.com.

Blakely said that the push for diversity stems from an article published in an internal newsletter, introducing the school to the alternative pronouns. "The university is not changing anything — we're not mandating gender-neutral pronouns. We're just saying this is out there, and we want to encourage any kind of inclusivity as we can," she said.