The University of Pittsburgh published an online guide to help students and professors avoid gender exclusivity, or in other words, possibly offending people by assuming which gender they identify as.
This “Gender Inclusive Guidelines” guide counsels students and professors to “avoid giving examples that assume that all doctors are men” and other gender-related assumptions. The reason behind the guide is to “honor the breadth of experience and potential in students’ lives by discussing women, gender non-conforming, and LGBT-identified people,” the guide states.
Other examples of the guide’s suggestions are to use “gender-neutral” language in classrooms to avoid “misgendering someone,” which is a “disrespectful and dismissive” action, and to avoid terms such as “policeman, “fireman,” and “congressman.”
The guide was published by the university’s Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies Center.
