UC San Francisco Will Provide Students with ‘Gender Pronoun Stickers’ to Make Them ‘Feel Safe’

The University of California San Francisco has announced that it is ramping up campus safety precautions — not by increasing police patrols or by ensuring free speech on campus — but by providing students and staff with “preferred gender pronoun” stickers to add to their ID badges.

Students and staff at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) are now able to add stickers to their ID badges, which will inform others of their preferred gender pronouns. The university hopes that this decision will improve safety on campus.

“UCSF strives to create an inclusive environment for all of our community members,” stated the university on its website, “It is important to offer opportunities for all members to share their gender pronouns in settings where they are asked to introduce themselves.”

“We want to allow for everyone to specifically indicate their pronouns so each individual feels safe navigating UCSF,” added the university.

Correctly guessing an individual’s preferred gender pronoun appears to have developed into a more difficult task these days.

In the minds of universities, preferred gender pronoun stickers may serve to prevent certain incidences, such as the one that unfolded last week in a GameStop in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in which a store employee addressed a biological male as “sir,” unaware that the male customer had actually preferred to be addressed as “ma’am.”

A video of the customer publicly berating the GameStop employee circulated on the internet, in which the customer could also be heard threatening to “take it outside.”

“If you want to call me ‘sir’ again, I will show you a fucking sir,” shouted the customer at the store employee.

UCSF, however, appears to be one step ahead of the video game and electronics retailer.

“These stickers aim to reduce instances of misgendering and to make it easier for you to know which pronouns to use for someone you just met,” states UCSF, “especially if you are not sure about their correct gender pronouns.”

With UCSF’s financial endowment at $2.7 billion, there is no doubt that the university will be able to provide enough gender pronoun stickers for every student and staff member on campus.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo and on Instagram.