Montreal university to allow transgender students choice of names.

By Marian Scott

Postmedia News

MONTREAL — Transgender students at Montreal’s Concordia University will soon be able to use their chosen names in class and on their student ID.

The move follows a campaign by student Ben Boudreau and the university’s 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy for the right of students undergoing gender reassignment to be known by the name of their choice.

“I think it’s amazing. It’s wonderful,” said Gabrielle Bouchard, coordinator of peer support and trans advocacy at the centre.

Chris Mota, Concordia’s director of media relations, said a working group at the university proposed the compromise solution after Boudreau, a second-year science student, complained about being forced to use his birth name.

The change will be in place when classes start in September.

Mota said students must continue to use their birth names on official university transcripts. However, they will be able to use their chosen name on their university ID, class lists, exams, lists of grades and correspondence with the university.

Under the new system, professors will have no way of knowing that a student has adopted a different name, even though his or her birth name will remain on the permanent transcript, Mota said.

Students who want to be known by a different name will have to file a written request, she said.

Transgender students had complained the old policy humiliated them, since they had to reveal their status every time they asked a professor to call them by their adopted name.

Bouchard said that until now, the University of Toronto was among the few universities that have allowed transgender students to use the name of their choice.

Montreal Gazette

mascot@montrealgazette.com

PN 5/02/12 22:43:11