Schools in Brighton and Hove are handing out stickers to pupils that allow them to express whether they would like to go by “he”, “she” or “they”, or by some other pronoun.
The labels are also being distributed at town halls and libraries and are part of Brighton and Hove City Council’s “My Pronouns are...” badge campaign, which aims to support transgender people and prevent “misgendering”.
The stickers carry statements such as “my pronouns are she/her/hers” and “please use my name”. “There are also blank badges on which people can fill in their own pronouns,” The Times reports.
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Transgender rights campaigner Sophie Cook says that misgendering, or the act of addressing an individual by the wrong pronoun, can be “particularly harmful to transgender school pupils”.
She told local newspaper The Argus: “In these situations, you will have people up in arms. But quite frankly, what difference does it make to those people?
“It’s a great way of making people think about identities of the people they’re talking to.”
A city council spokesperson added: “The badges and stickers help raise awareness that you can’t assume someone’s gender identity and the pronouns they use. We know from a range of evidence that gender is more complicated than is traditionally recognised.”
The Brighton campaign comes after freshers at the University of Edinburgh were given pronoun badges in September to avoid wrong assumptions being made about their identities, The Independent reports.