Trans and Gender Diverse Description Issues in Libraries

By Kalani Adolpho (they/them)

Land Acknowledgements

Important takeaways

• Colonialism is a structure, not an event
• Severing or limiting Indigenous stewardship relationships to land has had consequences
• The steps you take after acknowledging the above are what counts
• Upcoming webinar on 11/11: Moving Beyond Land Acknowledgements & Token Representations with Dr. Adrienne Keene

Introduction

• My positionality
• Disclaimer
• Assumptions about audience knowledge and beliefs
• Trans and gender diverse exclusion is a structure, not an event
• Moving beyond Trans 101s

​

​

Learning Objectives

Participants will gain familiarity with:

• Current and outdated terminology for transgender and gender diverse individuals and issues
• Issues around describing trans and gender diverse materials and people
• Suggestions around best practices for describing trans and gender diverse materials and people
• Resources for further education

​

Gender Diversity Training: An Introduction

Gender is Culturally Constructed

• The dominant narrative of gender in the United States is not universal
• Genders, gender roles, and gender expression vary between cultures
• Genders, gender roles, and gender expression vary within a culture over time
• Identity is personal and defies easy categorization

​

​

​

​

Key (Western) Terms

• Gender assignment- the practice of classifying an infant at birth as either male or female based on the appearance of their genitals
• Cisgender (cis)- Western umbrella term for individuals who do identify with the gender they were assigned at birth
• Transgender (trans)- Western umbrella term for individuals who �identify with a gender different than, or in addition to, the gender they were assigned at birth, either part or all of the time
• Non-binary- Western umbrella term for an individual who does not identify on the woman/man gender binary

​

​

​

The Western Gender System

• Gender binary- a system in which two genders are created and conceived of as both static and oppositional

The three Western gender binaries

• man/woman
• cis/trans
• binary/non-binary

Gender Diversity Map

https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/two-spirits_map-html/

​

Māhū

https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/two-spirits_map-html/

​

Personal Pronouns

How to use pronouns

Some possibilities

https://uwm.edu/lgbtrc/support/gender-pronouns/

​

​

Personal Pronouns (continued)

• Pronouns don’t have gender, people do
• Pronouns in introductions:
• Explain what pronouns are and why we are sharing them
• Do not make it mandatory
• Whoever introduces this exercise is responsible for it
• What to do when someone changes pronouns or uses pronouns you do not feel proficient in:
• Practice!
• https://pronouns.minus18.org.au/
• https://www.practicewithpronouns.com

​

​

Forms of Violence

• Misgendering- assignation of the incorrect gender (i.e. using the wrong pronouns)
• Outing- disclosing a person’s gender identity without their consent
• Revealing someone is transgender
• Gendering someone correctly, but in a situation or place where they are not out
• Transphobia- a set of overt negative attitudes, fear, disgust, and/or hatred of transgender and gender diverse people

​

Forms of Violence (continued)

• Cissexism- similar to transphobia, but more covert
• Ex: Providing gender options: male, female, transgender
• Cisnormativity- pervasive assumption that all people identify with the gender they were assigned at birth
• Compulsory Heterogenderism- phenomenon where diverse gender identities are often “culturally unintelligible" because of the tendency to view transgender people through the lens of sexuality rather than gender

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Outdated Terminology (Tread Carefully)

• Transsexual
• Use transgender unless an individual specifically identifies with this term
• Biological Male/Biological Female, Male bodied/Female bodied
• Use AMAB (assigned male at birth) and AFAB (assigned female at birth)
• NOTE: be careful how/when you use this
• Male-to-Female/Female-to-Male
• Use Trans(gender) woman and Trans(gender) man
• Sex change
• Use gender affirmation surgery (and don’t ask people about it)

How to Handle Mistakes/Corrections

DO:

• Acknowledge the error
• Apologize once if you catch yourself, say thank you if the other person points it out
• De-center yourself

​

​

DON’T:

​

• Hope we don’t notice
• Over apologize
• Tell us how hard it is
• Make it about you

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Description Issues and Best Practices

Cataloging

Issues and best practices for describing trans and gender diverse people and materials

• Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)
• Name Authority Records (NARs)

​

History of LoC Subject Headings

• 1985: “Transsexuals” was created
• 1989: “Transvestites” was created
• 2002: “Female-to-male transsexuals” was created
• 2006: “Male-to-female transsexuals” was created
• 2006: “Genderqueer” was proposed, and rejected
• 2007: “Two-spirit people” was created, revised in 2009
• 2007: “Transgender people” was created
• 2017: “Gender-nonconforming people” was created
• 2018: “Transgender men” and “Transgender women” were created
• 2020: “Gender transition” was created (older form: Sex change)
• 2020: “Gender transition -- Hormone therapy” was created

Issues with LCSH

• Not neutral
• Non-existent for some topics (e.g. many Indigenous genders)
• Lack of specificity
• Slow to change
• Ignore that identity is personal, complex, and often fluid
• Make identities static

​

​

Best Practices + Ideas Moving Forward

• Respect self-identification
• Add LCSH for other genders (non-binary, and Indigenous genders worldwide)
• Supplement LCSH with alternative thesauri (e.g. Homosauraus)
• Employ subject specialists in transgender and gender diversity studies OR prioritize catalogers having a background in this area

​

Name Authority Records

• What are NARs?
• RDA 9.7 introduced in 2011
• Gender options presented: Male, Female, Not Known
• In 2016, recording gender was made optional, and a PCC Task Force on Gender in NARs was convened to make recommendations

Task Group Recommendations

• Record information about gender as the person self-identifies and explicitly discloses, taking information from readily and publicly available sources
• Record ​Males​ or ​Females​ in accordance with the term used by the person, or with gendered pronouns and/or inflected nouns used in the source
• For well-known persons who publicly transition between male and female mid-life and have literary warrant for recording both genders, record both ​Males​ and ​Females​ and other terms as applicable
• Record dates (375 $s and $t) associated with a gender only when the person explicitly provides dates of transition

​

https://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/documents/Gender_375%20field_RecommendationReport.pdf

Issues with the recommendations

• T&GD people are denied true agency over our identities
• They misunderstand complexities around being out
• They misunderstand identity is fluid, that assigned genders are not truth
• They are situated from an outsider, privileged, Western, cisnormative understanding of gender
• They are not culturally competent in Western vs. non-Western gender systems

Recording Gender in NARs: Best Practices

• Don’t record gender at all unless you have explicit permission
• Do not assume that because the information is easy to find, that it is ethical to share
• Only record what the individual wants, and record it the way they want it presented
• Do not include references that misgender or deadname the subject

Archival description and other metadata

Best practices for describing trans and gender diverse people and materials

• Archival description
• Digital collections description

Archival Description

• Where we gender people
• How to handle this
• How to find out how to describe someone
• What you can do if you can’t find out

Remediation

• Have easy to locate information about how donors/creators/subjects can request name, pronoun, and gendered language changes to description about them
• Update this information EVERYWHERE
• Follow up to ask further questions if necessary
• Do not refer to their old name, pronouns, or assigned/previous gender(s) in description unless they explicitly request you to

Photograph collections

• Why do we do it?
• Reflex
• To increase visibility of historically underrepresented people
• What’s the problem?
• This will inevitably lead to misgendering trans and other gender diverse people in photograph collections, the risk goes up the closer you get to the present
• What to do?
• Consider if the assumed gender is an important aspect of the photo in question
• Name any assumptions you are making, and provide a clear path for correcting assumptions

Privacy

• Balancing visibility and privacy
• Consideration: was this intended for public circulation?
• Take-down policies
• Removing identifiable information

https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/about/policies

Self-identification vs. Relevance

Two categories:

• When “transgender” is anachronistic
• Not trans, but relevant to trans history

​

​

Image from UW University Archives: https://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/QCPHRE6LJ624L8S

​

Best Practices Moving Forward

• Ask creators how they want to be referred to in description during donor talks
• Ask for pronouns and name of use in submission forms for born digital collecting efforts

https://www.library.miami.edu/covid-19.html

What Your Next Steps Are:

• Make clear guidelines and policies
• Discuss names, pronouns, and gendered language in description with the donor
• Discuss supplementing LCSH with local/alternative thesauri
• Discuss issues around balancing privacy, ethics, access, etc. with your team
• Consult with experts, if needed

Resources

• Transgender Digital Archive: Style guide
• The Radical Copyeditor’s Style Guide for Writing About Transgender People
• Book: Trans and Gender Diverse Voices in LIS - forthcoming from Library Juice Press
• Book: Supporting Trans People in Libraries by Stephen Krueger
• Trans inclusion for libraries Zotero library
• Trans Metadata Collective
• If you’re trans or gender diverse: Gender Variant LIS Network on Slack

Summary

• Ask for permission
• Use the language people use for themselves
• Seek participation and input from trans and gender diverse people
• Prioritize respect over access - there is no neutrality

Questions?

Contact info: kalani.adolpho@miami.edu

Twitter: @_incunabula

​

​