Two employees at a small Christian university in western New York have been fired over using their pronouns in work emails, according to reports.
Raegan Zelaya and Shua Wilmot, both residence hall directors, were asked by administrators at Houghton University to remove the words “she/her” and “he/him” from their email signatures, saying they violated a new policy, The New York Times reported. Zelaya and Wilmot were fired when they refused.
In response, a petition supporting the pair has been signed by nearly 600 alumni in protest. Zelaya and Wilmot said they included the pronouns because their uncommon gender-neutral names have resulted in them being misgendered in the past during email correspondence.
Zelaya shared a letter from the university dated April 19 explaining she was “in violation of institutional policy.” She was barred from having an on-campus presence, where she was only allowed to leave her apartment to either get her mail or get her meals from the university’s dining hall.
Zelaya and Wilmot said they included their pronouns due to their first names being gender-neutral and, in the past, have been misgendered in corresponding emails.
“I have been mistaken for a woman over email,” Wilmot said in the video. “When someone misgenders me, it sometimes makes them uncomfortable so let me avoid that professionally by putting my pronouns in my signature so you know that you’re writing to a man.”
“Reagan is also a dual-gender name,” Zelaya added. “I know many men and women who have the name Raegan. From a practicality point is helpful to say what my pronouns are. It’s a pretty standard industry practice.”
Zelaya’s letter of termination also cited she was relieved for “defamatory statements” made in the university student newspaper when she was asked for feedback on the administration’s closure of the Mosaic Multicultural Center — an on-campus diversity space.
“I responded with my opinion, thoughts, and prospectives,” she said in a Youtube video. “I didn’t think I was saying anything that I hadn’t already communicated with my superiors,” revealing she had meetings with high-ranking administrators at the university about her views on inclusiveness on campus.
