I’m going to be a college freshman in college in a week and I’m very stressed about going. I’m trans*, more specifically bigender, but I’m worried about my professors and how they would react if/when I tell them. How can I explain it to them and should I explain at all? I get really bad dysphoria when I have male days but is it worth the risk if there is a risk?
Your professors don’t really need to know…depending on how big your school is, they may never even learn your name, let alone such personal things as gender or sexuality.
I go to a VERY small school. 12 people per class. I always had trouble with coping with dysphoria when I was called on or called she in high school.
Out of curiosity, how would your professors find out?
If it’s a seminar class, I’d understand if your professors refer to you as Mr/Ms lastName, but my seminar professors always used my first name and have never referred to me with pronouns. If they use the pronouns you don’t identify with, it’s up to you to go up to them after class and fix the problem–decide for yourself whether or not it’s worth the risk for your comfort (given the liberal slant of academia, I think most professors would be absolutely fine with referring to you by the pronouns with which you identify yourself).
Re: the dysphoria, I’m not sure how a professor would react if you tried talking to them about it or explain it. I’d recommend going through the counseling service at your school, and they could advise on how to best interact with the professors.
Edit: Drafted this, went to grab a late night snack, then posted without seeing your reply. I’d recommend talking to counseling at your school or addressing the problem on a case-by-case basis. If you’re called “she” by a professor, calmly approach them afterwards or write a very peaceful email. Acknowledge that they’re human and don’t mean to offend you. Your school’s counseling service (and most likely your professor) has seen this problem before and knows exactly how to handle it. They’re there to help you, and your tuition money’s making sure they do their job. If you’re uncomfortable in any way, they’ll try and change things to accommodate you.
(Note: that’s not necessarily the way it works in the “real world”, so you might want to seek therapeutic help to overcome the dysphoria when called by the wrong pronoun, but your college is there to help you.)
It’s going to depend on your school and even program. I go to a large but liberal school in an extremely liberal department. With those profs, they would rather know so they can properly address you in speech.
If you are not willing to talk to them then you can’t be upset if they used the wrong pronouns or whatnot. If you have a preferred name, pipe up when they first sat your name. That’s just good to do regardless of gender.
If you do talk to them and they slip up, recognize they are human and are likely not going it on purpose. If they are then I’d talk to your queer support center on campus.
In general it sounds like you could really benefit from general therapy for anxiety. Reach out to the queer center for recommendations.
(hugs) recognition and acceptance for queer and gender non confirming individuals has improved so much even in the last few years. You might be pleasantly surprised to see how few issues you’ll have with this.
Honestly, it’s possible professors will understand, but that’s a super out there topic. Homosexuality is fairly accepted, bisexuals slightly less, transexuals even less, but bigender is not something that many people know about or what understand. If it doesn’t bother you that much to be called by the wrong pronoun, I wouldn’t bring it up to professors. It really isn’t their business, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a professor call me Mr. Blank or anything anyway, it’s usually no name or first name.
Definitely look into the school counseling system, and also the LGBTQ+ center, like others have mentioned. Hopefully it all works out for you