Personal Pronoun and Gender Designation

While students are not able to update their legal sex, students at Gonzaga University have an ability to designate their gender designations and their personal pronouns through their student profiles in ZAGWEB. Please know that the work to integrate pronouns onto class rosters and academic advising lists is underway in collaboration with internal and external partners. This process may take a few additional months with a goal of completion during the Spring 2022 semester.

Legal Sex

Gonzaga University is required to collect this data in order to comply with federal reporting, including IPEDS reporting, student employment, international student status, and the granting of federal financial aid. If you are an employee or federal aid recipient, your designation must match your sex designation with the Social Security office. If you are an international student, your designation must match the sex designation on your passport.

Gender Designation

Gonzaga University provides students the option to voluntarily self-designate their gender as Female, Male, or “X”. The designation of “X” as a nonbinary option is consistent with Washington State law and the options available on the Washington State Birth Certificate and the Washington State Driver License. Washington Administrative Code 246-490-075 defines “X” as “a gender that is not exclusively male or female”. The same “X” designation is currently available on legal documents in several other states to include the states of Oregon and California.

Personal Pronouns

Gonzaga University has implemented an option allowing students and other members of the GU community to select their pronoun designation. These pronouns will be integrated into online class rosters and other systems with a goal of completion of the Spring 2022 semester.

Pronouns like “she”, “him”, and “their” provide a grammatical way to refer to people without using their name. Some pronouns are gendered, while others are gender neutral.
Pronoun options will include she/her, he/him, they/them, as well as an option to use your name, or to leave your pronouns unspecified. This set of pronoun options aligns with the gender designation options and offers individuals equal opportunities to express pronouns that align with their gender identities, while also easing the usability for instructors, advisers, and others who want to use pronouns appropriately.

They/Them are pronouns that have been used as singular gender-neutral pronouns for centuries, and Merriam-Webster recently updated the definition of the word “they” in its dictionary, citing use of “they” to refer to a “single person whose gender identity is nonbinary.”