Dorm Directors at Christian University Fired for Having Pronouns in Email Signature

Apparently explaining to other people how to gender you correctly, even if you’re cisgender, is a fireable offense at a small Christian university in western New York.

According to AP News, Houghton University fired dorm directors Shua Wilmot and Raegan Zelaya for including pronouns in their email signatures. Wilmot uses “he/him” and Zelaya uses “she/her.” And the two said that the inclusion of pronouns in their signatures wasn’t even meant as a political statement. They just have very unique names.

“My name is Shua,” explains Wilmot in a video that he and Zelaya posted to YouTube shortly after their abrupt firing. “It’s an unusual name. And it ends with a vowel, ‘a,’ that is traditionally feminine in many languages. If you get an email from me, and you don’t know who I am, you might not know how to gender me.”

The university insisted that they drop the pronoun identifiers from their signatures in accordance with a new policy for email signature formats issued in September. Both refused, and both were fired.

According to the New York Times, almost 600 Houghton University alumni signed a petition to protest the firing, but it’s likely that the petition will fall on deaf ears. In the last two years, the university shut down a multicultural student center and an environmental sustainability program and revoked its recognition of an LGBTQ club on campus after it refused to take a more conservative stance on sexuality and gender issues. Considering all of that, it would seem that Houghton University is unlikely to be swayed by anyone.

Wilmot told the New York Times that he thinks the Christian university’s reasons for the firing are exactly what you think they are.

“I think it boils down to: They want to be trans-exclusive, and they want to communicate that to potential students and the parents of potential students.”

Screenshot courtesy of video