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295

The Pronoun Puzzle
A Beginner’s Guide to Creating a  
Trans-Friendly Library
Suzanne Taylor (she/her), Information Technology Librarian, Mount St. Mary’s 
University
Elli Cucksey (she/her), Head Librarian, Trinity Lutheran Seminary at Capital 
University

ABSTR ACT: Intended for any audience, this is a beginner’s guide to 
inclusively interacting with transgender patrons in a library setting. We 
hope you will find information about creating a welcoming environ-
ment and providing resources to transgender persons. The session 
was meant to be an informational session regardless of institutional 
background or religious identity. The presenters relayed a selection 
of key terms and points of awareness relevant to the transgender 
community. We did not intend this to be a discussion on the validity or 
authenticity of identities, but rather a guide to interactions that allow 
library professionals to reduce library anxiety for a specific population.

INTRODUCTION

(Suzanne) We like to believe that libraries, especially our own, 
are welcoming spaces, with approachable staff and indispensable 
resources. In fact, most library workers strive ceaselessly to cre-
ate such a space and to continue to improve upon it. Most library 
workers, especially those in academic libraries, are well aware that 
library users encounter multiple barriers to use, despite the fact that 
their library is expressly for the benefit of those same students. Of 
course, that is assuming that this given student enjoys status within 
majority groups on campus. For students who have been marginal-
ized, the barriers to library use increase. While at this point in our 
collective understanding of academic libraries many library workers 
do not need convincing that anxiety and other fears get in the way 
of students using the resources that they have, in fact, already paid 
for, several of us may not be fully aware of the specific barriers to 
use affecting transgender and gender-expansive individuals. 



296    ATL A 2024 PROCEEDINGS

In order to bring awareness to these barriers and suggest methods 
to begin breaking them down, we will suggest actionable ways to 
demonstrate to transgender library users that they are safe, valued, 
and welcome in the space. Having established that, we will introduce 
basic terminology and corrections to outdated or offensive terms. 
We acknowledge that each library exists in its own context and each 
library worker has varying degrees of control in terms of program-
ing, displays, bathroom designations and other such decisions. Our 
goal then is to offer options that are accessible regardless of context. 

THE EXPERIENCE OF LIBRARY ANXIETY

At the risk of playing the broken record that is discussion about 
library anxiety, transgender folk, as well as all marginalized library 
users, experience library anxiety that is compounded by other soci-
etal inequities. While library anxiety can be present in any student 
or library user, some people will have more barriers to library use.

Since the term library anxiety was coined, it has undergone a 
few iterations. Here I want to note Kelleen Maluski and Symphony 
Bruce’s work that notes that library anxiety is not a deficiency on the 
part of the user, but rather a systemic issue in academic institutions 
as a whole that keeps various minority groups from feeling a sense 
of belonging because the institution was not built for them (2022). 
These authors focus on the barriers that exist within the library and 
larger institution, rather than simply changing the feelings of the 
minority user. This view—the view that these barriers exist insti-
tution wide—can help recontextualize the need for trans-friendly 
libraries. Because “trans-spectrum students reported that anxiety 
and stress negatively influenced their academics at higher rates than 
their cisgender peers” (Rankin, Garvey, and Duran 2019, 13), the 
need for the library to be a place of safety and belonging becomes 
even more apparent. Today, we’ll be using this term specifically to 
mean any anxiety an individual feels because of barriers or anxiety 
that becomes a barrier to library use. 

Transgender individuals are dealing with a compounded library 
anxiety; they have to assess their actual safety (Bonner-Thompson, 
Mearns, and Hopkins 2021, 288) as well as their comfort with any 
given librarian, and within the library space. It might, in fact, be 



Listen and Learn Sessions    297

helpful to imagine that a trans library user assumes a hostile envi-
ronment until demonstrated otherwise rather than the other way 
around.  We need to break down these barriers and put them on 
equal footing with library users in more privileged positions. 

AN ATMOSPHERE OF BELONGING STARTS WITH SAFETY

Most librarians would agree that creating a space that is safe and 
welcoming is of the utmost importance; however when creating this 
space for transgender folks, consideration must be given both to the 
physical and emotional safety of those individuals. Safety is an issue 
that transgender people struggle with in nearly every physical loca-
tion they inhabit. We must be cognizant of the cues we give in our 
libraries that indicate a safe or unsafe environment. Understanding 
and respect is crucial, and it is not enough to merely tolerate an 
individual’s presence. We believe that each person deserves to be 
treated with respect and recognition of their humanity.

At each of our respective libraries we have varying degrees of 
control, and we recognize that there are unique limitations in each 
workplace for how many changes can be implemented (e.g., add-
ing gender neutral bathrooms, having more inclusive materials, 
displaying said materials, etc.). Yet we can each decide to be the 
welcoming, safe person in our library space. Of course, it is not 
enough to believe that you are a safe person, but you also need to 
make that clear to your library users as well. In this next section, 
we will cover ways to do this.

SIGNALING SAFETY

In order to signal that you are a safe person in particular, you can 
choose to adopt specific practices. For example, while many people 
may be familiar with pins and stickers that have a person’s pronouns 
listed, just as many people may be unaware that it is just as helpful, 
if not crucial, for a cisgendered person to wear them. For example, 
a cisgendered librarian who wears a pin that says “she/her” can 
help normalize the accessory, making others who choose to wear 
one seem less out of place. This also, of course, literally sends a 



298    ATL A 2024 PROCEEDINGS

message or acceptance. Later on in the presentation, Elli will cover 
introducing yourself using your pronouns.

I want to touch on the following two suggestions for those who 
are able to do so. These are steps taken to mitigate harm for gender 
expansive individuals. While this presentation is meant to focus on 
terminology and interaction with the community, I would be remiss 
to ignore a few things that might seem passive to us but can cause 
active harm.

While this could be an entire presentation on its own, consider 
changing your metadata and subject headings to less harmful lan-
guage (Watson et al. 2023). For example, “transsexuals’’ is not the word 
the community of transgender folks use to describe themselves, yet 
it is still listed as a Narrower Term under the “Transgender” Library 
of Congress Subject Heading (Library of Congress, n.d.; Roberto 
2011, 58). It can be incredibly hurtful to use this word since, as of 
2024, it is generally used in a derogatory sense. (We include more 
information on metadata and subject headings in our resources list.)

Another action that you can take, which again is its own presen-
tation, is weeding harmful books on the topic of transgender and 
gender expansive people (Currier and White 2019, 9–10). We know 
that this is a sensitive topic at a theological librarianship conference, 
so we will not delve any deeper. However, resources on this will also 
be available by scanning the QR code at the end of the presentation. 

INTRODUCTION TO GENDER EXPANSIVENESS/VARIETY

(Elli) For the purposes of this brief discussion, let us agree on a few 
things, regardless of ideology. First, let’s accept that it is our wish 
to make our resources available to those to whom our institution 
grants access in the easiest, most comfortable manner possible. We 
wish to make each of these individuals as comfortable as possible to 
allow them to complete the work that they have set out to do with 
the fewest possible barriers. Second, we might also agree that, to 
that end, we will assume a person is the gender that they tell you 
they are, regardless of what we might believe about gender from 
a social or religious perspective. If I tell you that I am a woman, I 
expect the librarian (or the fast-food server, or the grocery cashier, 
or even the dentist) to, at minimum, respectfully not question the fact 



Listen and Learn Sessions    299

in my presence. A trans person has the right to expect the same. This 
is not about us changing your mind about the validity of another’s 
gender expression, but neither is it about you changing the mind 
of that individual.

In addition to accepting what we are told about a person’s gender 
or pronouns, we all need to agree that we don’t know anything, nor 
do we need to know anything about a person’s sexual preferences 
based on their gender expression. You might assume that a transper-
son is “gay,” but what are you really assuming? And do you need 
to know anything about who this person is attracted to so you can 
help them access the resources in your library?

SOME VOCABULARY TO NOTE

A few vocabulary notes: AFAB and AMAB to start. The most impor-
tant thing about these terms is that you probably don’t need to 
use them in relation to a patron in your library. They simply mean 
“Assigned Female at Birth” or “Assigned Male at Birth.” Since we all 
know that these assignments are determined based on the genitalia 
of the newborn, it’s almost always irrelevant in conversation in the 
library. Individuals may choose to disclose this, but since it’s liter-
ally identifying the genitalia one was born with, it’s a bit creepy to 
talk about.

Some other vocabulary that you should steer clear of in your inter-
actions would be terms like cross-dresser or transvestite. Transvestite 
is just a word we don’t use anymore due to its long use as a nega-
tive term, and cross-dressing is not the same thing as transitioning 
one’s gender.

More vocabulary that you should be familiar with would include 
terms like cisgender and transgender. You may have come to believe 
that cisgender is some kind of slur, and I hope that you will not 
believe that. It was never intended as anything other than a way 
to be clear in language. If there are people who have transitioned 
their gender, there are people who have not, who are still living and 
experiencing life as the gender they were assigned at birth—and that 
is described as cisgender. Transgender, then is just an adjective to 
describe a person who has transitioned their gender. Let’s remem-
ber that we should never refer to someone as “a transgender” or 



300    ATL A 2024 PROCEEDINGS

“transgendered.” Often those of us who have many friends in this 
community have come to understand that this is a negative or hurtful 
thing to say without giving real thought to why, so when we try to 
explain it to folks who are just being introduced to these concepts, 
we stumble a bit. The best and most succinct explanation I’ve found 
is that by referring to someone as “a transgender,” you are simply 
turning a descriptive adjective into a defining noun. While a trans 
person may be more defined by their gender than a cis person, it 
is by no means the defining characteristic of that person. They are 
people with many other defining characteristics. I personally know 
pastors, parents, teachers, librarians, spouses, grandparents, artists, 
and musicians who would much rather be defined by these roles 
than their gender, or the fact that they have socially transitioned 
their gender at some point in their past.

BEYOND THE BINARY

So far, we’ve talked about men and women—the binary of gender. 
There is more than that. Some folks understand themselves to be 
a gender that doesn’t match either of those, or some combination 
of those, or that they move between those. I’m not here to help you 
understand that. I don’t understand that any more than I can under-
stand being a man. We just accept that the truth about a person’s 
gender is what that person understands it to be. Two helpful terms 
for these people are nonbinary and agender. Sometimes you might 
hear enby, which is just the pronunciation of “NB” for nonbinary. 
There are so many different ways that these individuals might pres-
ent their gender identification, or not—and in the end, none of that 
is relevant to providing library services. It is of note that these are 
the largest group of people using they/them for single pronouns, 
and that brings us to the meat of our session…

THOSE PESKY PRONOUNS

I have been putting my pronouns on my email signature and name 
tags and zoom identifiers for about a decade now. There are a few 
reasons for that. I am not interested in having a fight with folks 
who do not do this. If you feel strongly that you don’t want to share 
your pronouns, no one is going to make you. You need to know that 



Listen and Learn Sessions    301

there are your reasons for not sharing, and there are many other 
reasons a person might not want to share. I will not assume that I 
know your reasons. I share mine because I have watched someone 
I love navigate a world where no one ever asked for pronouns, and 
they felt uncomfortable bringing it up, and I wanted to contribute 
to changing the norm. By adding my pronouns, I have helped to 
normalize it being in signatures, even though I am rarely misgen-
dered by the pronouns people assume for me. Now, someone who 
might have pronouns that are not what most would assume can 
add theirs to a signature, or a nametag, or simply mention them in 
introduction, and it’s just a bit less awkward.

There’s another layer to this. In my professional life, I also choose 
not to use a gendered honorific whenever possible. I am not ordained, 
nor do I hold a doctorate degree. Therefore, the most socially appro-
priate honorific for me is Mrs. I do not feel it is necessary to be listed 
anywhere with that honorific which translates to “married woman” 
before my name. Neither my gender nor my marital status are even 
remotely relevant when you are looking for the librarian at Trinity. 
I could choose to use Mx. (pronounced “mix”); however, I feel like 
that is making a different statement, and since I don’t have claim 
to a non-binary identity, I will not appropriate that unnecessarily.

 So, how do I ask for pronouns? The easiest way is with a smile. I 
usually just mention that I use she/her, and then just say, “can I ask 
yours?” If someone is uncomfortable stating, or says that they don’t 
use pronouns, just don’t use any pronouns for them. It’s sometimes 
awkward, but it’s not that hard. And it gets easier with practice. 
Instead of asking my student worker to “help Jack get his books 
from the hold shelf.” I might say, “help Jack to get some books from 
the hold shelf.” Speak slowly and think. Practice helps.

MISTAKES

We all make mistakes! Quickly correct yourself and move on.

You will mess up. Everyone does. I have been doing this with 
friends and family members for many years. You will slip. Nobody 
cares. The most important thing is the effort. Don’t make a big deal, 
don’t trip over yourself in apologies. Correct yourself and move on. 
If you are corrected by someone else, restate your sentence correctly 



302    ATL A 2024 PROCEEDINGS

and go on; a quick thank-you for the correction maybe. That’s it. By 
not making a bigger deal out of it, you allow the person to move on, 
too. They don’t want their whole interaction with the librarian to 
be about the tense correction of pronouns.

For most of us the most difficult pronoun set to adopt is they/them 
for the single person. I’m not here to tell you this is simple or debate 
the correctness of it. There are hundreds of years of usage, and you 
have been doing it your whole life when nobody drew attention to 
it. I’ve been doing it throughout this presentation, and nobody has 
batted an eye. I’ll give you the sentence that will prove it:

“Look, someone left their water bottle in here from the last session and I 
hope they remember this is where they had it last.”

Nothing about that sentence sounds weird to you unless I put a 
name in the place of “someone.”

“Look, Vance left their water bottle in here from the last session and I 
hope they remember this is where they had it last.”

Now, it sounds funny to you because you’ve never known Vance 
to have any other pronouns than he/him. But when you didn’t know 
who the person is, it sounds fine, right? And it’s almost certainly just 
a single person who owns a water bottle, right? Really, though, it 
isn’t that you didn’t know who, it’s that you didn’t know the gender 
of the unknown person, because you can’t tell a person’s gender by 
a water bottle. People who use they/them are kind of telling you the 
same thing. You don’t have the information to determine how they 
might fit into one of just two categories. Whether you believe that 
is possible or not isn’t relevant, because you can only know what 
gender they are by what they tell you; so we’re going to use they/
them because they asked us to, and there’s really nothing else for 
us to concern ourselves with.

I say all of this, and I sound confident, and I am. But again, you 
will mess this one up. I have a very loved one in my daily life, and I 
still mess it up from time to time. It’s not hurtful to make a mistake. 
It’s only an offense if you never try. If you are corrected and then 
can’t hold the thought through the next sentence, then it looks like 
you didn’t try. Therefore, you are making a statement. If you want 
to make that statement, fine, but now you’ve violated our first 



Listen and Learn Sessions    303

agreement about how we all want to make our patrons comfortable 
in our library spaces.

CONCLUDING NOTES

As library workers, we want to promote welcoming environments. 
However, we also know we can’t change everything overnight or 
control our entire institutions. Focus on actionable items like mak-
ing a habit of introducing yourself using your own pronouns; make 
sure your collections and metadata do not have harmful or outdated 
terms. Recognize that learning new things can take time and practice, 
and that making mistakes is normal. What is most important is that 
you show your library users that they are valued and respected.

REFERENCES

Currier, Brett D., and Tessa White. 2019. “Creating the Trans Inclusive 
Library.” LIS Scholarship Archive. https://doi.org/10.31229/osf.
io/re8gf.

Bonner-Thompson, Carl, Graeme William Mearns, and Peter Hopkins. 
2021. “Transgender Negotiations of Precarity: Contested Spaces of 
Higher Education.” Geographical Journal 187 (3): 227–39. https://
doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12384.

LGBTQIA Resource Center. 2015. “LGBTQIA Resource Center Glossary.” 
Last updated July 21, 2023. https://lgbtqia.ucdavis.edu/educated/
glossary.

Guyan, Kevin. 2021. “Diversity Monitoring in the Library: 
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Library of Congress. “Library of Congress Subject Headings PDF 
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Maluski, Kelleen, and Symphony Bruce. 2022. “Dispelling the Myth 
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PFLAG. n.d. “The PFLAG National Glossary: LGBTQ+ Terminology.” 
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Shelmerdine, Anna J. 2018. “Library Anxiety: Stories, Theories and 
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