New York Lets College Students Get Their Gender-Queer Names on Diplomas

If you’re attending college in the state of New York, you don’t have to be a man about campus. Neither do you need to be a girl in school. Thanks to social progress, you can now exist as a general, genderless persxn.

Earlier this month, The Empire State’s executive issued a press release concerning more than five dozen campuses across the state:

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced that the State University of New York Board of Trustees directed all 64 SUNY campuses to update their policies regarding the use of a chosen name and pronouns to ensure that transgender, gender non-conforming, and nonbinary students’ identities are fully reflected and represented in campus systems. This historic change is the next step taken in SUNY’s mission to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment for students within the LGBTQIA+ community.

There’s a certain sense to it: Though in the past, rules were made by colleges and followed by students, the schools work for enrolees — after all, they’re paying. A lot.

Increasingly, it’s the school that follows the dictates of its attendees.

And gender identity in higher education is progressively taking center stage:

University Directs Students to ‘Practice With Pronouns,’ and It Highlights Our Stunning Sophistication

University Eyes Giving Everyone Access to Girls’ Locker Rooms

University Orders Adherence to Preferred Pronouns and Made-Up Monikers, Threatens ‘Action’ Regardless of ‘Intent’

UCLA Stocks Its Men’s Restrooms With Tampons

With the Help of a Unicorn, College Students Are Schooled on Which Restroom to Use

Harvard University Launches App to Help BGLTQ Students Find Inclusive Restrooms

In the area of being neither man nor woman, New York’s been ahead of the curve. Last June, then-big wig Andrew Cuomo signed the Gender Recognition Act, which allowed residents to have “X” stamped on their drivers licenses rather than “M” or “F.”

Back to Gov. Kathy, she waxed on what people deserve:

“Every person, regardless of their gender identity or the name they choose to go by, deserves to have identity documentation that reflects who they are. This historic change by the SUNY system is a victory in our ongoing fight to ensure that New York is a place of love and belonging. My administration remains committed to taking the steps necessary to ensure equality and respect for the LGBTQIA+ community.”

“By providing equity for all SUNY students,” she said, “New York is once again proving that we are the nation’s leader when it comes to forward-thinking policies that advance acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community.”

SUNY Interim Chancellor Deborah F. Stanley asserted the policy will “help students feel safer,” while Alfred University School of Ceramics Eliott Houghtelling (they/them) hailed a “safer…space for queer people.”

The leeway will apply to “diplomas, campus profiles, and more.”

And the inclusion doesn’t have to stop there. For students who want their bodies to align with their “Presented to Glitter X” Social Justice or Happiness Studies degrees, there’s an operation ready and waiting: