W

hile editing articles for 
The Michigan Daily, I’ll 
often question why a rule 

exists. For example, I might wonder 
why we don’t use the Oxford comma 
or why “percent” is spelled out. While 
these little rules are aggravating at 
times, I’ll always move on and con-
tinue editing the article. If I let my 
frustration toward the silly rule con-
sume me, I would waste time and 
never get my job done. I remember a 
similar reaction in high school when I 
was first learning MLA style. The for-
mat seemed arbitrary, but I knew that 
I needed to learn MLA to succeed in 
my classes. In short, having to follow 
a certain guideline can sometimes 
suck, but it’s easier to learn the rules 
and follow them than is to ruminate 
on them.

A couple of weeks ago, LSA junior 

Marisa Frey wrote her “Copy That” 
column on how we all have our own 
guidelines for how we behave and 
interact with others. Keeping this 
column in mind over the past few 
weeks, I couldn’t help but link it with 
the campus-wide focus on personal 
pronouns. Essentially, the addition of 
personal pronouns to class rosters is a 
new part of the teacher’s style guides. 
I’m not saying this to downplay the 
importance of this addition. I believe 
it took too long for the administration 
to realize the necessity of including 
pronouns on class rosters. The pro-
nouns are another way that profes-
sors can ensure the comfort of all of 
their students. Being misidentified is 

an unnecessary distraction from a stu-
dent’s education.

If hundreds of thousands of high 

school and college students across 
the country can all use different for-
mats for their essays and presenta-
tions, then why is keeping personal 
pronouns in mind while addressing 
students so radical? To some students, 
the idea seems so ridiculous that 
they’ve responded by mocking it with 
#UMPronounChallenge, 
a 
hashtag 

started by LSA junior Grant Strobl, 
national chair of the Young Americans 

for Freedom. Some students mocked 
the new pronoun policy by adding 
“Princess” or “King” to their names. 
Others responded to the hashtag 
with frustrated tweets about why the 
#UMPronounChallenge was harmful.

Aside from the fact that calling this 

a “pronoun challenge” displayed that 
Strobl didn’t understand basic English 
grammar, the creation of the hashtag 
blatantly ignored the call for a more 
inclusive campus.

LSA senior Kyle Stefek responded 

with a comment on Strobl’s Facebook 

post regarding the addition of “His 
Majesty” to his roster. 

“I think the only flaw you’ve found 

in the University’s system is that they 
didn’t account for students who … feel 
the need to mock their trans/non-
binary peers,” Stefek wrote. “The fact 
that you think this is cause for mock-
ery rather than celebration makes it 
clear you don’t really understand your 
privilege here — pronouns aren’t arbi-
trary for everyone.”

In the end, all Strobl’s response 

did — in addition to cultivating the 
prejudices faced by transgender and 
non-binary students every day — was 
create a deeper divide between stu-
dents who supported the addition of 
pronouns to rosters and students who 
thought that it was unnecessary.

If I started a hashtag every time 

the Daily had a guideline that I didn’t 
agree with, I would never get any-
thing done here. To respond with such 
mockery of the new guideline — which 
is meant to make the University of 
Michigan a more comfortable place 
for transgender and non-binary stu-
dents — shows an ignorance and an 
inability to adapt to a society that has a 
constantly changing “Stylebook.”five-
year assignment, I am thankful for my 
immigration to the United States. So, 
thanks, Mom and Dad, for real this 
time, for moving us across the world.

3B
Wednesday, October 19, 2016 / The Statement 

Copy That: Going With the “Style”

B Y C L A R E FA I R B A N K S

“I don’t know what locker room he’s in. No, I didn’t 
appreciate it, to be completely honest. That’s not 
our locker room talk. I don’t know Trump very 
well at all, but I don’t know who he’s played for 
last couple years to even say he’s been in anybody’s 
locker room and had those kind of conversations.”

—UDONIS HASLEM, former Miami Heat player, on Republican presidential 
nominee Donald Trump’s 2005 comments about touching women without 
their concent, reported earlier this month. Trump has characterized the 
remarks as “locker room talk”. 

on the record: “Locker Room Talk”

“It is never appropriate to sexually assault or 
harass a woman, ever — there’s no place for that, 
but to act like I have not heard or said something 
inappropriate that I wouldn’t want to get to the 
public, it’s just not true. I played for 16 years... but 
to act like in my 16 years in an NBA locker room, 
I haven’t heard sexually explicit stuff or said 
sexually explicit stuff, that’s just not true,” 

— CHARLES BARKLEY, former NBA player 

“There’s players in our locker room with sisters, 
wives, and daughters. There’s not that type of talk 
in anyone’s locker room.”

—DOC RIVERS, Los Angeles Clippers head coach

COVER ART: “MOVEMENT” BY ANONYMOUS, 

COURTESY OF PRISONER CREATIVE ARTS PROJECT

ILLUSTRATION BY ELISE HAADSMA

