Transgender Identities: Readings and Resources

We at Morris Library know gender and sex are complicated and fluid. We're committed to helping you explore and express your identity. Morris Library's staff follow a code of ethics which require us to respect each patron's individuality and respond to them with empathy and to protect their privacy. With us, you are welcomed, you are respected, and you are safe. Come to any of us for help or to tell us how to be better and we will.

Below is just a small sample of the resources to learn more about issues of gender, sex, and identity we have available.

If you're nervous about someone finding out what you're exploring our reading from our shelves, here's some reassurance:

• First, if you check out a book or other item, our systems are specifically designed and configured to forget everything about your interactions the instant you return the book. We purge everything and make the information as unrecoverable as reasonably possible.
• Second, our staff are trained and have the ethical obligation to do the same to their memories the moment you walk away from them. (If you've ever had to explain a situation or question to the same one of us multiple times, that's why.)
• Third, if you read a book in the building and leave it on one of our tables for reshelving without checking it out, we have no way to connect you to the book and neither does anyone else.

You can also help us respect your identity by changing the name by which our systems call you.

• For a campus-wide change to all system that don't require your legal name, login to SalukiNet and search for "preferred name". Fill out the fields and send the form off. Campus IT will swap your name ASAP. People Finder won't change, but your campus email and messages to you from within SIU will. (Your author finally switched her preferred name last week after years of hesitating. The form took a minute and her email showed her preferred name within two hours.)
• If you'd rather just messages from the library used a different name or if you're one of our community users without a SalukiNet account, stop by our Circulation Desk and ask. Our staff will update our records for you. Changes on our system won't affect other campus accounts.

While you're at Circulation, feel free to grab a pronoun button!