Question From A Clueless Cis Person

I am a 22-year old cis heterosexual male. I am currently trying to start a student organization at my university in the United States. We will be a socialist activist organization and want to be as open and affirming as possible. As such, when new members join and fill their personal/contact info into our membership roster, I intend to have them also enter their pronouns. I will then have this form readily available to everyone so that people don't have to constantly refresh each others memories on names, pronouns, etc. I am going out on a limb and assuming no issue with this idea. My question arises from the fact that we will also be interacting with the university administration a lot. For instance, each semester we apply for funding from the university and they typically request a roster of active members in the club. I know a lot of times official documents are not up to date for someone who has recently transitioned. If I need to know people's dead names in order to navigate more official processes, is it acceptable to ask them to provide that to me? Additionally, would there be any reason for that information to be public to the rest of the club? Would that help to clarify things and prevent people from deadnaming or would it make things worse? Thanks for the input. I will admit I am rather clueless on this one. Additionally if there is any other basic information I might ask for in a new member survey besides pronouns etc. that you can think of, let me know.

Posted Jul 31, 2017, 3:22 PM UTC

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