Outlined in its “Policies and Procedures Manual,” UNM’s Policy 2720 declares that “the intentional or persistent refusal to respect a preferred or affirmed name or pronoun can constitute discrimination or harassment.”
“Individuals shall not be required to obtain a court-ordered name change before being addressed by the first name and pronoun that corresponds to their gender identity,” according to the policy.
In a different part of the country, a federal appeals court ruled that a professor had the right to avoid using a student’s preferred pronouns, but that ruling, Meriwether v. Hartop (2021), was by the Cincinnati-based Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. New Mexico, by contrast, is in the jurisdiction of the Denver-based Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The manual is ” the official reference source for institutional policies and procedures” in “carrying out the administrative functions” of the university.
The specific policy does not outline specific punishments for individuals who use pronouns based on a person’s biological sex rather than their asserted gender identity. UNM adopted the policy in 2018.
The policy also gives students the prerogative to pick whichever bathroom they want, based on their asserted gender. It states that “[i]ndividuals shall be provided access to designated gender-specific facilities consistent with their gender identity.” The University’s office of Residence Life lets students to “pick a room that aligns with their gender identity, without the need for documentation.”
Non-trangender people have no right to force co-workers to use plural words like “them” or made-up words like “xe” or “xem” to refer to them, or to violate basic grammatical rules, so trangender people should not, either. Courts have ruled that federal civil rights laws do not create a right to affirmative action or special treatment, in cases such as Coalition for Economic Equity v. Wilson (1997).