Would my preferred name be used in letters home

Im going to loughborough from september, and i got an email saying i have to register for my ID card. They give me the option to put a preferred name and pronouns as well as my legal name. Being trans i would like to put my new name as preferred, but i am worried that this would be used when i got letters home. My parents don't know - i want to transition fully in uni.

So.... would a letter that is sent to my (parents) house use my legal name, or preferred name?

Reply 1

DocCyber

Not if you don't want it to. I'm about to start a PhD at Loughborough but I teach at a different uni. We have very strict policies about protecting privacy around this kind of thing, and generally:

(a) during term time stuff will go to your term time address
(b) we prefer email on our internal systems (you'll get an @lboro.ac.uk address soon)

Just tell the university that you want to be paperless, but they're more than used to supporting students who don't want "outing" for various reasons (we had a girl who got pregnant and went part-time at university with a term off whilst baby was very little... she was just as nervous as you are and so the university made sure that we communicated in her preferred way).

Parents are often loving but confused by this kind of thing: think about buddying up with someone supportive from the student's union/LGBTQ+ community on campus and getting a steer on what comes next.

Remember, you're an adult now, and good for you for making this brave step.

Loughborough University

Loughborough

Reply 2

Loughborough University

Official Rep

Original post by Anonymous

Hi there,

Great to hear from you. So I don't give you an incorrect answer, my recommendation is to use the contact details on this webpage for your question. I hope this helps :smile: