Colorado’s top public university says that people should address new acquaintances as transgender until otherwise instructed and that ignoring someone’s pronouns is “an act of violence.”

“Sometimes people just don’t want to share their pronouns and that’s fine,” says the University of Colorado Boulder’s “pronouns” guide. “Usually it’s safe to use they/them/theirs unless that person tells you otherwise.”

“It is never safe to assume someone’s gender and living a life where people will naturally assume the correct pronouns for you is a privilege that not everyone experiences,” the guide says.

These are just some of the directions from University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Inclusion and Social Change, which also claims that terms like “ze” and “zir” are legitimate ways to refer to people. Boulder is the flagship University of Colorado campus and also the largest, with more than 36,000 students.

[I don’t know about this in particular, but I am leaning towards assuming anyone I meet in a university’s administration is a woke lunatic until proven otherwise. ~ Beege]