Improve publish and view access for new Pronoun field

The new pronoun field is currently coupled with the gender field. As a result, the only way to have access to view the pronoun field on the contact card is for the gender field to also be set as viewable. Since we are a single-sex school, gender is typically assumed. While we do have some students who self-identify their gender as non-binary, publishing the gender field at our school is simply not something we prefer to do.

We were so excited to see Blackbaud add the new pronoun field, but the pronoun, in our opinion is really tied to the users name identity, not their gender identity. We simply want to know how a constituent wishes to be addressed regardless of their gender. We also find it quite tedious to have to dig into the contact card for each individual student to find now both the gender and pronoun.

I would like to see a couple of enhancements here:

  1. I would like the pronoun field decoupled from the gender field to allow a school to enable access to view the pronoun without also having to publish the gender field.

  2. More importantly, I would like to have the option of displaying the pronoun next to the name on both the directory and rosters. For example, if a user searches my name in the directory, they would see Amy Hirschfeld (she/her/hers) at first glance, or if a teacher looks at the roster, they might see Max Kramer (they/them/theirs). This enhancement would then not force users to dig through individual contact cards to find the pronoun with which the person prefers to be identified. This is particularly important when drafting official notes, messages, and emails and communicating with parents as well as students in the class(zoom)room.

  • Amy Hirschfeld
  • Aug 19 2020
  • Implemented
  • Attach files
  • Admin
    Jessica Walters commented
    August 04, 2023 16:08

    Hi all! Pronouns can be managed as an individual field through all Profile access areas - View/edit profile fields, Profile publish access, and Profile relationship access. We also recently added the ability to configure your pronoun values and to make any value inactive. Unused values can also be deleted. Pronouns also are not required as part of gender, though the option to provide a default value still exists. Adding pronouns to user name format and/or showing them with the name in more places throughout the system is currently under thoughtful consideration. The work will happen, we're just considering how to do it well.

    I'd like to encourage you to find all Ideas related to pronouns and vote for those areas important to your school! I'll close this idea as Implemented since the title is for publish and view access, and that piece is done!

  • Anita Pinkerton commented
    March 14, 2023 19:28

    We need to have the option to turn off the pronoun field as it is not needed in our environment.

  • Nancy Kierstead commented
    May 19, 2021 19:03

    I really hope this can happen soon.

  • Jeanne Townsend commented
    February 17, 2021 22:28

    Kudos to Blackbaud for providing a Pronoun field - this is a very exciting development!!!


    We would really like to have the Pronoun field decoupled from the Gender field, though. In our case, we would like users to be able to choose their own Pronouns, meaning that they need to be able to edit the Pronoun field. But we cannot allow users to edit their Gender field, because we routinely use the Gender field in several different departments:

    • Admissions - for gender-balancing incoming classes

    • Academics - for gender-balancing academic sections

    • Athletics - for reporting team rosters to our athletic league

    • Dean's Office - for determining housing options (we are a boarding school)

    Changes to a user's Gender must go through a school administrator to ensure that the user is properly accounted for in any area where we consider gender to be a factor. Thus we cannot give users the ability to edit the Gender field.


    We would also like to see the Pronoun field added to headers throughout the system, much the way the Preferred Name appears.


    As a school, our work is focused on helping young people develop to their fullest potential, as their authentic selves. To do this, we must balance the need for legal labels (legal names and genders) with our users' preferences for how they want to be addressed...in their preferred names and their pronouns!


  • Laurie Sachs commented
    January 08, 2021 22:31

    We would also like the abilty to have preferred pronouns show in the directory (ex.: faculty/ staff directory) that appears on the website and also as a choice in what can be displayed in the style applied to the affinity content that appears on the website.

  • Nancy Joseph commented
    August 25, 2020 19:54

    The sooner this is taken care of the better it is.