1: First Steps of Transition

First of all, are reading this and just transitioned, I want to say a huge congratulations. This is an awesome journey you have embarked on, well done. If you also happen to actually be working at Curtin, please do reach out to me 😊. I would also encourage you to reach out to Staff Diversity and Inclusion staffdiversity@curtin.edu.au who will be able to support you on your journey.

The reason this post exists is because the Gender Transition Guide for Curtin is currently under review, and does not contain the information you need to know. This contains many of the things I wish I knew, but didn’t, particularly relating to the administrative and IT systems.

Please note that nothing in this guide is official, nor is this mean to reflect on Curtin, these are my own personal opinions/experiences, waivers, blah blah blah, you get the bloody point. I’m just trying to help, so if a legal team is reading this—bugger off.

This guide may contain information generally useful to anyone affirming gender in academia, and I will likely separate out that information into another post in the coming week (stated on 2023-02-28 16:27).

2: Internal Systems: Preferred or Legal Name Change

The sections below are things that apply irrespective of whether your name change is legally binding or not.

Changing Preferred Name and Gender

• No evidence is required to update preferred name or gender. The preferred name will propagate to most Curtin systems (but not all).
• You need to fill out the “Employee details form”, which can be access via: https://staffportal.curtin.edu.au/employment/systems-and-forms/forms/
• Submit this form directly to your faculty PAC inbox or contact. It can take roughly a week for the staff to update this information, depending on who receives your ticket.
• The preferred name should automatically appear for your Windows login. If it does not, contact DTS.
• Elements will not use your preferred name for records but the “profile” itself will show your preferred name. See below for more information on elements after legal name change.

Updating Telephone Directory Display, WebEx, and Email.

• You need to contact DTS support (IT) and lodge a ticket here: https://curtin.service-now.com/sp/
• In the ticket, state how you would like your name to appear on the telephone directory system. This change will also update your WebEx display name
• IT can add an alias to your account, and set this as the primary email. There is no practical limit on the number of email aliases you can have.
• Specify in the ticket exactly how you want your new email with the preferred name to appear, as they sometimes use your old initials in the email, rather than your new ones. If you haven’t decided on a middle name yet, then you can always add another alias later.

Outlook Crap

• Your new email should appear in the staff directly by default within 24 hours. Outlook web application will default to new email within 24 hours.

• However, the Outlook desktop application can be a real pain, and you may need to completely clear cache and create a new profile.

• To create a new profile Hold down the shift key and click on the outlook icon. Then click the “new” option, and enter a new name and login with the new email. Set this as default and you’ll be good to go. See image below:

• If this doesn’t work, you may need to either manually delete all mailbox and cache files, reinstall outlook, or completely log out of office on the computer. I did all of these steps and it eventually worked. Email me or IT if you are struggling.

• Please note that Outlook desktop can only send from one email address at a time. However, with the web application you can set your default sending email in settings (and choose in the From field).

Printer name

• The printer name also doesn’t automatically update. You will need to request that IT do this if it is a concern for you. This is managed through the Ysoft interface.

New business cards and name badge

• New business cards and name badges can be arranged via your relevant department or faculty administration staff.
• Also note that you can request to include pronouns on the new name card.
• There is not a requirement for legal name change, though you might want to ensure your email is fully updated prior to any adjustments to the business card.

Changing Outlook/Teams Display Name

• The name that displays in Outlook/Teams does not automatically adjust based on the preferred name field with PAC. You need to lodge a separate ticket with DTS support to indicate you would like your preferred name to appear in Outlook/Teams.
• This change will propagate across Microsoft 365 systems (including the staff contact directory) gradually over approximately 7 days.
• However, other users on Microsoft Teams will still be able to see your old name and picture for quite some time. Teams uses a cache linked to your unique user ID, and this only resets every ~30 days. You can ask people to manually reset their cache as per these instructions: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/troubleshoot/teams-administration/clear-teams-cache
• Any new conversations/contacts should take effect immediately.

Staff Profile

• Your personal staff profile might take some additional time to update (e.g., 24 hours). Personally, my old URL broke for 1 week but then was restored. I can’t explain this, but I wouldn’t bother reaching out to IT unless it’s dead naming or linking after more than 2 weeks.
• Google and Bing will still find your old profile for sometime (over 1 month), but it will be a dead link. I wouldn’t worry too much.

Other Systems

The systems below are ones I’ve yet to do myself but just pointing them out:

• Update your travel profile
• Blackboard automatically updated for me
• LinkedIn and LinkedIn Learning we’re easy to change
• Twitter etc

Microsoft Word // Office

• If your old name is still appearing in the banner of Word or Office, then proceed to delete all your office cache as per here:
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/testing/clear-cache

3: Internal and External Systems After Legal Name Change Only

The process following your legal name change is similar to the process above, but there are some added steps worth mentioning below.

Changing Legal Name

• You need to fill out the “Employee details form”, which can be access via: https://staffportal.curtin.edu.au/employment/systems-and-forms/forms/
• You will need to attach your Change of Name Certificate or appropriate proof (e.g., birth cert)

Replacement ID Card

• To get a new staff card you will need a legal name change. I am unsure whether you can get a new card in your preferred name (I assume it’s possible, but I didn’t look into it). You can certainly get a card with your legal name and a new picture.
• A replacement staff ID card can be obtained by visiting https://fasttrackidcard.curtin.edu.au/. This process requires you to confirm your identity using a Drivers Licence or Passport, but this does not need to be the ID in your new name.
• Do not mail this! Your old card will stop working as soon as you submit the form. Pick this up in person from the service centre.

Elements

• Elements will not use your preferred name for records but the profile itself will show your preferred name. Confusing, right? This means Google scholar will index entries using your deadname until you change it legally.
• Elements will update your name in the profile with your preferred name within ~1 week of the change with PAC.
• If you have changed your legal name you can now search this and set as an author on records.
• Please note that each publication and research item on Elements will remain under your deadname and will require you to manually update it.
• To do this, click on the record of interest, click Edit Record followed, then click Edit next to your name, and then simply enter your new name and search and it will update.

Espace records

I am currently in discussions with the Espace team and Elements team to work this one out. Stay tuned. However, it appears you will need to at minimum email the following mailboxes:

• “Elements” Elements@curtin.edu.au,
• “espace” espace@curtin.edu.au

Academic Publishing

Reissue your Degree Certificates

Most of the major universities state explicitly that they only require a change of name certificate to reissue your degree (e.g., PhD certificate, Testamur). UNSW, UQ, USyd, UniSA, Monash, and UniMelb all do not require any evidence or requirement to show change of Gender (ANU unspecified). UWA does require you to show evidence of affirmed gender. The evidence is just the standard Aus. Government requirements with a simple statement any GP can produce being sufficient. I suggest ignoring the poor choice of words on the form, or use my edited version of the form to induce less political dysphoria 😁. No guarantees they will accept this.

Updating name in Old Journals

Almost all major publishers allow you to update your name on old papers without corrections. Please see the following articles for more information:

https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/resources/policy-author-name-changes

https://perspectivesblog.sagepub.com/blog/author-services/our-post-publication-name-change-policy-explained

https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/inclusive-author-name-changes

https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/author-name-changes-for-published-articles/

Allow 3-4 weeks for most publishers to execute the changes (I found Springer and SAGE the fastest).

Notes on Reindexing

• This will take ages to do. Likely you have preprints and papers shared on services like researchgate that will have your deadname.
• I personally don’t mind too much, though changed all the ones that I had control over.
• Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do for a lot of the indexing services, but be assured that the main official PDFs and papers will get updated.

Google Scholar

• I recommend making an entirely new scholar account, in the hopes that it will reindex your old papers with your new name.

Conclusion

• Please reach out to me if you need any other tips.
• I will try and update this guide as I go and let others know my experience