The Working Group
A directory of members of the group.

Original Working Group Contributors

Theresa Jean Tanenbaum (“Tess”)

Theresa Tanenbaum is an Assistant Professor at the University of California in the Department of Informatics, where she is the founder of the Transformative Play Lab. Dr Tanenbaum’s work is engaged with issues of gender, identity, and narrative. Dr Tanenbaum’s work is playful, provocative, and interdisciplinary, frequently straddling the line between art, design, advocacy, and research. She helped draft the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) name change policy: the first such policy to be formally adopted by a major publisher. Her article in Nature advocating for more trans inclusive name change policies in academic publishing has been cited by multiple publishers who have adopted similar policies.

Irving Rettig

Irving D Rettig is a 5th year chemistry PhD candidate at Portland State University (PSU) researching light-to-chemical energy conversion, specifically singlet oxygen mediated aerobic oxidation photocatalysis in tellurium-containing rhodamine derivatives. In addition to working with name change policies, he has pushed for additional trans inclusive policies and practices within the American Chemical Society (ACS), co-created an antiracism workshop series within the chemistry department at PSU, and serves on the PSU Women in STEM organizing committee.

H Michael Schwartz

H Michael Schwartz is an Organizational Behavior PhD student at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management. Their research interests center around transgender experiences in organizations, allyship, and positive psychology, while they most like to teach leader/self development, practical positive psychology, and organizational development.

BM Watson

Brian M Watson (@brimwats) is a PhD student at the University of British Columbia’s School of Information focusing on equitable cataloging in galleries, archives, museums, and special collections. They are the Director of HistSex.com, an open access resource for the history of sexuality, and contribute the Homosaurus LGBTQ linked data vocabulary. Additionally, they serve as the Archivist-Historian of the Consensual Nonmonogamy Taskforce of the APA.

Teddy G Goetz

Teddy G Goetz (he/him or they/them) is a fourth year medical student at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons. Previously, he studied biochemistry and gender studies at Yale, conducting research on a wide spectrum of biologically and socially determined aspects of gender based health disparities, including earning his MS developing the first animal model of transgender hormone therapy. His interests include psychiatry, LGBTQ health, women’s health, narrative medicine, and physician advocacy. More about his work can be found at teddygoetz.com.

Katta Spiel

Katta Spiel is an FWF Hertha-Firnberg scholar at the HCI Group of TU Wien, where they work marginalised bodies in Interaction Design. They also have received the SIGCHI 2020 Outstanding Dissertation Award for their work on evaluating Co-Design with autistic children.

Mike Hill

Mike Hill (he/him/his) is a professor of mathematics at UCLA. A theoretical mathematician, his primary research studies questions in topology using techniques from algebra. He is a cofounder of Spectra: the association for LGBT mathematicians, and he continues to serve on the board there.

Accessibility
Principle # 1 Name changes should be available to authors upon request without legal documentation, unnecessary barriers, burdens, or labor placed upon the author making the request. Many publishers struggle with the extent to which such a policy should require “proof” from the requesting author, and what the burden of proof should be. Publishers raise the concern that such a policy might be exploited and allow bad actors to engage in unethical or fraudulent behavior. Such fears are not based in evidence or precedent.
2021-01-20
2 min read
Guiding Principles & Best Practices
Comprehensiveness
Principle #2 Name changes should remove all instances of an author’s previous name from the records maintained and disseminated by the publisher. Due to the aforementioned risks of disclosure, publishers must take care to not retain public facing records of the author’s previous name in any venue. This includes, but is not limited to, metadata, archival digital documents authored by requesting author as well as works citing them, tables of content, acknowledgments, and other paratextual materials, website URLs, search engines, database entries, in text citations, and bibliographic entries.
2021-01-19
1 min read
Guiding Principles & Best Practices
Invisibility
Principle #3 Name changes should not draw attention to the gender identity of an author, nor create a clear juxtaposition between the current name and the previous name. Transgender people face significant discrimination, bias, and precarity as a consequence of their gender identity. Published works associated with a trans person’s previous name represent a direct threat to the safety and wellbeing of trans people, potentially exposing them to harm, including online harassment, employment discrimination, in-person assault, and even state sanctioned incarceration and violence in some regions.
2021-01-18
2 min read
Guiding Principles & Best Practices
Expediency & Simplicity
Principle #4 Name changes should be implemented in a timely manner, and with a minimum of bureaucratic overhead. The longer an incorrect name persists within the published record, the larger the potential burden to the publisher to correct that name. Erroneous citations will continue to accrue as new people are discovering and indexing the work under the incorrect name. Publishers should act swiftly to correct names as soon as they are made aware of the need for change.
2021-01-17
1 min read
Guiding Principles & Best Practices
Recurrence & Maintenance
Principle #5 Publishers should regularly audit and correct new instances of changed names in order to prevent ongoing dissemination of incorrect information. Due to the citation driven nature of academic publishing, a single, swift, silent, comprehensive effort to correct a trans author’s name is insufficient to prevent inadvertent disclosure and the associated risks and arms it carries. Once a name change has been implemented, publishers should be prepared for some degree of ongoing maintenance of their records to remove recurrences of the previous name.
2021-01-16
1 min read
Guiding Principles & Best Practices
Press
This section includes articles about the Working Group, press releases from publishers that cite us, and places where we’ve given interviews or quotes. Articles About the Working Group Sed efficitur nibh sed euismod dictum. Donec posuere, nisl a egestas dignissim, risus magna placerat tortor, quis tincidunt ipsum erat at nunc. Cras consectetur ex eget tortor fermentum mattis. Nullam sodales sed purus eget ornare. Vestibulum aliquam cursus odio vitae placerat. Etiam vel pharetra diam. Morbi molestie varius tincidunt.
2021-01-13
2 min read
Author Resources
This section includes links to the articles and editorials we’ve written, as well as email templates for reaching out to publishers Articles & Editorials Editorials Vestibulum aliquam cursus odio vitae placerat. Etiam vel pharetra diam. Morbi molestie varius tincidunt. Morbi molestie tortor vitae metus venenatis, ut fermentum nisl luctus. Aenean at condimentum lorem, rhoncus dapibus nibh. Donec et dui consequat ipsum ultrices tristique vitae vitae est. Articles Sed efficitur nibh sed euismod dictum.
2020-10-16
1 min read
Email Templates
This is a repository of email templates that can be used to contact publishers.
2020-10-16
3 min read
Publisher Resources
This section includes a Sample Policy, and any workflow template documents the Working Group develops. This section also includes a directory of publishers with name change policies, a link to those policies, and any relevant email addresses maintained by publishers for name change requests.
2020-10-16
1 min read
Sample Policy for Publishers
Sample Name Change Policy for Publishers
2020-10-16
2 min read