When Bell Luan obtained her name change certificate from ServiceOntario in January 2023, she thought the worst was behind her. York, where she is a fourth-year PhD student and a TA in the philosophy department, would finally address her correctly.
As an attorney at law, Luan was prepared to deal with bureaucratic hurdles of changing her name. But after months of being “deadnamed to [her] face,” facing the risk of losing contact with her students and instructors after receiving a new email address, and waiting to satisfy York’s proof of ID requirements, Luan’s deadname still pops up in the university’s system.
Most recently, at the start of September 2024, Luan says her full deadname was displayed on the registrar course listing for a course she teaches on Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality.
“I wonder if it’s hundreds or thousands of people who know my deadname now because of this,” Luan says. According to her, the “root cause of the problem” remains undiagnosed.
This is just a glimpse into an outdated system with blatant oversights that forces students to go through the wringer to be recognized as themselves. This trying process continues to be Luan’s reality, as she waits for the next IT malfunction that could broadcast her deadname to the internet.
Students without a legal name change risk identity discrepancies in their records
For Luan, changing your name is not just an issue of gender expression. For some, names can serve as a bridge to their roots, while for others, names act as a way to leave behind their birth countries or to feel more aligned to their true selves.
York’s Name and Gender Identity Change form “is designed for students who are undertaking a name change in relation to their gender identity status and/or would like to see their chosen first name and gender correctly captured and used at [the university].”
However, York’s Student Information System (SIS) has a major flaw — it is “not able to display both the students’ legal and chosen name,” and an individual’s chosen first name will be reflected on their York financial and academic records.
This creates issues for many students, whose scholarships and government aid, as well as academic standing and enrolment records, suddenly don’t match their legal papers. The complications following a name change process at York drive many students away from ever undertaking it.
Kore, the coordinator of TBLGAY — a support group for queer people and allies at York, describes this oversight as a “basic failure.”
“I’ve had several people come up to me and go ‘I was gonna change my name but I’m afraid of it affecting my OSAP, so I’m just not going to,’” says Kore.
Having separate name fields for a legal and preferred name is common practice at other post-secondary institutions.
At Toronto Metropolitan University, the students’ chosen name can be displayed on Google Workspace, class and grade rosters, and student OneCards, while legal names remain on official documents from the university, such as transcripts and offers of admission.
At McMaster University, a student’s preferred name can be displayed on the Mosaic Student Centre and class lists, while the official documents — including financial aid — retain the student’s legal name.
Because York’s system is unable to accommodate both names, students are left with no other option but to do the ‘name dance,’ changing their name back to their legal name every time they need to download an official York form, then changing it again.
Those who find this process too overwhelming to be accessible are put in the vulnerable position of asking individual instructors to use their preferred name, some of whom don’t remember or simply don’t care enough to follow through.
The system, which was designed to honour diverse identities, leaves students who are facing systemic barriers to depend on the good will of those in power.
Poor integration causes delays
Changing her name at the Registrar’s Office didn’t update Luan’s insurance, HR self-serve, or alumni account.
“For a graduate student in my position, there are at least eight separate processes which must be completed and possibly more I have not yet discovered,” Luan says in her testimonial to TBLGAY.
York’s SIS, which includes enrolment, financial and academic records, as well as YU-cards, are usually updated by staff within 48 hours of a name change request. Meanwhile, other systems, such as email and Passport York accounts, HR name change, union benefits registration, and eClass are not, and neither is gender change.
“None of these systems talk to each other and there is no central process,” says Luan. “My York University name change has taken 20 months and is still arguably not finished.”
Over the past few years, the Registrar’s Office has collaborated with TBLGAY to address the delays in the name change process, securing more staff and better training to service students in need of a name change.
But integration issues across other information systems remain.
“When I get the alumni emails, those are still to my old name because that’s, again, a separate system that I still don’t even know how to change,” says Luan. “There’s still just a bunch of relics all over the place. If this is the system working, then my conclusion is that it works terribly.”
System errors endanger student safety
By the time Luan’s Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality course was published on the registrar website, her name had been changed across York’s systems for months, if not well over a year.
Then, her deadname appeared on the course’s page, under ‘instructor’s name’, hyperlinked to a nonexistent page.
Rattled, Luan emailed the Dean of Philosophy and the administrative staff of the department. The issue was resolved the next day, but “no one was able to explain” where within the system Luan’s deadname came from, and whether or not it could happen again.
“For however long it was before somebody noticed this and brought it to my attention, that was just up there — on a public facing site that’s searchable by people who aren’t even logged in,” says Luan. “There are plenty of folks for whom that would be quite a security risk.”
This, Luan says, is one dangerous consequence of the system not being able to accommodate both a legal and a preferred name.
“If you’re a person who either needs your old name to stay buried or needs to shield your new name from people who are trying to hunt you down for various reasons, I think it’s just an abject security failure.”
York’s Deputy Spokesperson, Yanni Dagonas, states: “York University information systems retain legal name information as they are often needed when intersecting with government information. Should a legal name be displayed in error, the Office of the Registrar, [then] UIT investigates and rectifies the issue.”
“Antiquated” SIS struggles with displaying special characters in students’ names
After encountering issues with her visa, Sofia Castaño arrived at York stressed, but hoping for a smooth start to the term.
Upon arrival, Castaño was denied a YU-card, because her last name in the York system did not match her official ID.
In Castaño’s passport, her last name is spelled with a letter ‘Ñ’, but the name change form Castaño was given did not allow her to type in this character.
Castaño made several trips to the YU-card Office before the issue was resolved. She uses the word “horrible” to describe her experience.
“Because the system wouldn’t work, they would say my name doesn’t exist. They would ask for multiple types of documentation showing that this was my actual name, and it [would] still not work,” she says. “I come from a place where my last name is very common, so I’ve never had this problem where I cannot even prove to you that I’m the person I claim to be.”
Castaño’s name change process only ended when she encountered an employee who was able to type her name into the backend of the system.
Two years later, Castaño’s sister, Sara Castaño, encountered the same problem.
When she inquired about the issue, IT responded by saying: “Our system is antiquated and does not support characters with accent marks.”
For Sofia Castaño, the sense that York’s SIS just wasn’t built for her never went away.
“If I was the only person in this school that wasn’t born here, I would understand why it doesn’t work. But this is a very diverse school with very diverse people with very diverse names,” says Castaño.
Even now, when she writes exams, Castaño doesn’t spell her last name with an ‘Ñ’, not wanting to ‘test’ the system.
Promises of a new system lack explicit timelines and specific solutions
The need for a new SIS was made public back in April 2019, when Chair of the York Finance and Audit Committee, William Hatanaka, reported that the university’s then “20-year-old homegrown SIS” lagged “well behind current technologies” and “significantly [hindered] the possibility of realizing a coherent, integrated technical environment.”
“York is falling behind in a sector where other institutions have moved to the next generation of student information systems,” Hatanaka stated in his memorandum to the York Board of Governors, adding that “in 2014, only 5 per cent of Canadian universities had a homegrown SIS.”
Hatanaka recommended the university “approve a budget of $41 million, inclusive of HST, for the acquisition and implementation of a new Student Information System,” proposing a detailed cost breakdown and an operation plan to span five years.
Among the benefits of the new SIS, Hatanaka cited “better, personalized service to a diversified body of students.”
The Next Generation Student Information System (NextGen SIS) then became a part of the Student Systems Renewal Program (SSRP) — a capital project initiated in 2020-21 with a total budget of $120M,designed to “unite student-centered services, provide for better data intelligence, [and] enhance the student experience.”
In York’s Integrated Resource Plan, the SSRP initiative is labelled as currently “progressing,” with Vice President of Finance and Administration, Carol McAulay, listed as the responsible lead on the project.
According to York’s Multi-Year Budget Plan, 2024–25 to 2025–26, the SSRP would also come with new Identity and Access Management (IAM) software. However, there are little updates about how NextGen SIS or IAM would affect the name change process and when they would be implemented.
In the meeting with TBLGAY that took place in October 2023, a former Registrar’s Office employee said that “a new system is being planned but may be at least three years away.
“To rework the coding on the current system requires a particular skill set that is currently being sought to allow students to disclose pronouns, gender ID, and preferred names,” he added. “The plan is to eventually automate the name change process in the new SIS.”
Despite the name change reform led by TBLGAY in 2023, Kore states that “York’s name change system is still very, very broken.”
“Over the past several years, we have heard from students about how we can improve their experience when changing their names,” explains Dagonas.
“We [are] also exploring ways we can make our Student Information Systems (SIS) serve students better by allowing students to make name changes directly in the system. We hope to communicate the progress we are making into this functionality for our students as soon as possible.”
