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Nicole Sutherland
Professor Lynn Raymond
UWRIT 1104
27 July 2016

DW7 Revised
In this writing prompt we were asked to describe a time where you were left
confused or had some questions that were unanswered. I have had many situations
where I experienced confusion or felt like there has to be more, but on in particular
stood out to me.
On July 4th, 2016, us UTOP mentees attended our first GroundZero meeting. I
was extremely nervous, because I had no idea of what was to come. When we entered
the room we all did an icebreaker, that required us to write down a list of our values until
we were left with one final thing. After we all got were stripped of our values we were
asked to give our pronoun; things like, he, she, them, their, etc.. One of the presenters
for the program identified as, them, their, or they, and I was shocked. I had no idea
what to think, but I was open to understand their statement. I asked them, how did you
come about this concept, and they were deeply offended. I was confused, because I
was not trying to be offensive; I was trying to get a better understanding, so that I do not
make the same mistake twice.
Since this meeting, I have done research and talked with the presenters more. I
found that being referred to as, them, they, or their, mainly means that you have no
affiliation with the concept of what a man or a woman is defined as in todays society.
Also, they explained to me that the main idea of the topic was to never assume

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someones affiliation; you either ask once the two of you have built a close enough
relationship or just use the persons name. They wanted us to understand that using the
persons name can never be wrong or disrespectful.