Three years ago, Ruth Hayes, who teaches animation at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., adopted a script to introduce herself in class: “My name is Ruth Hayes. I use she/her pronouns. I teach animation.” Her L.G.B.T.Q. colleagues had been following the formula for a while. But it knocked her off balance at first, she said — and she found that disturbing, because she had always been the radical in her family.

“It’s kind of funny to be in that position where you’re the stick in the mud or the old-fashioned person,” said Ms. Hayes, 64. But she recognizes how important it is psychologically to get it right, because “gender is so close to our core.”

“A lot of students who are transitioning, trying to figure this out — there’s a lot of depression, their suicide rate is high, there’s a lot of emotional turmoil attached to that,” she said. “The least we could do is make it an OK thing to be open about who you are.”

Recent research indicates that social affirmation, including the use of chosen names and proper pronouns, can help reduce the higher rates of depression and suicide for transgender and nonbinary young people, which stem in part from a lack of acceptance and frequent harassment.

Amy Hillier, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice, said her university did not have a standard gender pronoun protocol. But it is becoming more common for students and professors to put personal pronouns on email signatures and name tags, she said.

Despite those efforts, Loran Grishow-Schade, a 33-year-old graduate student in social work at Penn, said that when “X” appears on official documents as their gender, many professors can be bewildered. So Mx. Grishow-Schade has found that it is generally a good idea to meet with instructors and explain that they are agender.