<p>But being black is not a requirement for admission or attendance at a HBCU. So there is not an issue there analogous to the requirement of being female to apply for admission to a women’s college.</p>
<p>“It occurs to me that HBCUs probably have a similar issue, since all/most of them have some students who do not identify as Black, but I have never heard anyone handwringing about it.”</p>
<p>There’s handwringing on the part of some about whether white students ought to be there. What I’ve never heard of, though, is white students at HBCUs arguing for more inclusive language. If a white kid at Howard got an assignment: “Talk about your black perspective,” and complained that the professor was erasing his identity or whatever, I bet he’d be laughed out of class. Maybe someone who’s been there can share some observations. It seems silly to me to fight language that reflects the school’s mission.</p>
<p>That said, I’m not OK with lying on your application forms for any reason. If you know you’re not a woman, don’t check “female.”</p>
<p>I thought part of the reason women attend women’s colleges is so they can develop strong leadership and other skills among women.Yet here they are, the majority, being asked to cede their rights to the minority. Teachers have to change their speech patterns to accommodate students who identify as male, the young women have to compete with these men for leadership positions, media attention is being focused on how these young people came to the realization that they were men and how they’re dealing with it instead of the accomplishments of the young women. Most of the students in the article seemed able to identify a point in their lives when they came to the realization that they were men, not women. Since they don’t identify as women, I don’t know why they’d want to attend a college specifically for women. Maybe it’s easier, as a man, to compete in a school full of women instead of a school filled with a large number of both men and women, but it doesn’t make it right for the women who are paying good money to attend an all women’s college. I know a couple of people, personally, who are transgender (both female to male), and while I fully support their right to be whatever they want, I don’t think they should be able to have it both ways. If you truly believe you’re a man, you don’t belong at a women’s college. </p>
<p>Seems like that would be pretty obvious for those who realize that before they decide which college to enroll at. But what of those who realize that only after enrolling at a single-gender college?</p>
<p>“I thought part of the reason women attend women’s colleges is so they can develop strong leadership and other skills among women” - I understand that reasoning. But I also see other options too. Even in the 1980s, my STEM school had many women in leadership roles (I was student senate VP). The school I think is still under 30% female, but when I look at the alumni magazines it seems the majority of leaders are female. </p>
<p>JHS, please trust that those of us with daughters there have a sense of what’s going on.<br>
And I am hardly a clutch-the-pearls conservative about these things. </p>
<p>And yes, the use of “women” and “sisterhood” IS an issue. I see what gets posted on my D’s Facebook and so forth. </p>
<p>It’s up to each college to come up with a policy that works best in terms of how to handle a lot of the new social (and other ) issues that are arising. IMO, those women who want to become men or be gender neutral represent a sector of females and can bring value to a woman’s college. It’ is an a woman’s issue. Those men who have become women, the same. I would probably look at it on an admissions basis as what the gender is upon application. That one has to check “female” at that time. Due to the fact that gender ID is becoming a mental, emotional thing rather than a physical, medical, scientific thing, yes, fraud can be done, and also change of mind after that moment. Can’t cover every single base. But IMO it is a relevant question and discussion for woman’s college as to why someone does not want to remain and woman and the issues of making that transition, and also what someone who has transitioned to a woman is facing.</p>
<p>I think the Q is - is W (and similar) meant to be a safe space for all marginalized people, or a women’s college intended to explicitly “discriminate” in favor of women. Black men are marginalized in society too but W doesn’t admit them. </p>
<p>The word (acronym) HBCU explicitly states “historically.” While it may be inevitable, I would prefer not to see these places as HWCs - historically women’s colleges. But I also think that feminism = strength, not this constant victim hood / I am offended / I feel marginalized every time I don’t get a hug stuff. </p>
<p>“Seems like that would be pretty obvious for those who realize that before they decide which college to enroll at. But what of those who realize that only after enrolling at a single-gender college?”</p>
<p>Asked and answered, ucb. Some say - they should be asked to transfer, others (myself included) is that they should allowed to stay, grandfathered in, and of course always be treated respectfully. </p>
<p>I guess the question is - once you’re a transmen, you’re a man. You’re a man same as any other born man, and therefore getting butthurt that the college sings songs about sisterhood is too darn bad, because you left sisterhood. You have friendships, but you chose to leave what it stands for. Which is FINE. Godspeed and all. </p>
<p>That identity is fine, but you are assuming away a core problem for a college: The lines aren’t that sharp, because becoming a man happens over a fairly long period of time, in increments, not all at once. You could tell from the pictures in the article: the one person who could actually pass for a man in the world had already graduated, had taken a year and half away from college in the middle, and had begun his transition before stopping out. The others had achieved androgyny at best (and some of them had already graduated, too). Very few people who enter college as women are going to spend meaningful time there as men, although they may spend a lot of their time there in the process of becoming men and working to establish a male identity.</p>
<p>I suspect there’s a part of the landscape that the article (and this discussion) slights: There are a bunch of people actively engaged in questioning their gender identities – and implicitly and explicitly asking others to engage with them in that process – who cannot simply be described as “transmen.” They would qualify for admission to Wellesley under any reasonable definition of womanhood not drafted by the Taliban. I think they also tend to be a lot more aggressive about language and such than people whose main goal has a definite end, i.e., being recognized as a man.</p>
<p>Here’s an excerpt of something written by a then-23-year-old transperson I happen to know (or to have known, I haven’t spoken with this person in a number of years, but I continue to follow the career). He has identified himself as a transperson since he was 15 or 16. As far as I know – and I am pretty certain of it at least up through when this was written – he never got surgery, or took hormones, or did anything beyond dress, language, and attitude to become male (and would strenuously object to the distortion of his project as “becoming male”). </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What I find poignant about this is the intersection of a bunch of things: The massive self-centeredness of youth, the extraordinary burden of trying to color outside the lines all the time, how important it is nonetheless not to be defined by your struggle all the time, how meaningful it must feel to find “active allies,” and how exhausting the demands on those allies must be. </p>
<p>The point is, this person does not want anything so simple as to be a man, at a women’s college or anywhere else. He wants constant engagement by everyone around him in his critique of gender in society. Most of the people in the article aren’t actually engaged in critique of gender – they are happy enough with gender roles, and just want to switch theirs. </p>
<p>I find it poignant too, but like you, I find it self-absorbed, because just because gender identity / fluidity are of critical importance to some folks does not obligate everyone else to make it their life priority too. </p>
<p>I’m not sure if I’m quite there on the thesis that it’s not the “pure” I-want-to-switch-sides but the I-want-to-play-around-in-the-middle who are the most activist on this issue; I will ask D for her observations when I have a chance. </p>
<p>“where I felt especially comfortable, it was because someone in the community had made it clear that they were an active ally, that they supported my inquiry-based approach to living, as well as my state of being trans, whether or not we ever talked about it, which in turn enabled us to move beyond my gender and to engage as individuals sharing a room or a park bench or a Tuesday morning.”</p>
<p>Most individuals at Wellesley ARE engaging simply as individuals sharing a park bench on a Tuesday morning. I don’t hear anyone saying “Ewwww!” or running away or suggesting that these students who are exploring gender identities hide in the corner or not be permitted to go to class. I think most have a genial sense of tolerance - I say tolerance in the positive sense of the word, live and let live, you do you and I’ll do me, and I care less about how you present yourself than I do whether you’re an engaging person to talk to on the park bench or about the chemistry class we share or the movie that’s on campus. Do women like my daughter need to become “active allies” or can they simply just accept people for what they are without having to become activists themselves? </p>
<p>I’ll be the troglodyte here and say that gender is not a choice. One born female will always be female. We can change our phenotype by manipulating hormones and undergoing surgeries. We can “feel trapped in the wrong body” but we can’t change every chromosome in our body to become the other gender. Some people are born with ambiguous gender, possessing atypical chromosomes or genitalia of both sexes. But those are not under discussion here. Here we are talking about women who, for perfectly valid reasons of a highly personal nature, have decided to pretend to be men. They have been assisted in their pretense by sophisticated medical technology, and hopefully live happier lives after their “transition”. It is polite and respectful of people to think of them as men, but it is a charade that should not extend to altering long standing policies as public and private institutions. Fire away. </p>
<p>educ8me, I explicitly asked that we not run off this rail in my first post. The point is not to impugn the motives or motivations of these young folks. It is to respect that what they are doing is extremely difficult even with all the personal / family support in the world, and to assume good faith that they are doing so with a lot of thought and with the appropriate medical and psychological supervision. I think it is not in good faith to suggest that they are “pretending to be men” in the same way that I might pretend to be a ballerina or a firefighter on Halloween. </p>
<p>I think that it’s a process when one changes gender, so it takes time before a person who undergoes this process feels that it’s complete, maybe never. Perhaps, having been a woman can be an allowable criterion as well in the process of becoming one. Exactly how the line is to be drawn is a learning experience just started. I’m sure the founders of these schools never saw this coming.</p>
<p>In many ways women’s colleges have always had as part of their mission exploring “what it is to be a woman,” and expanding the existing set of definitions. Women’s colleges have made it their business to explode societal definitions of “acceptable” female roles and behaviors. Wellesley woman have felt supported in taking over many things that used to be the preserve of men: scientist, artist, breadwinner, professor, doctor, you name it. They have also felt supported in continuing to engage in roles that are traditionally female: mother, nurturer, homemaker, nurse, et al, without surrendering their intellect and their selfhood or their positive engagement in society. They have participated in <em>widening</em> the borders of womanhood, not narrowing them. That’s what it’s all about.</p>
<p>I think that is what bothers me about the idea of a transman at W: in a way, it seems that they are stating a border and crossing it. Well, okay, if you prefer to now be a man, rather than the unique woman you were, that’s your prerogative. But men are not the mission of Wellesley, and you shouldn’t try to subvert that.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>educ8me: In terms of how people use the vocabulary these days, your statement is wrong. It’s correct (with some exceptions) to say “sex is not a choice,” because “sex” is the word people use for all of those biological determinants. “Gender,” however, is a social construct, and it is potentially an endless series of choices. They may or may not be conscious choices for any particular individual, but across time and space and populations and individuals, nothing about gender is invariable.</p></li>
<li><p>I think it’s worth acknowledging that, however much they try, “transmen” probably never grow up to become simply “men,” at least not without help from a blue fairy. Being a transman is part of the panoply of female experience, as is being a transgendered person who is not a man.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I’m a little confused by the last clause of this. Are you saying that being a transgenered person, regardless of MtoF or FtoM is a part of the panoply of female experience, no matter what? Or am I misreading? I’m probably misreading, though given power positions in the culture, it’s an interesting thesis, if I’m reading right. </p>
<p>“Being a transman is part of the panoply of female experience, as is being a transgendered person who is not a man.”</p>
<p>JHS, poetgirl and others - Which of the following statements, if either, strike you as true or at least mostly-close-to-true? (no agenda and not asking with hands-on-hips, I’m wondering and processing here)</p>
<p>1) Being a transman is part of the panoply of female experience
2) Being a transwoman is part of the panoply of female experience
3) Being simply trans / in between / neither female or male is part of the panoply of female experience</p>