[Translating freely]
@JHS That is your translation. That is not my translation. Put the EXACT statements from the colleges and we can all translate freely and it is obvious from this thread we will all translate differently.
I personally do not find Barnards statement hostile in any shape or form.
@JHS I’m not reading it like that at all.
@JHS – I think you need to keep in mind that there are very significant differences between Barnard & Mount Holyoke.
Barnard is an undergraduate college of Columbia University. Barnard = female. Everything else at Columbia = coed.
Barnard’s administration made a decision almost 40 years ago to decline merger with Columbia, in order to preserve its mission as a women’s college.
Because of the affiliation with Columbia, Barnard students have full access to all Columbia facilities (libraries, student center, gym, dining hall, etc.) as well as the ability to participate in virtually all student organizations. Males all around. Who knows – maybe a transgendered female-to-male could even join a Columbia fraternity. (Doing so would depend on whether or not the fraternity was welcoming-- not anything directly to do with Barnard)
First year students at Barnard are assigned to live in a building on Barnard’s campus, but after that students have multiple housing options, including living at Barnard facilities located at various distances from campus, many of which are also occupied by male residents, or choosing to live with Columbia students in Columbia housing.
The Barnard campus is directly adjacent to Columbia – simply a matter of crossing the street. Barnard students can and do regularly enroll in Columbia courses, and many students may cross that street beween the campuses half a dozen or more times a day. A Barnard student living in an off-campus building could easily have their schedule arranged during a given semester so that they don’t have any reason to set foot on the Barnard campus at all except for an occasional administrative task.
So a transitioning female to male student at Barnard has multiple choices and resources. Barnard is just saying that it isn’t going to change the language it uses nor modify its mission. I think that given the location and Columbia association, that Barnard students really aren’t having an immersive experience of being in an all-female environment. There are males all around. So the words and the message conveyed in preserving its identity as a women’s college may be more important to Barnard in that context.
So my point is that a statement you perceive as “hostile” can also be interpreted simply as an effort maintaining identity. No Barnard student is being asked to leave – they are just being told that the college isn’t going to change its focus to accommodate their preferences. The “guidance and resources in making choices” doesn’t necessarily entail leaving the college.
Jeepers! I have been listening to these debates for over 40 years, and I can read nuance.
Barnard is saying very clearly that people who are trans men or who choose to be gender-indeterminate do not have a right to be acknowledged as such when they are being spoken of and spoken to as part of the larger Barnard community. They are going to hear the community of Barnard students, including them, called “women.” If that’s not acceptable, Barnard will help them find some other college; it won’t be accommodating their language preferences.
MoHo is saying just as clearly that it’s important to acknowledge and to welcome people who were born women but choose not to identify as women, and that an important way of acknowledging and welcoming them is to ask how they want people to address and to refer to them, and to honor that request. And it is asking community members to remember that the community includes people who choose not to be called women, and to take care not to presume that anyone you haven’t asked specifically wants to be called a woman.
Those are two very different attitudes. One privileges the collective, and history, while the other privileges the individual right now. I agree it may be overstating things to call the first “hostile” to trans people, but I know that’s how my kids and their friends view it because I’ve discussed it with them. For them, freedom of the pronoun is a fundamental right, and not to accommodate that is unreasonable. To them, Barnard’s insistence on identifying as “women” reinforces an outdated male/female dichotomy, excludes and is hurtful towards people who can’t find themselves in that dichotomy, and does not help the world become a better place.
No, Barnard is saying that the trans men or gender indeterminate do not have a right to demand that the larger community change its identity or goals to accommodate them.
“…do not have a right to demand…” Whoa. Who is demanding anything? Differences in people is not going away. Never has. Never will. Initial resistance is normal, but if one has an open mind and explores the differences, one can usually come out the other side with a greater understanding and willingness to embrace the differences (hopefully without taking hundreds of years.) Barnard has the right to define itself as does MoHo, but I am sure Barnard won’t stay with that mindset forever.
Barnard’s policy was adopted after a thoughtful process involving input from many sources. It wasn’t an ad hoc or kneejerk reaction. Here is what one student who transitioned to male during their time at Barnard said at the time the policy was adopted:
Source: http://features.columbiaspectator.com/news/2015/06/08/a-college-for-women/
This whole tread reminds me of a scene in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail where King Arthur makes certain assumptions of a peasant named Dennis - he calls out to a darkly garbed figure pulling a cart, “Old woman!”
DENNIS: Man!
ARTHUR: Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
DENNIS: I’m thirty seven.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: I’m thirty seven – I’m not old!
ARTHUR: Well, I can’t just call you `Man’.
DENNIS: Well, you could say `Dennis’.
ARTHUR: Well, I didn’t know you were called `Dennis.’
DENNIS: Well, you didn’t bother to find out, did you?
ARTHUR: I did say sorry about the `old woman,’ but from the behind you looked–
DENNIS: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior!
ARTHUR: Well, I AM king…
DENNIS: Oh king, eh, very nice. An’ how’d you get that, eh? By exploitin’ the workers – by ‘angin’ on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic an’ social differences in our society! …If there’s ever going to be any progress–