"something so stable about our school was about to change"

October 15, 2014 4:44 PM

When Women Become Men at Wellesley

Trans 101
posted by davidstandaford (73 comments total)

FYI, this article does not use recommended style guide usage of names and pronouns. Perhaps that's with permission of the students, but I can't tell.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:17 PM on October 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's a long piece, covering a number of thought provoking issues. I can say with certainty that were it not for the many discussions here on the blue about these issues, and the patience of the mefi trans* community in building understanding among us, i would not have read it fully or with such interest. I look forward to the discussion.
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:41 PM on October 15, 2014 [9 favorites]

Slate article about trans students in women's colleges.

This was extremely interesting. I swear I also heard an NPR segment that included some interviews and discussion from Wellesley students over this issue, but I can't find it.

Just the fact that there's so much discussion over this is extremely heartwarming. I haven't found/read any articles about this debate happening in mens colleges (the first google hit is the FPP one); anyone have insight into this? All I could find was that mens-only Morehouse College has banned students from wearing, among other things, women's clothing.
posted by halifix at 5:42 PM on October 15, 2014

Interesting and challenging article. While I'm sure that "the right way to approach this" is clear to many people, I am left sitting here still thinking. I don't often have that experience. Thanks for posting.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:46 PM on October 15, 2014

"Others are wary of opening Wellesley’s doors too quickly — including one of Wellesley’s trans men, who asked not to be named because he knew how unpopular his stance would be. He said that Wellesley should accept only trans women who have begun sex-changing medical treatment or have legally changed their names or sex on their driver’s licenses or birth certificates. 'I know that’s a lot to ask of an 18-year-old just applying to college,” he said, “but at the same time, Wellesley needs to maintain its integrity as a safe space for women. What if someone who is male-bodied comes here genuinely identified as female, and then decides after a year or two that they identify as male — and wants to stay at Wellesley? How’s that different from admitting a biological male who identifies as a man? Trans men are a different case; we were raised female, we know what it’s like to be treated as females and we have been discriminated against as females. We get what life has been like for women."

...and that's where I die a little inside.
posted by Annika Cicada at 5:51 PM on October 15, 2014 [22 favorites]

I don't know - as a masculine-of-center person who does not identify as a woman, I am really uneasy when trans men and other trans masculine people not only assert our right to be in women's spaces but consciously or unconsciously take advantage of the benefits accorded to men . I'm always saying that I wish I could get some of this over-valuing that transmasculine people are supposed to receive in some circles, but I am not sure that I would want that kind of overvaluing if it involved always insisting that a women's college should make sure to include me as a man, or taking leadership roles as a man at a women's college. That just seems like it's slipping over into the same old patriarchy - especially since we know that trans men frequently end up with better jobs and more respect and so on after transitioning. And extra especially in situations where, for pete's sake, people are sketched out by trans women - who are actually women! It seems weird to say "trans men can attend a women's college, but trans women can't" - it's like not even counting trans men as actual men.

I grasp - god, how I grasp - that gender and transitioning are complicated, and being a trans man at a women's college may very well be the best option for many of these guys. But I also think it's incumbent on masculine of center people to step back in these situations. We already have so, so many social advantages, particularly when we're among women.
posted by Frowner at 5:55 PM on October 15, 2014 [43 favorites]

I mean, I have in many respects gotten used to occupying the social position of "woman". I see the flyers for the cis and trans women's bike repair nights, for instance, and it takes me a minute to remember that I can't go - realistically, no one would say me nay because they know me and don't gender-check in that way, but the truth is that I am not a woman, and even if I'm a poor example of manliness, I don't belong in women-exclusive spaces.
posted by Frowner at 5:57 PM on October 15, 2014 [5 favorites]

As an alumna of an all-girls high school (and I had a cross registered class at Wellesley in college), between my liberal sense of social justice and my experiences in single-sex environments (and now in a heavily male dominated industry) I have a lot of internal conflict about this I'm still working through. But isn't a large part of the problem that a women's college is considered one of the ONLY safe, supportive places to challenge gender norms? Until that changes, these institutions will end up (unfairly?) bearing the brunt of these questions simply because they offer something few other social communities are willing to.
posted by olinerd at 6:03 PM on October 15, 2014 [11 favorites]

Sex assignment at birth is a prison sentence for a trans woman.
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:06 PM on October 15, 2014 [9 favorites]

Trans bodies are seen as an in-between option, Timothy said. “So no matter your sexuality, a trans person becomes safe to flirt with, to explore with. But it’s not really the person you’re interested in, it’s the novelty. For lesbians, there’s the safety of ‘I may be attracted to this person, but they’re “really” a woman, so I’m not actually bi or straight.’ And for straight people, it’s ‘I may be attracted to a woman’s body, but he’s a male, so I’m not really lesbian or bi.’ ”

Oh, yikes. I realize this is an actual quote by a trans person, but it makes me a little uncomfortable.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:16 PM on October 15, 2014 [4 favorites]

I think trans women and trans men share a lot of common ground in many ways and should both be welcome at a women's university without reservation. As far as the work unfairly loaded onto women's spaces, I agree with that sentiment as well and I don't really have a good answer for that but to say that there are little to no safe spaces for trans women and it would be nice to read an article like this and walk away from it feeling like that was changing.

But this article is really about trans men at Wellesley , so I'll defer from commenting for the time being.
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:19 PM on October 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

Trans bodies are seen as an in-between option, Timothy said. "So no matter your sexuality, a trans person becomes safe to flirt with, to explore with. But it’s not really the person you’re interested in, it’s the novelty. For lesbians, there’s the safety of ‘I may be attracted to this person, but they’re “really” a woman, so I’m not actually bi or straight.’ And for straight people, it’s ‘I may be attracted to a woman’s body, but he’s a male, so I’m not really lesbian or bi.’"

I, Jesus, yeah, this makes me really queasy, because I had this go horribly wrong in the other direction when I was figuring out my gender identity. "You're a guy? Ugh, gay cooties."
posted by dorque at 6:20 PM on October 15, 2014

Yeah, it seems sad that they're focusing on trans men to me - trans men were fairly common at my alma mater (a women's college) a decade ago, and there were plenty of arguments and articles about it then. I'd sort of hoped that they'd moved beyond that issue, especially since most of the strife I hear nowadays is that they've got a shitty policy towards accepting trans women (which they do).

Though, Annika Cicada, if it makes you feel any better, the two women's colleges that have said that they'd make it easier for trans men to apply (Mount Holyoke and Mills) have also made it easier for trans women to apply.

I don't want my alma mater to go coed in the general sense of the term, but I'd love there to be a general 'no cis men, everyone else okay' policy put in place, along with Mount Holyoke and Mills.
posted by dinty_moore at 6:33 PM on October 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

haha yeah can the new york times and everyone else just get in the habit of NOT just saying "trans" or other "umbrella terms" when what they're saying has zero applicability to trans people that have to deal with transmisogyny. say "transmasculine" or "afab trans". just be honest about who you're really talking about and who you're erasing.
posted by thug unicorn at 6:35 PM on October 15, 2014 [6 favorites]

(oops that came out really wrong. i'm not talking about people in this thread, just being bitey in general)
posted by thug unicorn at 6:37 PM on October 15, 2014

For anyone curious, here are the new admissions policies at Mills and Holyoke. Holyoke's policy covers nonbinary dmab people too, which I didn't expect and which I find tentatively pleasing.

(Scripps recently held a forum about their admissions policies. I hope they get with the program soon; there was a lot of transmisogynistic bullshit there when I was in Claremont, but that was nearly 10 years ago now.)
posted by dorque at 6:44 PM on October 15, 2014

Trans bodies are seen as an in-between option, Timothy said. “So no matter your sexuality, a trans person becomes safe to flirt with, to explore with. But it’s not really the person you’re interested in, it’s the novelty. For lesbians, there’s the safety of ‘I may be attracted to this person, but they’re “really” a woman, so I’m not actually bi or straight.’ And for straight people, it’s ‘I may be attracted to a woman’s body, but he’s a male, so I’m not really lesbian or bi.’ ”

Rationalizing another person's identity to something else definitely isn't good. But in another sense, it could be seen as a rationalization of that person's sexual fluidity, and it's definitely better than the reactions that dorque got (sorry you had to deal with that). Hopefully in the future people won't feel stigmatized if they are attracted to someone outside their previous assumed orientation.

It does suck that these places seemingly are doing all the work on progressive gender policy. I'm disappointed in my gender that this doesn't even appear to noticeable issue... men's colleges seem to be disproportionately religious. It's baffling/depressing reading about the proposed Southern Military Institute, to be an all-male Christian military academy, to replace the Virginia Military Institute since it started accepting women. They definitely aren't proposing a women's only military academy, and Qadhafi of all people is apparently the only person to establish a women's military academy.
posted by halifix at 7:27 PM on October 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

As a (cis) woman who attended a woman's college, I cringed at the end of the Salon article - I don't want single-sex education to die or go away. I got so much out of my education, and I have both a sentimental and respectful attachment to my undergraduate years and institution, and the people I met along the way, which included folks who knew then they were (or were on the path to figuring out that they were) trans men. They didn't make my college less of a woman's college, and they didn't certainly didn't infringe upon my experience. Quite the contrary, in fact.

I believe there is room in a woman's college environment for trans men and trans women, and I particularly wish it would have been easier for trans women to enroll both when I attended and now. It seems to me that the traditional intent and impact of a woman's college would offer so much to trans women, who have had the harder path to enrolling in a woman's college. The fact that my college is both dragging its heels, and doing it clumsily, is a disappointment.
posted by julen at 7:38 PM on October 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

FYI, this article does not use recommended style guide usage of names and pronouns. Perhaps that's with permission of the students, but I can't tell.

What is the recommended style guide usage? It appears the author is attempting to use the person's preferred name and pronoun. When referring to the past, she uses the name and pronoun the person was using at the time in question.
posted by justkevin at 8:00 PM on October 15, 2014

Well, see, they're trying to have it both ways. While trans activists insist that biological sex means nothing, and gender is a construct, they are absolutely relying on the biological fact of these trans men being biological women to ALLOW them remain in a women's college.

That's some bullshit, right there.

If you call yourself a man, if you adhere to masculine gender traits and behavior, then no: you do not get to attend a women's college. How is that difficult to grasp? How can anyone be so disrespectful to the woman-identified women who attend these schools? Jesus.
posted by gsh at 8:12 PM on October 15, 2014 [10 favorites]

When referring to the past, she uses the name and pronoun the person was using at the time in question.

There's no 100% consensus on this, but often the recommendation is to use the person's chosen pronoun regardless of the time frame, which acknowledges that they always were that gender regardless of what configuration their body or social presentation or what-have-you was at the time.
posted by dorque at 8:13 PM on October 15, 2014 [6 favorites]

I believe there is room in a woman's college environment for trans men and trans women

But if trans men are simply men why is there more room in a women's college for them than for, uh, men born cis men?

The obvious solution (and I admit obvious does not always mean best) seems to be that women's colleges should allow trans women but not trans men. Because isn't that simply another way of saying that women's colleges should allow women but not allow men? Any other argument is biological determinism as far as I can see.
posted by Justinian at 9:00 PM on October 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

To put it as a question instead: Doesn't a women's college allowing trans men but not cis men necessarily, intrinsically, and unavoidably imply that trans men aren't actually true men? You can't argue simultaneously that they are exactly the same and yet exclude one and not the other based on... something.

The only way to try to avoid that implication is to handwave about lived experiences growing up and so forth like someone puts forward in one of the articles but at that point you've gotten into the position of supporting trans men at the college at the expense of excluding trans women for not being real women because they didn't necessarily have the growing up lived experiences of cis women. Which is... not good to say the least.

I agree with people earlier in the thread that the more I think about this the more complex it looks. But in the end I think you've got to accept that trans men are men and thus should be allowed/disallowed in the same places that cis men are. And the same for trans women and cis women.
posted by Justinian at 9:09 PM on October 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

Soooo, I went to Smith in the early 80s, where I was a coordinator of the Lesbian Alliance and the Women's Center (i.e. the feminism club). One of my years, I lived in the short-lived (unofficial) lesbian cooperative house. The college health and counselling service helped me figure out I was probably FTM, including sending me to a specialist psychiatrist in NYC. I did not attempt physical transition until my late 20s.

In the late 1990s/early 2000s I was an alum voice, along with other alums, faculty, admins and students on the Trans Policies Committee. Our decisions are quite appropriately being revised now, a decade later. Smith has some unique college charter requirements, more narrow than Wellesley's or Mt. Holyoke's. In essence, one has to be legally female (have government issued female ID and harmonized social security ID if American, because Smith forgoes Federal funding, from not participating in DOD draft registration) to apply to, or graduate from, Smith. Physical transition or legal name (not gender) change does not affect student eligibility. I met a (stealth) transwoman who was a student at the time we were creating the policies. I doubt she was the first, and I know she isn't the last.

As others have pointed out, the current conversation about gender/transgender at traditionally women's colleges seem mostly to be about trans *men*. Flatly, this is patriarchally sexist. And it is at least 5 years behind the discourse in QUILTBAG communities, where transwomen are at least as much of a social and theoretical focus and political force as transmen, now. As people get transition identification and support at younger and younger ages, transwomen will be applying and should be admitted to women's colleges. And high schools. And anywhere else girls and women are.

However, as mentioned in the article, it's also true that women's higher education is a precious resource. My years there taught me about the gifts being socialized as female can bring to intellectualism, leadership, and politics. That cooperation, mutual support, and allyship are more productive than individual competition. And most of all, that women are worthwhile as women on their own terms, not as defined by men, or by what women or feminism can do for men. And I learned at a women's college that I'm not, mostly, a woman.

Every student who feels they are woman enough to go to a women's school should be able to apply. Everyone woman enough to be accepted and attend will know if they should be there, and when it's time to leave, if that's necessary.
posted by Dreidl at 9:24 PM on October 15, 2014 [14 favorites]

It is complex, but for me, part of my open-ness to it arises out a shared experience as women (or folks who present as women or are expected to present as women). Trans men have often been raised in a feminine construct. and have been socialized/educated/reared/expected to be women. The benefits I got from my women's college would be similar for trans men, or for people who are still figuring out what their identity is.

I had written a bunch more here, but Dreidl nailed it far better than I did, especially with

Everyone woman enough to be accepted and attend will know if they should be there, and when it's time to leave, if that's necessary.

My only addition would be that discovering that you are trans didn't seem to be a magic switch for the people I knew then - it wasn't like all the experience/trappings of being a woman magically fell away and they were M E N, or vice versa.
posted by julen at 9:37 PM on October 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

(ugh, that last sentence came out terribly - I apologize. I edited down a complex thought into something simplified, and managed to hose my sentiment. I just wanted to say that as with many issues around identity, it can be a long, complex, challenging, painful experience, even after you begin to make sense of it all. I totally did not mean to imply that transmen weren't men or transwomen weren't women, and I feel terrible I didn't catch it in preview.)
posted by julen at 10:02 PM on October 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Frowner: "I don't know - as a masculine-of-center person who does not identify as a woman, I am really uneasy when trans men and other trans masculine people not only assert our right to be in women's spaces but consciously or unconsciously take advantage of the benefits accorded to men [...] That just seems like it's slipping over into the same old patriarchy - especially since we know that trans men frequently end up with better jobs and more respect and so on after transitioning. [...]
I grasp - god, how I grasp - that gender and transitioning are complicated, and being a trans man at a women's college may very well be the best option for many of these guys. But I also think it's incumbent on masculine of center people to step back in these situations. We already have so, so many social advantages, particularly when we're among women."

Thank you for saying this.
posted by jokeefe at 10:12 PM on October 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

I realized there's an elephant in the room of the discussion of who-is-to-be-permitted at women's colleges. That elephant is clas$. Most of the remaining women's colleges (and same-sex schools for men, too) are elite institutions. Highly competitive admissions; rigorous courses of study; high tuitions (sometimes offset by generous scholarship programs); powerful international alum career, political and social networks; exclusive lifelong brand identities.

No one is writing here about the gender of folks attending Midway College KY, Pine Manor MA, or Cedar Crest PA (these are all good liberal arts or community schools, mostly known to locals). We are discussing who will access the privileges of the remaining 7 Sisters/Ivies, and similar institutions. Not being admitted to, or leaving one of those schools may mean losing both social capital, and very large financial investments (I don't know if the folks leaving Wellesley can transfer to Harvard or Yale, for example)

When we ask if transfolk, who are among the most socially and economically disadvantaged people in North America according to a recent GLAAD study, may apply to or remain at elite womens schools, what we are arguing about in part is if transfolk will be permitted to participate as equals in the professional/managerial/governing rungs of society.

Judging from how people react when they find out I attended not just one, but two of those institutions, I'm afraid the answer to that question of equality is "probably not". Yet.
posted by Dreidl at 10:56 PM on October 15, 2014 [9 favorites]

If the name/creed is important, sure, ban trans-men from women's colleges. The proper course of action would be to make other colleges more receptive to trans-men.

But I think we're reaching the point where a non-gender/sexuality-conforming college is viable.
posted by halifix at 11:03 PM on October 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yeah, the ideal policy in my mind is to discourage people who already know they're men from applying, and to encourage men who transition at the school to consider going elsewhere. There should be social pushback for being a man at a women's college, but that largely isn't there because of a mix of reasons:

transphobic denial that they're really men
legitimate recognition that it can be complicated (but not always)
cis people's justified reluctance to call out trans dudes on the issue
male privilege
fetishization of trans men
etc., etc.

I'd reluctant to call for any official enforcement keeping trans men from applying, and I'm very reluctant to call for them being forced out once they're there, but I think that everyone would be best served if they'd recognize the truth of the matter: this is not your space, you are a guest here. I am not sympathetic to dudes taking leadership positions, or feeling excluded by "sisterhood" language, or default feminine pronouns. Have some basic self-awareness.

Any policy that officially accepts trans men but not amab non-binary types (like Mount Holyoke's) is a failure of a policy.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:54 PM on October 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

If the name/creed is important, sure, ban trans-men from women's colleges. The proper course of action would be to make other colleges more receptive to trans-men.

And here's the crux of the issue. In a world where everyone fit neatly into a gender binary and there wasn't widespread discrimination of trans and genderqueer folk, it would be easier to exclude trans men from women's colleges. We do not live in that world, and I am extremely reluctant to take a safe space away from transmasculine people for the sake of doctrine.

I was attempting to explain to someone a while back why someone who is trans and on the masculine side of the spectrum would even want to attend a women's college, since that seems to be bringing more dysphoria on themselves. The flip answer I gave was 'nongendered bathrooms', but more of it is attending a place where there is already a visible transmasculine presence, and a student body and faculty who are used to at least acknowledging that issue. That's becoming easier to find on other college campuses (and easier to find now than it was a decade ago), but is still far from the norm.

Is it unfair that women's colleges have to take on this burden because it seems like the rest of the world needs some time to catch up? Sure, but the entire premise of what makes a women's college valuable in this day and age is rooted in the idea that this is an unfair world, and and their value lies in their ability to try and correct that, in the small ways it can.
posted by dinty_moore at 12:25 AM on October 16, 2014 [5 favorites]

ack, poor wording - mount holyoke's policy is one of the ones doing it right, but my phrasing implies the opposite. Edit window, you are long gone.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 1:21 AM on October 16, 2014

The Times ran basically this same article in 2008, except focused on Barnard and Smith.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 5:56 AM on October 16, 2014

It seems weird to say "trans men can attend a women's college, but trans women can't" - it's like not even counting trans men as actual men.

That's what confused me (cis male, so in many ways doesn't matter what I think) about this. If it's a safe space for women, it's a safe space for women. If you're a trans man, you're not a woman, isn't that sort of the whole point of how everyone is supposed to approach trans issues? I am reminded of the, whatsit, Michigan Womyn thing.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:12 AM on October 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

before i read any of your comments i just wanted to say thanks to OHenryPacey for your comment, without which i probably would not have read this article. Now I'm nearly tearing up at my desk because this is such a very good article that captures the very real, difficult, charged issue that perhaps may define this decade (at least for some of us).
posted by rebent at 6:34 AM on October 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

That's what confused me (cis male, so in many ways doesn't matter what I think) about this. If it's a safe space for women, it's a safe space for women. If you're a trans man, you're not a woman, isn't that sort of the whole point of how everyone is supposed to approach trans issues? I am reminded of the, whatsit, Michigan Womyn thing.

To me, as someone with what my excellent therapist described as a "complicated gender", I think that there has to be sort of a political angle on how groups and organizations decide who "counts" as a man and when. It has to be related to what the organization is trying to do.

Personal narrative to try to explain:

In one way, being in female-majority spaces is really easy for me. I consciously put away all concerns about my gender in early adolescence because I decided that they would make things even worse than they already were, and then I did not think about them again until my thirties. And I definitely actively experienced a lot of the gender- and body-policing that women do, and a lot of the pressures to manage people's emotions and be nice and self-effacing and so on, and I spent a lot of time feeling like a complete gender failure (as do many women, but for somewhat different reasons). I mean, if people are talking about a lot of the stuff that women experience - I have experienced those things and they formed my character.

Naturally, I feel really conflicted about gender - I feel like I'd totally transition if I could transition to something that wasn't a man, because my experiences with men and my observer-status experience of the World of Men is that being a man sounds like it has the potential to be pretty terrible. I don't want to be read as a man consistently (I very occasionally pass until I open my mouth) to the point where I have to listen to a lot of gross misogyny and creepy homophobic male body-shaming, etc and also lose access to female-majority spaces - I feel like I would not belong anywhere.

So my point is, I could totally see why being at a woman's college would be the best option for a masculine-spectrum person. I have met trans guys who are completely at home with regular masculinity from the get-go and who feel relatively unconflicted about being a man among men, but I've met a lot more people for whom it is murkier*.

It's also obvious that some kind of "we're going to kick out the trans guys" policy would be a nightmare - it would be intensely destructive to the student body and to individual trans male students, it would involve the kind of intrusiveness and gender-policing that only reifies bad ideas about gender, etc. (On a lesser level, it would drive away good staff and encourage the retention of bad, because who wants to participate in something like that?)

My concern is just that I really, really think that women need spaces where women are front and center, and I think that transmasculine people often refuse to recognize that just because we are a minority who are discriminated against in some parts of the larger world does not mean that we are a disadvantaged minority in women-majority spaces, especially cis straight majority women-spaces. It's easy to work one's masculinity to get advantages, because everyone is already socialized to expect that you'll talk more, be taken more seriously, get judged less harshly for your body, get more props for being well-dressed, etc. And the whole "this person is sort of like a cis man but safer, cleaner and nicer" thing - where women who want to be around men but are also sick of dealing with cis dudes - that will work in your favor. It's taken me into my thirties to realize that maybe I am not as smart as I think I am, maybe people just treat me that way because I've never been super-feminine. It's super-easy to assume that because you are Not A Cis Man, it's okay if you have leadership roles or are the center of attention...it's very tempting to have your cake and eat it too, not least because it feels good after having some pretty awful gender experiences.

I think that masculine-spectrum people should be really, really thoughtful before we seek leadership roles that would normally go to cis or trans women. I think it's good for us, as AFAB people and as masculine-spectrum people, to be in spaces where cis or trans women lead. I think it affirms those parts of our being which have been injured by patriarchy and masculinity, while also really, really getting us accustomed to letting women lead.

(What I've noticed when I'm dealing with dudes is that the closer I am to actually passing, the less trouble I get. Oh, I still get trouble and creepy stuff, but I've noticed a slow but real uptick in the number of men who basically accept me as an honorary dude. They may think of me as a really butch lesbian, or they may not know what to think of me, but they seem to feel that they know how to interact with me and it's Not As A Woman, Whew. I think this is a relatively new thing - I don't think it's how Frowner-in-1950 would have experienced the world - but it seems real. )

*I don't think people should act as if this logic applies neatly in reverse to trans women, because to my mind the defining issue is the relationship to femininity - growing up being read as a boy but not feeling like a boy puts you in a different relationship to the despised category (women/femininity) than growing up being read as a girl but not feeling like a girl. If you're seeking to move away from certain aspects of womanhood/femininity, you're always at this sort of risk of being pulled in by patriarchy; that's not the same experience you have when you're trying to move toward certain aspects of womanhood/femininity. Trans men and trans women may have a lot in common, but we're positioned very differently in relationship to patriarchy.
posted by Frowner at 6:50 AM on October 16, 2014 [26 favorites]

Frowner expresses it best why I think trans men and women should both be welcomed and allowed at women's universities without reservation. The conflict and intersections are there and as we "pass" each other on the spectrum it seems like a great place to get a really good education.
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:01 AM on October 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's interesting to compare this discussion with the discussion in this recent AskMe.

In this thread, many of the comments are supportive of trans men attending women's colleges. In the AskMe, there was a strong sentiment that it would be offensive to invite trans men to an event that specifically excludes cis men. For example

Transman here. I would not feel welcome or included on any event that specifically excludes the gender I identify with - males. I don't really see a way to change that just with the way you word it.
-------
Cis female here, so I'm projecting, but it would read to me that if you welcomed trans men but not cis men, you might be unwittingly suggesting that trans men don't really count as men.
-------
Nthing that it seems weird to include/invite trans men when you're excluding cis men. Trans men are men too.

Context is important of course, but the context isn't that different. The rationales for including trans men in the AskMe were very similar to the rationales for allowing trans men in women's colleges: they have lived experience as women; they are a gender minority; etc. In both cases, the responses were grounded in a desire to be sensitive to and support people's gender identifications, but the weighted outcomes were very different.

It is indeed complicated.
posted by alms at 7:09 AM on October 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

I think college is a little different both because it's all-encompassing and four years long (so you could easily start college thinking, as lots of the guys in the article did, that you weren't sure if you wanted to transition, weren't ready to transition or just weren't trans at all) and because it's higher-stakes. If I'm all "oh, the women's bike night isn't for me", well, there are lots of equivalent hobbies and spaces, and while some of them may be transphobic and gross, there's probably a readily-accessible one that will suit me. But even if I just choose a relatively liberal college and discover that it's horrible, transferring is difficult, can be expensive and may not actually improve matters.

This is why I think "who do we include" has to be political and outcomes-based. Who gets helped by inclusion? Who gets hurt by inclusion? What other options are available? There might be an argument to be made in a particular city or at a particular time that a "cis and trans women, femme people plus transmasculine people" bike night would actually be the best option that would provide a good space for the most people.

And then you have to consider the costs of enforcing the policy - politely telling someone that transmasculine people are not welcome at the women's/femme bike night is low-stakes and low-harm, even if it may well result in an argument or in some people feeling bad. It doesn't keep transmasculine people from participating in bike nights generally and bike nights are relatively easy to organize so there's always the "let's have another one that is for women and gender-non-conforming and trans people generally" option. And more masculine people are generally more welcome in a lot of hobby spaces - it's often easier for us to blend in to the regular ones than it is for women/femme people.

But having some kind of freaky-deaky "we are going to exclude trans male students" policy at a women's college means that you are going to have to inspect students for transness - ew. And it means that anyone who looks or acts like they might be trans is going to get an extra degree of policing. And people who are in, like, their junior year abroad when they decide that they are trans...they're going to be in a dicey position. The social cost to the college is high, the social cost to the students is high, the risk of harm and stigma is high...and the cost is having a policy which is little bit incoherent in its definition of gender. (I do think that having some real dialogue about, like, not taking up All The Space because you're a trans dude and you're starting to get dude privileges is important.)

Now, it's true that an individual who isn't sure how they identify does have to do some thinking about going to women's bike night, and it's true that there is the potential for awkwardness, and it's true that you probably don't actually want to be going up to people who look "too masculine" and interrogating them about their gender because that is gross and offensive - all you can really do is say on the flyer "this space is for [included people] and we ask that you respect that"...and IME people generally do.

It's really difficult to have hard and fast rules about gender that are effective for trans- and gender-non-conforming people over time, because people's understanding of their gender changes and develops, especially in young adulthood.
posted by Frowner at 7:40 AM on October 16, 2014 [13 favorites]

Now, I'm a cis woman who's never been to a women's college, or participated in any women's-only spaces, frankly, so I might just unknowingly be stumbling onto a cliche. But has anyone looked to historically black colleges and universities for guidance on how to handle this sort of issue? Will there come a time when we have "historically women's colleges" that admit anyone, much like HBCUs admit non-black students? And is that really such a bad thing? The same way white people who apply to Howard know they're going into a black-dominated space, any man - either trans, non-binary, or just gender-nonconforming - applying to a women's college knows he's going into a woman-dominated environment. He'll know what that means, and he'll behave accordingly.

There are also many straight cis men who feel deeply uncomfortable with the demands of masculinity, and who never felt like they belonged in the world of sports and hiding your feelings and strict hierarchies enforced by physical violence. Not that I'm saying they're as oppressed as trans men, but maleness as a social concept exists apart from actual men. Do women's colleges want a lack of men or a lack of maleness?
posted by Anyamatopoeia at 9:09 AM on October 16, 2014

Cis female here, so I'm projecting, but it would read to me that if you welcomed trans men but not cis men, you might be unwittingly suggesting that trans men don't really count as men.

Yeah, that's kind of what I meant. It seems like maybe a simple language change for these kinds of spaces could make all the difference; something like "people with a female lived experience," adjusted by someone less clumsy with words than I am, would include cis women, trans men, and trans women, I think?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:32 AM on October 16, 2014

But has anyone looked to historically black colleges and universities for guidance on how to handle this sort of issue? Will there come a time when we have "historically women's colleges" that admit anyone, much like HBCUs admit non-black students?

For whatever reason, the percentage of men that apply to 'historically women's colleges' (think Vassar, which has a 43/57 split between men and women) is much higher than the number of white people who apply to 'historically black colleges' (Howard is 91% African-American). Women's colleges that go coed cease to be a women-dominated space in a way that historically Black colleges do not.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:37 AM on October 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

Though, maybe there are historically black colleges that have become predominantly white over time that I don't know about - in either case, I don't see that as a good thing.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:45 AM on October 16, 2014

feckless: There's been a lot of variations on that same idea proposed, and none of the phrases you could use avoid the core problem that it's a wonky grouping to begin with.

Frowner, you're killing it. All the favorites.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 9:49 AM on October 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

Vassar is a very liberal, feminist, LGBT-friendly place. To the best of my knowledge, it's not full of dudebros throwing their privilege around willy-nilly. There are men there, but there isn't toxic masculinity. That's kind of what I was getting at when I asked if women's colleges wanted a lack of men or a lack of maleness. (Maleness as defined by our messed-up culture.) Does a space have to be majority-women to be women-friendly? What is the actual benefit of a women's-only space? Is it that women can talk without being interrupted? Because there are men who don't do that. So if a space is half-men and half-women, but the male half is feminist and enlightened and non-oppressive, how is that worse than if it was 100% women?

Again, I've never been in a women's-only space, so I don't really understand what benefits it may have. All I know is, the worst bullying I've ever received has been from other women, so I'm not sure how a building full of women is automatically going to be gentler or nicer or more wonderful than anything else. But if we're talking about women's colleges being built on a foundation of examining gender issues and trying to fix power imbalances, and that creates a culture of liberalism and openness, I'm 100% on-board with that but not totally sure how it requires an all-woman environment.
posted by Anyamatopoeia at 9:55 AM on October 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

Anyamatopoeia, even if the culture stuff is bunk (which I don't believe it is; I've heard it too many times from too many sources to believe that it's a lie), just look at the actual outcomes. Women's colleges turn out dramatically superior proportions of women who go on to high-powered careers in governance. They produce far more female STEM graduates per capita than coed schools. I don't think it's a coincidence that women who come out of an all-female environment, where women hold leadership positions and men aren't around to police the boundaries of traditionally male fields, go into and succeed in those fields even when they leave the college.
posted by protocoach at 10:44 AM on October 16, 2014 [5 favorites]

I'm not sure how a building full of women is automatically going to be gentler or nicer or more wonderful than anything else.

I am guessing, not having the relevant identity to be in such spaces, that women-only spaces aren't automatically any of those things. Instead, they are automatically places that don't have to (I mean 'have' in the 'socially pressured to' sense, not in any men-are-more-important sense) devote any bandwidth to thinking about how men will perceive what is going on. Plus, without men to interrupt, women get into the awesome habit of expecting not to be interrupted just because of their gender. I am emphatically not trying to mansplain here, I am trying to understand about these spaces and nuances of why they are important (the major reasons why they are important seem to me to be self-evident) and I welcome correction from women if I am missing something somewhere.

feckless: There's been a lot of variations on that same idea proposed, and none of the phrases you could use avoid the core problem that it's a wonky grouping to begin with.

Could you, if you want to, elaborate further on what you mean by 'wonky grouping'? I'm not quite sure what you mean and don't want to respond to something you didn't mean.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:48 AM on October 16, 2014

There's a lot of trouble with the name. Which seems eerily similar to the whole trouble with rigid names for gender/sexuality. Why is all of the discussion about whether or not people are properly adhering to their stated acceptance criteria, and not about how people should change their platform? Among other things, some of the rather absolutist points about the inclusion of trans-men is drawing away from looking at the societal position of trans-masculine identities.

The ultimate goal should be to have a place where the effects of gender discrimination are noticed and there are conscious attempts to reduce it, and also have as unbiased an environment as reasonably possible. I'm personally loving all the debate amongst these students, as it shows awareness of the complexity of gender in society. It should be put up to the students about whether or not they wish to adhere to the women-only status, or want to become a more inclusive institution. As I've stated above, I'm giddy thinking about the first non-gender/sexuality-conforming college, but I wouldn't mind if Holyoke changed their title to reflect their admissions policy.
posted by halifix at 10:50 AM on October 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

Though, maybe there are historically black colleges that have become predominantly white over time that I don't know about - in either case, I don't see that as a good thing.
posted by dinty_moore at 12:45 PM on October 16

There are:

* Bluefield State College - The Whitest Historically Black College In America
* Historically Black Colleges Are Becoming More White : "At Lincoln University in Missouri, African-Americans account for 40 percent of enrollment while at Alabama’s Gadsden State Community College, 71 percent of the students are white and just 21 percent are black. The enrollment at St. Philip’s College in Texas is half Hispanic and 13 percent black, according to 2011 enrollment data from the U.S. Department of Education. Nationwide, an average of one in four HBCU students is a different race than the one the school was intended to serve, according to research conducted at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.
posted by magstheaxe at 10:52 AM on October 16, 2014

flagged as fucking fantastic, halifix.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:05 AM on October 16, 2014

Hmm... it makes me wonder if a college specifically for trans, gender fluid, queer gendered and intersexed people might be a worthwhile endeavor on it's own.
posted by gryftir at 11:33 AM on October 16, 2014

I think trans women and trans men share a lot of common ground in many ways and should both be welcome at a women's university without reservation.

You know, in one of my activist spaces, we had to deal with just this issue. We had a women's committee, and had to face the question: how do we deal with trans individuals? We welcomed trans women, but had to face the question of "what about the trans men"? And it broke down the middle. A lot of women wanted to include them - to be frank, I think because a lot of us still considered trans men "one of us." They had been women, they had been raised as women and had to deal with the shitty gender things we were talking about. We wanted them.

But when we extended the invitation, there was a trans man who got really, really pissed by our invitation, because he saw it as us denying his chosen gender, and saying, "Yeah, yeah, we support your gender transition and all, but sssh, us girls know you're really still one of us."

So what do you do? If you allow trans men because they were born women and experienced life a a woman, then you are insulting them, AND would need to exclude trans women because they were born men and experienced life as men. And then you would be excluding women from women only spaces.
posted by corb at 11:44 AM on October 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

Except nobody is forcing trans men to apply to women's colleges. It's their choice, and while there are plenty of trans men that are understandably not interested at all, there are evidently some that are.
posted by dinty_moore at 11:53 AM on October 16, 2014

Maybe--maybe--the more appropriate framing here is this:

You applied to This College, which has Those Entry Criteria. You no longer fit those criteria. What do we do now?

(I would take as read that Wellesley would be well within its rights to refuse admission to a trans man the same they would be within their rights to refuse an AMAB man.)
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:58 AM on October 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

This is fascinating to me and it's really hard for me to articulate how i feel about it. So I'm just going to thank y'all for your comments.
posted by desjardins at 11:58 AM on October 16, 2014 [3 favorites]

Could you, if you want to, elaborate further on what you mean by 'wonky grouping'? I'm not quite sure what you mean and don't want to respond to something you didn't mean.

So the question is phrases to describe spaces that are what's most commonly called "woman and trans" spaces. You suggested "people with a female lived experience", I've seen other variations on the same idea. Whatever you come up with is going to imply at least one of a few problematic things:

a) trans men aren't really men
b) trans men used to be women
c) trans men are men, but like, nicer

This happens because the whole framing is one that tries to collapse trans status into gender, when they're two separate issues. That said, they're deeply interrelated issues! So there's an inherent tension with no stable solution here.

On the one hand, we should recognize that many binary trans men are men full stop, and have no place in women's space.
On the other hand, we are deep in the non-binary nature of gender so it's difficult to draw a line. And even among men who are binary identified: some do identify their past self as female, some place a lot of weight on the complexities there, etc. There's no objective boundary that you can set.

So I don't think there's any particular language that can paper over the complexities here because they're inherent complexities. That's more or less what I mean when I say that it's a wonky grouping.

I think the best policy is to be inclusive, but start conversations with these men about why they want to be in women's space, as part of the admissions process. Get them to consider their male/masculine privilege. Some obviously haven't, such as the anonymous dude-attending-a-women's-school advocating for complete exclusion of trans women from women's schools. What an asshat.

------------

You applied to This College, which has Those Entry Criteria. You no longer fit those criteria. What do we do now?

As for that question: you have to allow them to stay. Transferring is expensive and difficult, and a policy of forced transfers is a policy of "consider pretending to be cis for another x years", which is a pile of shitty. But moving away from female-centric language in the name of including the men in the room- ugh. I think people try to argue that not doing so is transphobic? But that falls apart immediately if you consider trans women with regard to that situation. It has nothing to do with them being trans and everything to do with them being men in a women's space.

(Moving away from female-centric language in the name of including non-binary people is a different question. I'm non-binary and wouldn't be in favor of doing so, but the arguments in favor are reasonable ones)

In general, trans men who transition at a women's college should transfer is practical, otherwise stay but keep their heads down. It's not about you. Women's colleges should worry more about attracting trans women then they should about policy regarding trans men.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 12:18 PM on October 16, 2014 [3 favorites]

Again, I've never been in a women's-only space, so I don't really understand what benefits it may have. All I know is, the worst bullying I've ever received has been from other women, so I'm not sure how a building full of women is automatically going to be gentler or nicer or more wonderful than anything else.

As a graduate of the same single-sex high school as one of the students in the article, and of a single-sex college, I will echo that I didn't attend either because they were somehow gentler or nicer spaces. I attended both not because they were single-sex, but because of what they offered. (Well, I picked my school when I was seven because they were really nice and also had hot dogs at lunch, but...) What I gained from being there were spaces where women were encouraged in science classes (and where science was a part of many classes), to make mistakes and not apologize, to accept my right to work and to study and to participate as absolute givens rather than as something I had to earn. I spent a year of high school, a semester of college, and a year of grad school at co-ed programs and my experiences there really emphasized how different those environments were.

I know students from both places who have transitioned, and they are awesome people and great alums. I don't think it's been raised at the high school level yet (though I could be wrong) and my college is actively working on creating a policy with input from alums and current students and faculty. I don't think there's an easy answer, and probably there will be many answers that evolve for every institution. I do wish that women's colleges weren't often seen as the only safe spaces; I am sure that many colleges could be doing the worthwhile work to make sure that their policies apply to all of their students, and that all of their students are safe and have easy paths to help with the bureaucracy of name changes and dorm/floor reassignments (I think most colleges still have single-sex rooms if not floors?) or whatever else those students need.
posted by jetlagaddict at 12:29 PM on October 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh though I should mention that I have seen alums suggesting that the barrier/acceptance for entry be actual surgery, which is just...completely bizarre to me, like how would that even work, and how could you see that as anything other as crazily invasive. (And discriminatory in another way, since surgery is really expensive, can lead to complications, requires access to care and support, etc.) So even though I don't think there's one great solution for every college, I definitely think that there are wrong solutions.
posted by jetlagaddict at 1:01 PM on October 16, 2014

But moving away from female-centric language in the name of including the men in the room- ugh. I think people try to argue that not doing so is transphobic? But that falls apart immediately if you consider trans women with regard to that situation

I think it's trans men demonstrating that they get to be just as much of an entitled asshole as any other man more than anything else. I mean, that may sound throwaway, but I do feel like that's a real thing that happens sometimes - not all, but some trans men rush to embrace the patriarchy as soon as it will let them.
posted by corb at 1:11 PM on October 16, 2014

I benefited substantially from living in a women's dorm in college -- the same one all four years, in fact. A lot of the things already mentioned -- having women in all the leadership positions, only women's voices in the discussions, women's distinctive styles of leadership being normative, women having the chance to work out how to use those styles in ways that actually work, optimizing life around women's needs and wants, etc. But also, being free from the male gaze was, in retrospect, really important. I had a really hard time in high school relating to girls who spent a lot of time on self-presentation for boys, and an even harder time with girls who viewed female relationships as hierarchical and competitive. In reaction, I positioned myself as the sort of relaxed, easygoing girl that could hang with the boys, and while I did have girlfriends, including close girlfriends, I thought of myself as a "guys' girl" and not a "girls' girl" and I definitely had a sort-of internal measuring stick when I met other girls about whether I approved of their presentation of femininity or thought it was "too girly."

Living in a women's dorm was lifechanging for me because of the way it freed me, and my dormmates, from the male gaze. I almost immediately had to give up my stupid preconceived notions of acceptable femininity and realize that, hey, I am surrounded by awesome women who choose to be women in all kinds of different way and they are all awesome! There were no dudes to impress with my "guys' girl" schtick. And for the women who spent a lot of time on flirty self-presentation, there were no dudes to impress with that, and freed from these stereotypical roles we fulfilled in mixed-gender groups, it was SO MUCH EASIER to relate to other women as human beings and without all these preconceptions and pressures about how women "should" act. It was FANTASTIC. This was not something I did on purpose, but a happy consequence of my choice of college, and it made me a much better human being, a much better woman, and a much better feminist, and taught me how to be a good friend to women, which is something my life would be immeasurably poorer without.

(I will say, the single-sex dorms did make it difficult to form strong, Platonic opposite-sex friendships, but I was already good at making friends with men and I remain good at that; the lesson I really needed was how to be friends with women, so it was really good for me, but not necessary or desirable for everyone.)

I'm not bothered at all by transwomen being in women's dorms or bathrooms or schools. I'm mostly not bothered by transmen choosing to be in those spaces (people have made some good points above, so I say "mostly"); and I'm honestly mostly not bothered by CIS men in those spaces either (my college's "sister school," which was a women's college, had 3 or 4 men enrolled out of about 1200 students; they didn't live on campus but were otherwise regular students. To the best of my knowledge they were all cis men during my time there but I never specifically asked them, that would have been weird. And every now and then you have a cis male dad who knocks on the door of the women's bathroom and is like, "Um, is it okay if I come in for one second to bring my 12-year-old a tampon?" TOTES FINE.). When men (trans or cis) choose to participate, but not dominate, in women's spaces and do so with the respect and recognition that they are being welcomed into a space created for women, and they participate in a way that shows they understand women's concerns about protecting a women's space (like the knocking bathroom dad getting permission, or the men in class who think about trying not to dominate class discussion), I am fine with that. If they are choosing a women's space, they are almost certainly allies who understand the value of women's spaces and women's voices.

Which is probably by the ONE GUY in this article who ticked me off was the one who wanted his professor to stop saying "she" and "her" because Wellesley was a "historically women's college" and he didn't want men made invisible and I was just like DUDE YOU ARE CHOOSING A WOMEN'S SPACE, RESPECT IT!

gryftir: "it makes me wonder if a college specifically for trans, gender fluid, queer gendered and intersexed people might be a worthwhile endeavor on it's own."

I honestly think it would be, for exactly the same reason women's colleges and HBCUs are valuable, in that it creates a safe space for historically marginalized groups to fully explore and integrate their identities as they consider adulthood (and the responsibilities and leadership that being an adult entails). Allowing women to do the intellectual work of college and exploring adulthood without having to constantly police the boundaries of what being a "woman" means gives them far more freedom to explore intellectually and socially and relationally who they are and what they want from life; ditto HBCUs, and ditto a hypothetical "Queer College." (And, as mentioned in another thread, Chicago has a public high school that's explicitly QUILTBAG-welcoming/focused ... college is just the next step for that!) If queerness was the default assumption, and you didn't have to spend any time defending it, and could explore its meaning to your life in broad and expansive ways with other people with similar experiences, think how much more shit you could think about without having to devote intellectual and emotional energy to 101-ing people all the time!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:34 PM on October 16, 2014 [10 favorites]

If a trans man wants to exclude themselves from a women's university (which is also happens to be a gender-minority safe space), that's fine it's their prerogative, don't apply or transfer out. But, a post-gender-liminal trans man cannot rationally argue they no longer belong to a minority gender group. All trans people belong to a gender minority group no matter how we are "read" in our daily lives. Now I don't believe a trans person should be forced to participate, acknowledge, associate or even identify with their minority status, but that shouldn't preclude universities and other gender minority safe spaces from making the option available to those of us that do.

That is why I think all trans people should be welcome at women's universities. Places where the original charter was to serve the largest gender minority group, cis gender women.

There's the intersection, we can use it if we want it.
posted by Annika Cicada at 1:45 PM on October 16, 2014

From my (outside) perspective, it seems like the gender binary is crumbling more and more as time goes on — often due to the hard work of cis-women feminist scholars — and I wonder how long the idea of a single gender or sexed college will persist. It's a really fascinating topic (though I will say that it often reminds me that college students are often just beginning to examine some of their preconceptions on these topics, to the extent that I try to take sweeping pronouncements with a grain of salt).
posted by klangklangston at 2:04 PM on October 16, 2014

[A] trans man cannot rationally argue they no longer belong to a minority gender group

I think it's worth looking at why we consider binary trans men to be a minority gender group for these purposes but not cis gay men. Sexuality is also tied closely to gender, although a little more loosely than trans status. Queer sexuality has been considered a gender issue at certain times in the past, although it isn't now (by and large). I don't think it's wrong, necessarily, to draw the boundary the way you're suggesting, but I don't think it's the only rational choice either.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 2:47 PM on October 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

A person can belong to more than one right?
posted by Annika Cicada at 3:25 PM on October 16, 2014

I suppose what I'm saying is that one trans person who doesn't want to identify as a part of a minority gender group does not have the power to define that for other trans people that still do, and that self identifying with a minority gender is a sensible intersection.
posted by Annika Cicada at 3:34 PM on October 16, 2014

Also, to further clarify I'm addressing corb's questions upthread...
posted by Annika Cicada at 3:51 PM on October 16, 2014

That is why I think all trans people should be welcome at women's universities. Places where the original charter was to serve the largest gender minority group, cis gender women.

But that's not exactly the charter. Women* are not actually a gender minority; they are merely a gender minority in privileged spaces originally designed to serve men*, which defines most of the American university system. (Most of the education system, for that matter) Women's* colleges are chartered to provide an alternative social construct that caters to women* as the assumed majority as an explicit alternative to the status quo of other colleges. A lot of work has gone in to defining and creating that social construct, whether it's living arrangements, the terminology used in classroom discussion, the pronouns used as defaults throughout the community, traditions, methods of leadership and organization, etc. So the charter is not to serve "not men*", it's to serve "women*".

Now I have all those asterisks up there because as chartered the assumptions of course are "cis men" and "cis women" and that's not where we are today. But the more I think about this, the more I think that the key underlying point is that the point of women's colleges is that they are unique, unusual social constructs, developed in response to the social construct around masculinity and maleness that exists more widely in our society. As long as our society privileges the male gaze, the patriarchy, etc, in "mixed company", women - cis or trans - will be expected to behave in a certain way with respect to men, and no matter how enlightened they are, will be apt to respond to men - cis or trans - as they have been socialized to. I guess that's why I sort of feel uncomfortable with trans men wanting changes to pronouns and other vocabulary throughout the Wellesley community; if they are there as men, and they are requesting to be accommodated as men and not women, it is changing part of the social construct of Wellesley that was explicitly meant to be about women and women only. It means Wellesley women are now more conscious of being around men, and may respond accordingly in the socialized ways they explicitly went to Wellesley to avoid having to deal with for four years -- and it means this is happening in a way that is more overt than there being a handful of trans men on campus perfectly happy continuing their education within a women's space. That's what I have real discomfort with.

That's not to say I think a trans man should not be permitted to apply to Wellesley, or to stay there after he transitions. I know a handful of trans men who have gone through exactly this experience in college and for the most part I think they had positive experiences at the women's colleges they attended. I absolutely think trans women should absolutely be permitted to attend as well, since they in particular would socially benefit from a social construct assuming women are the default. It's not my job or privilege, or anyone's for that matter, to determine when someone is "feminine enough" or "woman enough" to attend a women's college; it's up to the individual to make that determination for themselves. But I guess I feel like if you individually are not comfortable hearing "sisterhood" and "she" all the time, and you are asking to be accommodated as a man, then a women's college is not the place for you and whether I were a cis or trans woman attending that college, I would hope that you would make the decision for yourself rather than bring a "what about the menz!" mentality to a space specifically designed to avoid it.

But as I said before, this fundamentally comes down to the issue that women's colleges are a place where gender norms can be challenged and there are far too few places where that is the case, meaning that women's colleges are being asked to solve a problem that is not theirs alone. So I don't have a good answer for "well, then where can the trans men go to feel safe and included?" and that's obviously a massive problem that has to be solved first. I agree that more trans-friendly spaces are needed, but I don't agree that they must be at women's colleges, or that trans-men-inclusive spaces and women's spaces must always intersect. It's an opportunity that must be evaluated based on the goals of the space, IMO, not a requirement.
posted by olinerd at 6:01 PM on October 16, 2014 [12 favorites]

Thank you, vibratory!

Whatever you come up with is going to imply at least one of a few problematic things:

a) trans men aren't really men
b) trans men used to be women
c) trans men are men, but like, nicer

Just want to be clear that I didn't intend to imply any of those things with my wording. Almost all trans men (unless they transition at puberty and yes I know that transition isn't necessary or desirable for everyone) will have lived the experience of being perceived as a woman is all I meant.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:03 PM on October 16, 2014

I don't think anyone here, me especially, has said anything about anything being a requirement, because what I think *what I am doing* is looking at "opportunit(ies) that must be evaluated based on the goals of the space." and well, evaluating them.

Please correct me if that's not the case, or if I am speaking in terms that are too forceful or something.
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:08 AM on October 17, 2014

olinerd, thanks for expressing that so well. Women's colleges are important. It's not a trivial or easily waved-away feature that they are for women. Absolutely, trans men should have safe spaces, and I even think continuing to enroll a student who's come out or transitioned during college is ok, but the idea that women's colleges should become places that cater equally to men and women makes me want to scream and hurl things off buildings. Pushing to force profs not to use "she" and to remove "sisterhood" and "women's college" language from the college's materials is overstepping. It is important for there to be women-only educational environments; there are huge and important benefits from treating female as the default unmarked state, etc.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:49 PM on October 17, 2014 [6 favorites]

I can't cast judgement on whether or not these colleges should have relaxed their gender policy as they did; that's completely up to them. These colleges are amazing for being so understanding of trans compared to other colleges, but it's definitely a concern if they're trampling on the college environment, as some students may have attended with the presumption that they would have to never deal with fellow male students. I can understand why they attract such a high amount of trans students, though, and that the environment is safe enough for trans-men to speak out and protest in such a way.

As for trying to make these colleges more accommodating for trans-men... they should be free to protest and speak, but it is up to the college and its women/feminine students to enact these policies. My earlier comments have been mostly on what I'd like to see instead of how such measures would be realized, and I apologize if I seemed to infer that men and/or outside forces should be stepping up to enact such changes.

But, uh, I will say that holy shit can you not imagine the ideas, statements, and papers that would come out of an entirely gender(/sexual?)-fluid academic institution

sorry for talking about that 3 comments in a row, I don't know why that's so exciting to me, and as a pretty straight guy I feel like I'm now part of some gender-fluidity fandom if there is such a thing, I wonder how offensive that sounds
posted by halifix at 4:46 PM on October 17, 2014

and as a pretty straight guy I feel like I'm now part of some gender-fluidity fandom if there is such a thing, I wonder how offensive that sounds

I... yeah. I get that this is coming from a well-intentioned place, but genderfluid/nonbinary/trans people are not here to be your intellectual fetish objects, please don't.
posted by dorque at 7:53 AM on October 18, 2014 [4 favorites]

Feministing: Fear of a trans college
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:16 PM on October 24, 2014