This NYTimes Article on transgendered students at all female schools piqued my interest.
A transgendered student, Rey, enters a women’s college at Columbia and eventually leaves (enrolls in the general studies program). He encounters problems with roommates:
I kind of feel bad for the guy, but at the same time, I do think that if one wants to be treated as a man, one has to expect this kind of behavior. I probably would have pitched a fit if I’d had to room with a male or with someone male identified…I think that’s fairly understandable.
I’m not sure I agree with the other points made, that it’s a way for schools to “passively go co-ed.”:
I think it’s understandable to want to welcome all students. At the same time, I think it is reasonable to be aware that it raises some uncomfortable situations for students.
For the most part, though, I suppose I might question why a student would want to go to an all female school if they don’t themselves ID as female. I know the article brought up ideas that women’s schools are maybe more open to this sort of thing, but I’m not sure that’s actually the case.
The Sundance documentary Transgeneration deals with this topic. (The show follows 4 college students who are at various stages of transition through a year)
One of the participants, Lucas, was a FtM who was a senior at an all female college. They went over some of the issues you mention.
I went to a women’s college and we did have a biologically female student who I believe was transitioning to a masculine identity - taking male hormones, but I don’t think she had taken on a male identity (to my knowledge she had not taken a male name, which is why I am referring to her as “her”) although she dressed in masculine attire and was cultivating facial hair. She did live on campus in a dorm and I am not aware of any discrimination towards her (I didn’t know her very well - she was in a different department and we only had a few classes together.) I don’t think the college had any administrative issues with her case, and I know she was well-liked by many people.
Unfortunately, she committed suicide in her senior year.
I didn’t know they still had gender specific colleges. How quaint. If you’re going to start living as a man then I would think you’d have to live with all the benefits and drawbacks this entails. In the case of a women’s college this means you don’t get to go.
I think you mean FtM, no? Born female, gendered male. Rey enrolled as a freshman girl, and later announced he was a man.
In which case, I have to agree with previous posters - if you’re a man, you don’t go to a women’s college. Sorry. I understand that these things can sometimes take one unawares, but I think they did the right thing, transferring him to a co-ed school.
Thanks. Usually I’m so good about these things. Yes, Rey was biologically female but identifies as male.
Though it does make you think. Should a man who identified as a woman be allowed to attend a women’s college? I’d actually have more sympathy for someone in that situation since they do want to be female. Hmmm.
Yeah, I would too. As far as I’m concerned, people are what they say they are, as long as they’re willing to commit. I guess I still think of gender as binary and fixed*, although “they” tell me that isn’t accurate. But yeah, if a person identifies as female, whether that’s because she was born with a vagina and raised as a girl or because she realized that this penis thing was essentially a birth defect and she’s a woman anyway, then yeah, I’m fine with them attending a woman’s school.
I think maybe for those outside the binary gender division, a co-ed school is the more appropriate place either way.
*ETA: not fixed in that transgenderism is pathological or fakery, but fixed in that I have trouble believing one could be a woman, then a man, then a woman, then a kumquat. I’m willing to believe gender isn’t linked with sexual organs, but I do think that gender is fairly unchanging within an individual. Expression of gender or gender norms may not be - I’ve been a tomboy and a girly-girl, but I’ve always been a woman.
As for the OP, I’m kinda torn. In this specific case, it seems like a good argument can be made that Rey should never have enrolled in the college at all: he was identifying as a male, and started his transitioning, well before he started as a freshman at the college. But the issue is a lot less clearcut, for a lot of other people. It would strike me as grossly unfair if, for example, a person enrolled in the school, studied there for several years, and then realized they were transgendered and forced to leave the school, hampering their education and disrupting their matriculation. The article also mentions several students who are rejecting either gender designation. How is a student who identifies as non-gendered any more appropriate in a woman’s college than a student who identifies as male? At what point on the masculine/feminine spectrum does a student disqualify themselves from attendence at a women’s college? If Rey were taking male hormones, but didn’t insist on being referred to by male pronouns, would he have been acceptable? What if he insisted on the pronouns, but didn’t take the hormones? What if he insisted on the pronouns, but wore a skirt and pearls? And, of course, there’s the whole question of male-to-female transexuals, and where they fit into the situation.
Also, I somehow suspect that if a student comes out as trans and transitions after they’ve received their degree, they’re still going to bit hit up by the alumni association on a regular basis.
Meh. I’ve never liked the concept of “women-only” campuses in the first place. Untangling this situation seems like too much work to support a concept I find ethically suspect in the first place. I say, just get Damoclean and make the place officially co-ed.
Yeah, his person should’ve applied to Columbia rather than Barnard in the first place.
I disagree with Miller and his unisexual monocultural agenda. I like a society with options. I attend social functions where it is men only, and it’s nice. I like drinking with the guys etc… I don’t think that I should be ‘forced’ to hang out with women, just as women of Barnard should be forced to hang out with men. The removal of sexual tension from a setting can be extremely valuable.
I skimmed the article yesterday, and remember being annoyed by Rey. If this person wishes to be thought of as male, then why enter a women’s-only college?
I suppose there is the point that a women’s school is a safer space and all that…but Columbia in general is so PC/liberal/open minded that I don’t think things are any worse if you’re at Columbia College or GS. That is, I fail to see the benefits of just a women’s school for someone who’s transgendered (and yes, I say that as someone who went to Barnard). Especially since Rey seemed to be complaining about the nature of bitchy (and “archly feminine”) girls at Barnard.
I attended a women’s college and was slightly aquainted with a FtM transgendered student. I don’t know he still identified as male when he first enrolled or if this was a realization he came to during college. I don’t recall any discrimination or hostility toward him. But he was considering transferring to another school because having a degree from a women’s college might be problematic after fully transitioning.
One reason that a transgendered person might apply to a women’s college despite identifying as male is that my school at least has a reputation for being very accepting of sexual minorities. It would be a relatively safe place to start transitioning. Or if you’re still figuring things out, to explore those issues.
Yes, some of the draw of a women’s college to a FTM transsexual may be that all the ones I know of are extremely (one could even say pathologically) willing to bend over backward to accomodate any differently differentness you might have lying around, particlarly if it’s sexual in nature. Also, they tend to have the butchest of lesbians around. In other words, while you might expect a women’s college to be an extremely gendered place, in actual fact the real experience is more of a place “free” from gender, very tolerant and unwilling to label. In my experience.
Call me names if you like, but a person is born male or female. You may wish you were the other gender, but you may as well wish you were a dog.
If it wasn’t so politically charged, these people would be heavily medicated. Think about it: You have a penis (or were born with one) and have an X-Y chromosome pattern, but you think you are a woman? What other definition has evolved from a strict physical definition to what you “think” you are?
Can I use this in other things? The bank says it holds a large mortgage on my home, but I “feel” “deep down inside” that I own my house free and clear. I’ve felt for some time that I own my house free and clear, but traditional societal thought has forced me to believe I owe the bank my monthly mortgage payment. I have come to realize that I don’t have to live in fear anymore!
Now, the bank can produce a note allegedly proving a mortgage, but they are oppressing me, plain and simple, and I demand accomodation for my “homeowner identity”.
I have no problem with a person living their life how they choose, but when it crosses the line of demanding accomodation from the rest of society, then I call foul…
Moving right along, I agree with an earlier poster that it would have been very interesting to read about trans women in women’s colleges. I’d also be a little worried that focusing on the experiences of trans men in women’s colleges does tend to reinforce the idea (which I think is more common than the corresponding idea about trans women) that trans men are some sort of subspecies of lesbian.
I guess I still think of gender as binary and fixed*, although “they” tell me that isn’t accurate. But yeah, if a person identifies as female, whether that’s because she was born with a vagina and raised as a girl or because she realized that this penis thing was essentially a birth defect and she’s a woman anyway, then yeah, I’m fine with them attending a woman’s school.