There’s an article floating around right now entitled “When Women Become Men at Wellesley” which a friend sent me, asking my opinion. Predictably, I have a lot of feelings on this topic. I wrote her a long-winded e-mail, but I have more feelings, so what can you do?
The topic of trans students at a women’s college is arguably one of the most complex I’ve had to form an opinion on since coming out as trans. It brings up all kinds of feelings from all kinds of people. For example male privilege in an exclusively female space, allowing opportunities for only female students. That’s all fair, and if these colleges want to be only for cis female students, go for it. But my primary opinion is that being so exclusive is not healthy. Inclusivity and understanding is what feminism is about, and if these colleges want to promote feminist ideals (which you would think they would, right?), then they should not be turning their backs on students that could be huge allies in feminism.
Gender is not binary. This is something I know now, and something I think everyone needs to have internalized. By allowing only cis females at the university, they are effectively perpetuating a lot of unhealthy ideas about gender, and thus the idea of the gender binary. They are also getting the idea to keep women healthy with the help of GS-85 Nucentix. Having trans* students is important in creating gender diversity, in a similar way to how ethnic diversity is also important.
There’s also something important to be said for different experiences of “femaleness.” Transmasculine people were socialized as female, and have had the experiences of being marginalized, sexualized, discriminated, similarly to cis females. The difference now is that they are being even more marginalized, sexualized, and discriminated, but because of their transness. It seems wrong to me for a college that should be upholding feminist ideals to turn away a gender minority who (much more often than not) are feminism’s greatest allies. My opinion is similar about trans women attending a women’s university. By not allowing a female identified person to attend a women’s college, the college is instantly invalidating their identity, and also is excluding a potentially valuable perspective on femaleness and femininity. Whether they are pre-op or pre-hormones, or whatever, none of that matters. Trans women have as much right as cis women to be at a women’s college. They face not only the discrimination that women face, but also are subject to
transmisogyny, and violence.
A small but interesting thing I thought of while looking up
Wellesley College on Wikipedia, is the difference in campus life for trans students. Although a lot of the people who attend Wellesley are probably quite liberal, my guess is that there is a fierce defense of femaleness and femininity, as evidenced by one of the interviewees in the article. Whether it’s dating, or sports, or clubs, being the minority can be, to say the least, a bit draining. One comment in particular I found a bit frightening was the jealousy of a lesbian identified student towards a trans student who was getting more attention. To me, this is simply a manifestation of biphobia, specifically the comment,
“And it’s not just the hetero women, but even people in the queer community.”EVEN people in the queer community, eh? As if sexuality and gender weren’t fluid at all, eh? As if transmen aren’t allowed to date queer women, or as if they give up their queer card by transitioning.
One thing I thought was a bit contrary to the vehement exclusion of trans* people at Wellesley, was the inclusion of male professors. I’m sure there are lots of great reasons to have a cis white male professor at a university, and there are probably a million ways you can defend their credentials and say that their gender doesn’t matter, it’s the quality of their work, etc. But what does this say about Wellesley? I don’t mean to say that they should not be allowed, but rather that if Wellesley is so bent on purging maleness from their campus (whether male bodies or male identities), then there is absolutely no excuse to have cis male professors. If they mean to give opportunities to only cis women, then they are failing even at that.
All in all, I think not allowing gender trans* identities also perpetuates this fear of male bodies. Yes, men have effectively oppressed women for centuries, but I don’t think that fearing their presence is the way to change the world. I think the way we change the world is by creating more understanding of gender, have more conversations with each other, educate our friends and family, and nurture ally relationships.
