Mills College in Oakland, CA has become the first single-sex institute of higher education to admit transgender students. Opened 162 years ago Mills will now welcome anyone who identifies as female into its all-women undergraduate program.
Mills is now the only one of the 119 single-sex colleges in the United States to have an official policy accepting transgender applicants. The new policy takes effect for the first time tomorrow, when the new semester starts.
The new policy allows for anyone who self-identifies as a woman to apply to the school, including trans women, people identified as female at birth but “do not fit into the gender binary," and women who have not yet legally transitioned to the male gender but may plan to at some point. Women who transition to male after enrolling may stay and graduate.
We were the first women’s college west of the Rockies. We were the first women’s college to have a computer science program. This is just another in many firsts.
--Mills President Alecia DeCoudreaux
The graduate program at Mills is co-educational.
Vice-president for enrollment and admissions Brian O'Rourke says that each year three to five of the college's approximately 1000 undergraduates identify as transgender or something other than the gender they were assigned at birth.
The purpose of the policy is that we didn't want students to feel excluded in the application process. [Applicants questioning their gender identity already feel stressed] "and reaching out to a stranger in an admissions office can exacerbate that stress."
--O'Rourke
Discussions among students, faculty and staff culminated in a report last year on the topic and several recommendations. For example, male-to-female athletes may not compete on a women's team until thy have completed one year of hormone therapy and female-to-male athletes may no longer compete if they take testosterone.
I'm incredibly pleased.
Mills is the only women's college that has a policy around gender-variant inclusion.
--Sonj Basha, entering senior who served on the Gender Identity and Expression Subcommittee who uses gender-neutral pronouns
So the new policy says you're allowed to complete your degree, which is awesome.
Mills has the most open policy with regards to trans students. It's been the unwritten policy of Mills for a while now, but to see it finally put down in words and to see it official is a great step.
--incoming junior Student Body President Skylar Crownover, who was admitted as a woman but transitioned soon afterward
There are still some who object to the new policy as being "too binary." Entering sophomore Lynn Conway, a transgender woman, says the new policy requires gender-neutral applicants to identify as a woman in order to gain entry..."to temporarily misidentify themselves to get into the space"...because only women need apply. Therefore only gender-neutral applicants who were assigned female at birth will be accepted. Those assigned male are out of luck.
Mills wanted to reinforce its identity as a women's college. We're proud that we are a women's college at the undergraduate level, so we want make sure we're enrolling students who understand our role as a women's college even if they are questioning.
--O'Rourke
In 1990 Mills trustees voted to admit men, hoping to generate more income. That resulted in a "passionate" student strike, with students wearing t-shirts which read
Better Dead than Co-Ed blocking administrative buildings and demanding that the trustees reverse their vote. The trustees did than and the school's president reigned.
"I don't feel that opening Mills to trans women and trans men goes against the mission of the strike," he said. Society confers privileges on men, but transgender men have yet to share in those privileges. Women's colleges have traditionally leveled the intellectual playing field for a less privileged group - which today includes trans men, Crownover concluded.
While it is "100% possible for a trans man who passes to gain some of the perks of male privilege", Crownover pointed out that doesn't include admission to one of the nation's 77 male-only colleges.
It would be really incredible if a trans man could go to a men's college. For whatever reason, I couldn't imagine it. I think it would be the next frontier.
--Crownover