Since I was a college teacher for 38 years, I've attended more than my fair share of convocations, waiting for the wise words which would guide is during the coming academic year. If there was a universal theme, it was that nobody would remember what was said by the speakers more than two days later.
Mount Holyoke College President Lynn Pasquerella challenged that universal truth yesterday. Less than a week after Mills College in California became the nation's first single-sex college to open its doors to transgender students, Mount Holyoke followed suit...and even went a bit further.
Mount Holyoke and our Board of Trustees took the important step of establishing a policy on transgender students. While we have welcomed trans students in the past and for several years have been in conversation with campus constituencies about how best to foster a respectful environment for all students — we needed a formal policy: one that would articulate our commitment to core values of individual freedom, social justice, and diversity and inclusion.
The policy is published in its entirety at the Mount Holyoke website. Yes, it says, Mount Holyoke will remain committed to being a women's college.
Yet, concepts of what it means to be a woman are not static. Traditional binaries around who counts as a man or woman are being challenged by those whose gender identity does not conform to their biology. Those bringing forth these challenges recognize that such categorization is not independent of political and social ideologies. Just as early feminists argued that the reduction of women to their biological functions was a foundation for women’s oppression, we must acknowledge that gender identity is not reducible to the body. Instead, we must look at identity in terms of the external context in which the individual is situated. It is this positionality that biological and transwomen share, and it is this positionality that is relevant when women’s colleges open their gates for those aspiring to live, learn, and thrive within a community of women.
The following students, if qualifying academically, will now be able to apply for admission (where "biologically born" is is interpreted to mean "was assigned at birth"):
- Biologically born female; identifies as a woman
- Biologically born female; identifies as a man
- Biologically born female; identifies as other/they/ze
- Biologically born female; does not identify as either woman or man
- Biologically born male; identifies as woman
- Biologically born male; identifies as other/they/ze and when “other/they” identity includes woman
- Biologically born with both male and female anatomy (Intersex); identifies as a woman
Exclusion from application will still apply to anyone who was biologically born male and identifies as a man.
Yes, Mount Holyoke currently has transgender students enrolled. The College values each student’s development, both academically and personally, and recognizes that self-identity may change over time.
Diversity and inclusion is about understanding our multiple identities through the lens of social justice education, ally development, and identity development. We embrace the intersectionality of race/ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, ability, age, national origin, and religious/spiritual identities and the ways in which those identities move us to greater connection and communication.
The entire convocation can be viewed here, complete with Silly String:
Students had formed an campus organization, Open Gates, to advocate for transgender inclusion, which will continue its work by attempting to generate a culture which is more welcoming of trans women on campus.
Last Pangy Day Open Gates sponsored a demonstration in support of the inclusion of trans women.