First Steps
15/4/11 15:12![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eredienSo, I just wrote the BMC admissions office asking for their policies on admitting transgender students, as I couldn't find them outlined anywhere on the admissions website, and have found some other info suggesting that the Transgender Task Force convened to make recommendations about this very issue a few years ago recommended the current possible admissions policy, which is admitting FTM students (great! (edit: or more like, "hm, are we actually respecting these students' gender identity when we admit them as women, if they're identifiying as men? But are we really gonna kick out students who transition to male in the middle of their undergraduate years?") but not MTF students (ugh).
I've been thinking about doing that for a long time, but I held off because I was scared. But I realized holding off wasn't going to do anything except stop me from making a decision and dealing with its consequences for as long as possible--I'd still eventually have to make the decision and deal with the fallout, and the longer I delayed the harder it would be for me to make a good decision because I'd have been worrying about the potential consequences for years, and my head wouldn't be in a good place to deal with the actual decision making and its actual consequences after that.
I wanna change that policy, if in fact that is still the official college policy, and asked how to get involved. I also wanted confirmation from the source itself--who knows, the policy might have changed in the last few years (one can hope). I don't know if the task force is even still around, for instance--and those were some of the questions I asked.
I am pretty much setting myself up for a firestorm here, but hey, if there's one thing that I learned at college, it was to be unashamed of the person I am, and stand up for myself as a woman and as a thinker, and stand up for others as a woman and a thinker, unafraid. If Bryn Mawr's goal is really to allow women to stand up for themselves and be taken seriously as human beings and as intellectuals, then they need to stop deliberately denying MTF women a chance to reach that goal during the applications process itself. To say that's their goal for all women, but deliberately encourage that goal for only some women and discourage it for others, is just sad.
I don't support other organizations with such exclusionary policies with my time or money, even if they mean a lot to me otherwise. Why continue to support this one? I'm not about drawing lines between "real Mawrters" and "fake" ones, then trying to support only the people I agree with while demonizing those I don't, such that those people in turn have a reason to label and demonize me.
It's taken a while for me to decide this, as I'm back in Boston now and I'd sure like to get involved with the BMC Boston folks again, but I certainly won't donate to or volunteer any more with the school until they change this policy (unless they want me on the Transgender Task Force, which I'd be happy to volunteer my time and effort for).
Every woman (and FTM persons, too) should have the opportunity to have Bryn Mawr mean as much to her as it did to me, but they don't, because as far as I can tell, the college has deliberately cut them out of those opportunities from the very beginning. That's not right.
I will post more when I hear back from the admissions office, because I want to make sure that I have the current and accurate facts in line. (Really, the first thing I want to try and get them to do is post their current policies somewhere people can find them).
I've been thinking about doing that for a long time, but I held off because I was scared. But I realized holding off wasn't going to do anything except stop me from making a decision and dealing with its consequences for as long as possible--I'd still eventually have to make the decision and deal with the fallout, and the longer I delayed the harder it would be for me to make a good decision because I'd have been worrying about the potential consequences for years, and my head wouldn't be in a good place to deal with the actual decision making and its actual consequences after that.
I wanna change that policy, if in fact that is still the official college policy, and asked how to get involved. I also wanted confirmation from the source itself--who knows, the policy might have changed in the last few years (one can hope). I don't know if the task force is even still around, for instance--and those were some of the questions I asked.
I am pretty much setting myself up for a firestorm here, but hey, if there's one thing that I learned at college, it was to be unashamed of the person I am, and stand up for myself as a woman and as a thinker, and stand up for others as a woman and a thinker, unafraid. If Bryn Mawr's goal is really to allow women to stand up for themselves and be taken seriously as human beings and as intellectuals, then they need to stop deliberately denying MTF women a chance to reach that goal during the applications process itself. To say that's their goal for all women, but deliberately encourage that goal for only some women and discourage it for others, is just sad.
I don't support other organizations with such exclusionary policies with my time or money, even if they mean a lot to me otherwise. Why continue to support this one? I'm not about drawing lines between "real Mawrters" and "fake" ones, then trying to support only the people I agree with while demonizing those I don't, such that those people in turn have a reason to label and demonize me.
It's taken a while for me to decide this, as I'm back in Boston now and I'd sure like to get involved with the BMC Boston folks again, but I certainly won't donate to or volunteer any more with the school until they change this policy (unless they want me on the Transgender Task Force, which I'd be happy to volunteer my time and effort for).
Every woman (and FTM persons, too) should have the opportunity to have Bryn Mawr mean as much to her as it did to me, but they don't, because as far as I can tell, the college has deliberately cut them out of those opportunities from the very beginning. That's not right.
I will post more when I hear back from the admissions office, because I want to make sure that I have the current and accurate facts in line. (Really, the first thing I want to try and get them to do is post their current policies somewhere people can find them).
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18/4/11 18:28 (UTC)Quick clarification
18/4/11 18:34 (UTC)We have to stop treating femininity as if it is not as valuable, as desired, or indeed as present as masculinity. We especially have to stop treating femininity as if it is not as valuable, as desired, or indeed as present as masculinity when that femininity is found in or with something and/or someone male.
That should clear up any grammar confusion. "We have to stop treating femininity as if it is not present as masculinity" is not what I meant to say, and I realized it could be read that way due to the absence of an article. (I'd like to thank my parents, Ann Raynd and God, for pointing out this error.)
Re: Quick clarification
18/4/11 19:42 (UTC)I feel as if BMC, in refusing to admit trans women and genderqueer-inclusive men, is denying both types of people respect for their female gender identities at very fundamental levels of mere acceptance: I feel they are denying that their female gender identities exist and/or influence their lives as women. I feel they are denying that those two groups of people (at least) even have real lives as women and real and experiences as women, because those experiences of being women are somehow currently lessened by their association with their identification as men, whether that identification is current or was in the past, and whether that identification was their own, or was someone else's mistake.
I think that's a shame.
And I think it's totally dishonourable to claim that your highest institutional value is valuing the identities, experiences and intellects of all women, while at the same time denying other womens' claims to the most basic female experience and intellectual conclusion of all: the acceptance of the idea that these women experience themselves as women; that their female gender identity exists.
It's like the college doesn't mind if the individuals accept that identity for themselves and respect themselves as women, so long as the institution won't be asked to begin accepting the validity of their claims to their female identity. In an institution that claims dedication to valuing all female identities, experiences, and intellects--for the ultimate goal of respect of women to the betterment of the entire planet and each individual--it's really hypocritical to say you value and respect all women, except these women over here, whose very gender identity as women is simply the first thing about these women that an institution dedicated to the betterment of women and acknowledgement of their contributions has deliberately chosen to discount or ignore.
(If you too can play mad libs with my last paragraph to make it talk about marriage legalization or gendered bathroom issues in Maine instead, welcome to institutionalized American gender politics in 2011 Bingo! I found I could be much clearer about why I felt BMC was being hypocritical around this issue when I realized I could play mad libs with that last paragraph. For those of you playing at home, you may put a marker on the free space, "Because God Says So." The prize this week, and every week, is the creeping realization of deja vu, a copy of Eve Kofosky-Sedgewick's "Epistemology of the Closet," and a sense of renewed hope that maybe your efforts can leave you and the world in better shape than either of you were when you first got here.)
Re: Quick clarification
19/4/11 02:02 (UTC)