Women’s school debates gender identity policy
Prominent Wellesley College already allows trans women, but nonbinding vote on trans men, nonbinary students sparks clash
Wellesley College proudly proclaims itself as a place for “women who will make a difference in the world.” It boasts a long line of celebrated alumni, including Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Nora Ephron.
On Tuesday, its students supported a referendum that had polarized the campus and went straight to the heart of Wellesley’s identity as a women’s college.
The referendum, which was nonbinding, called for opening admission to all nonbinary and transgender applicants, including trans men. Currently, the college allows admission to anyone who lives and consistently identifies as a woman.
The referendum also called for making the college’s communications more gender-inclusive — for example, using the word “students” or “alumni” instead of “women.”
The vote is in some ways definitional: What is the mission of a women’s college?
The referendum’s supporters say women’s colleges have always been safe havens for people facing gender discrimination and that, with trans people under attack across the country, all transgender and nonbinary applicants must be able to apply to Wellesley.
The activists also say the referendum will reflect reality on campus, as there are already trans male students at the school who, for example, transitioned after admission.
The college, which has roughly 2,500 students, has no data on the number of students who identify as trans or nonbinary.
Opponents, including the president, Paula Johnson, say the referendum is a rewriting of the mission of Wellesley, which they say was founded to educate women.
In a message to the campus last week, Johnson held firm on her stance.
She described Wellesley as “a women’s college that admits cis, trans and nonbinary students — all who consistently identify as women.”
There was fierce pushback. Students have held an ongoing sit-in at the administration building. The student newspaper’s editorial board wrote that “we disapprove and entirely disagree” with the president.
Departments have issued statements in support of the referendum. An associate provost for equity and inclusion said the employees in her office were “deeply challenged” by the president’s email.
And an open letter signed by hundreds of faculty, staff and alumni said the college was abandoning the radicalism of its creation “by focusing on the letter, rather than the spirit, of its founding.”
Alexandra Brooks, the student body president, said in an interview before the vote that the referendum, voted on anonymously, was a way to demonstrate just how many students support such a change — and how it reflects the reality on campus now.
“We’re just asking the administration to put on paper what’s already true of the student body,” she said. “Trans men go to Wellesley, nonbinary people go to Wellesley, and they kind of always have.”
A new policy, she said, “would not in any way change the culture of the school.”
“It’s still, and always will be, a school to educate people who are of marginalized genders,” she said.
Women’s colleges have been grappling with trans issues over the last several years. In 2015, Wellesley College announced a policy that allowed admission to any student “who lives as a woman and consistently identifies as a woman,” opening the door to trans women applicants.
Some women’s colleges have stricter policies. Sweet Briar College, a small private school in Virginia, requires a birth certificate or amended birth certificate indicating the applicant’s gender as female.
The college’s president, Meredith Jung-En Woo, says Sweet Briar welcomes trans students if they meet the admissions policy. She has not received much pushback, she said.
Mount Holyoke has among the most open of admissions policies, accepting applications from all female, trans and nonbinary students.
But when Mount Holyoke changed its admissions standards in 2014, many alumnae voiced deep concerns, sometimes in a vitriolic and personal way, said Lynn Pasquerella, the president at the time.
One sent her a college sweatshirt with “Mount Holyoke” crossed out and wrote in blood-red ink that she was destroying Christianity. Another made a dig at her educational background, writing in a letter that if the president “hadn’t started at a community college, I’d understand what a women’s college really is,” Pasquerella said.