The
When She Graduates as He
There's a battle brewing at the Seven Sisters
over the growing population of transgender students. The question at its core:
What kind of women's college awards diplomas to men?
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Though
born a girl, raised a girl, and now attending a women’s college, Isaiah
Bartlett didn’t feel quite right being female. Old pictures show a very
feminine, rosy-cheeked Allison Bartlett with chin-length dark brown hair. Yet
every time her mother coaxed her into a dress for one of those photographs,
Allison’s skin would crawl and her mind would race with insecurities. Even
coming out as a butch lesbian in her freshman year at
Not long after Allison enrolled, in the fall of 2005, she shaved most of her
hair into a mohawk and
picked up a few pairs of boxer shorts. Soon she started binding her breasts
with an Ace bandage every day before going out. After a year of struggling in
school and a semester off to sort out her emotions, the popular 20-year-old
psychology major returned to school and went to a talk by fellow student Kevin
Murphy. Then things began to make sense. Allison realized that though she was a
biological woman, she wanted nothing more than to be a man. She adopted the
name Isaiah. “When I heard Kevin’s story, his talk about struggling with coming
out as a lesbian, then realizing that he really wanted to be a man, I felt as if
he was telling bits of my own story,” Bartlett says one October afternoon in
his room in Mt. Holyoke’s Buckland Hall dormitory, just before a friend comes
barreling up in a robe and a green face mask to offer a quick hug and some
dish. “Soon after, I came out as a transman.”
This is the latest subculture to emerge at the elite women’s colleges in the
Northeast known as the Seven Sisters – young women, some still teenagers, who,
like Bartlett, are exploring the possibility of growing up to be men. And it’s creating
a social upheaval at these historically all-female enclaves as they wrestle
with what to do about all this gender bending.
The Seven Sisters colleges were founded in the 19th century, and famous
graduates have ranged from anthropologist Margaret Mead (Barnard) to actresses Stockard Channing (Radcliffe) and Meryl Streep (Vassar) to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (
But the same empowerment and opportunity for self-discovery that an all-female
school provides may also make survival as single-sex institutions that much
harder for the remaining sisters. After all, the real challenge that transmen are forcing women’s colleges to face is an
ideological one: Is it still a women’s college when some students who were
female as freshmen are male by graduation day?
The term “transman” is
a relatively new one. It originates from “transgender,” which generally
describes people who feel that the gender they were born into is at odds with
their true identity. Coined in the late 1970s, transgender is now often used in
place of “transsexual,” which describes a person who has had sex reassignment
surgery or who lives as a member of the opposite sex. Most transmen
begin their transition with masculine dress, adopting the pronoun “he,” and
taking on a male name. After counseling, some transmen
start taking the hormone testosterone, known in the community as “T,” which
deepens the voice, causes facial hair to grow, enlarges the clitoris, and
reduces breast size. If he decides to go further, a transman
may undergo a double mastectomy, hysterectomy, and ovary removal. The final
frontier is penis construction surgery.
From a medical point of view, Isaiah Bartlett’s story reflects the classic
traits of gender identity disorder as defined in the “Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” the bible of the mental health
professions. At the same time, while no one knows exactly how common it is,
advocates and many professionals who work with the trans
population believe transgender people should be reclassified, because gender
variation is normal across the human spectrum.
It
does seem that most transmen start to feel male at a
young age. A study conducted two years ago by researchers at the
In addition, researchers believe that more young people than ever before are
acting on those feelings. “It used to be that transitioning was a midlife
process, but the Internet has changed a lot,” says Brett-Genny
Janiczek Beemyn, one of the
lead researchers in the
Though a successful transition can certainly be
a liberating experience, the growing transman
population at all-women’s colleges has created some unique problems, too. While
both Mt. Holyoke, in South Hadley, and its rival school, Smith College in
Northampton, cultivate what transgender students say is an open and accepting
environment that allows them to find their true selves – including their gender
identities – there are new rivalries developing. “No parent is surprised
anymore when their daughter goes to an all-women’s college and then comes out
as a lesbian,” says Kevin Murphy, the 21-year-old junior whose talk inspired
Isaiah Bartlett. “But once you get into this, within the community, there’s a
lot of competition. Who goes on T first. Who is taking
more T. Who gets top surgery first.”
Sitting in a dimly lit bar after playing a club hockey match against Smith –
club teams aren’t covered by the NCAA regulations that ban college players from
taking testosterone – Murphy is practically indistinguishable from a very
small, fairly handsome young man. He has deep brown eyes and, having been on T
for the past two years, an even deeper voice, as well as a beard that is
filling in nicely. A year ago, he used his own money to pay for a double
mastectomy. Today he strolls into the bar, flashes his ID, and sits down to a
Corona without a hesitating glance from anyone, including the bartender, who
might have noticed that Murphy’s driver’s license still lists him as female –
something he can legally change in Massachusetts, thanks to his surgery. Yet
for all his confidence, Murphy, who is majoring in psychology and religion, is
still figuring things out. “When I go out with my friends, I’m the guy in the
group, and when I go out with their boyfriends, I’m the most feminine guy,” he
says. “I’m really trying to form friendships with biological men because I want
to be accepted, and I was never allowed to when I was younger.”
Beginning in high school, when Murphy came out as gay, a fairly typical
transgender progression followed: dressing in drag, adopting a male haircut,
and breast-binding. Kevin was still Caitlin when he enrolled at
Therapists, doctors, and college administrators are concerned about students
who decide to transition based on what sometimes seems to be shaky logic:
growing pains such as insecurity or peer pressure, childhood trauma,
depression, or even just the need to rebel. They tend to be cautious about
their clients’ transitions, but many counselors ultimately feel that even young
adults should be able to make their own decisions. “Of course, any
compassionate therapist might be concerned about a young person making such a
permanent decision. ‘What if this person could make a mistake? What if I make
the wrong decision in giving the OK for this person to transition?’ ” says Arlene Istar Lev, a family
therapist and adjunct professor of social welfare at the State University of
New York at
A
Smith School of Social Work student, Shannon Sennott,
has started a nonprofit called Translate, to provide training and seminars for
women’s colleges. Sennott believes that the schools
should offer hormone counseling and advocacy as transgender students make
crucial decisions about their lives. “Any person that age needs direction, and my concern is that they’re not receiving it,”
Sennott says. “Someone needs to say, ‘OK, you want to
be a transman, let’s discuss these options.’ Or, ‘OK,
you want to remain genderqueer and use female
pronouns the rest of your life, that’s just great, too.’ ”
It’s not that there aren’t any resources for students. At
But at
the trans population at
smith has seen the most public attention, and probably the most public debate,
too. Former student Lucas Cheadle helped bring
widespread attention to the issue by being profiled, along with three other
transgender students, in a multipart documentary called TransGeneration
that aired on the Sundance Channel in 2005. Before that, it was a major victory
for trans activists on Smith’s campus when, in 2003,
all references to “she” and “her” in the student constitution were changed to
“the student.” Students say another fight over the pronouns used in the
constitution looks to be rekindled in the coming year, and every so often,
members of the trans-friendly and not-so-trans-friendly communities exchange
heated words on the public website smith.dailyjolt.com. A recent anonymous posting about an
annual event formerly known as Celebration of Sisterhood, renamed Celebration
in 2003 – though there is debate as to why – reads: “Yeah, God forbid anyone
include the word ‘sisterhood’ . . . because a handful of trans students somehow
feel oppressed, despite the fact that they chose to attend a women’s college.”
The reply: “Let the transphobia debate begin again.”
One
first-year student who didn’t want her name, major, or hometown used for fear
her views would provoke hostility from fellow students, says she has witnessed
conflict offline, too. “I’ve heard some of the most liberal people – feminists
and even gays and lesbians – say adverse things toward trans
students at Smith,” she e-mails. “One of my friends, who is
a lesbian also, expresses anger toward trans-identified students because she
thinks they are giving up their womanhood. Although I do not agree with these
opinions, I can see where they come from.”
Another camp worries that as the school makes room for transgender students, it
will be forced to start accepting transmen who began
their transition in high school and biological males making the transition to
female. Or worse yet, it might, they say, become coed. “Taking T and planning
to transition doesn’t go with the mission of
A member of Smith’s Republican Club and editor-in-chief of its conservative
newspaper, junior Samantha Lewis, 20, doesn’t mind
speaking on the record. “I think it’s ironic that there are Smithies who do not
want to be women, and, to be completely honest, it seems to me that it defeats
the purpose of being at a women’s college.” While Nicole guesses that the trans population at Smith is 30 out of about 2,500
undergraduates, Lewis thinks that the number is at least twice as big. “The
first person I met on campus was a man,” Lewis says. “He said, ‘Hi, I’m Ethan,
and I use male pronouns.’ ”
The administration paints the conflicts as healthy, lively, debate. “Questions
about what it means to be a woman or a feminist are not new to the college
discourse, whether at Smith or many other leading institutions,” writes Maureen
Mahoney, the college dean, in an e-mail. She adds that Smith recently opened a
Center for Sexuality and Gender as a student resource and for years has allowed
students to request the name they desire on their diplomas. “For the most part,
these are issues of diversity, and diversity has clear educational benefits. As
one of our student leaders noted in an address to her peers, what she learned
at Smith is, great minds don’t think alike.”
No, clearly, they don’t. “The students here try very hard to be accepting of
almost anything, and it’s really difficult for us to say, ‘Hey, you don’t
really belong here,’ ” says Nicole. “It’s not a matter of discrimination or approval, it’s a question of that person’s goals and the
overall goals of the university. I personally don’t think trying to pass as a
man and having
Meanwhile, back at
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