Brotherhood.

Sup! I wanted to post an update on my post from last week about Wellesley. Apparently, it hasn't escaped notice, which I'm glad for; one of my informers on campus let me know that there's now a petition with > 174 student/faculty/staff signatures asking the administration to provide either a statement of non-discrimination or a statement of the ways in which it discriminates and why. My sources forwarded me some of the comments that were posted on Community, and it surprised me that almost all of them were supportive. But there were a few points I want to respond to.

A faculty member pointed out that the petition, which asks the Admissions office to change their unofficial policy of discrimination, asks for something stronger than what I asked for in my post. This is correct. I'm confident that if the office merely puts their unofficial policy in writing, then justice will take care of itself in the long term. Prejudice thrives behind closed doors when people assume that everybody else shares it, and cowers before the light of day. So I ask for nothing more than the latter. But I'm also not going to question what students think is best, since, of course, this isn't just about me, but about treating all students and alums fairly.

The same faculty member wrote, "[The petition] also presumes what I'm pretty sure is the case but what hasn't been explicitly stated as yet - again, this is what the alum is asking for - namely, that turning down the alum was done because the alum is an out trans man." Well, without recordings of the phone conversations I had with Admissions staff, I can't prove it, but yes, I am completely certain that I was turned down as an interviewer because I'm an out trans man. The evidence is:

1. Before anybody associated with the admissions / alum volunteer process met me in person, a decision was made in the admissions office that I should not be allowed to interview, and it was made very clear to me that that's because I'm male. If the decision had been based on anything about me as an individual, rather than based on the gender I belong to, then it would have been made after I spoke with either an alumnae association volunteer or an admissions office staff member, in person or on the phone. Because the decision was made by people who knew nothing about me other than my gender, and because everyone I spoke with (the volunteer, K., who was relaying information from admissions staffers; and Joy St. John, the director of admissions) took pains to explain why I should find it obvious that a male alum shouldn't be the face of Wellesley, I conclude that the decision was made based on my gender.
   
2. I interviewed a prospective student in 2005. If I was a suitable person to represent Wellesley, then I am one now; the only thing that has changed is that I'm no longer pretending to be a woman.
   
3. When I interviewed the student in 2005, there was absolutely no screening process. The process that led to me interviewing the student involved a few brief emails and me receiving an envelope of admissions materials in the mail.
   
4. This is kind of a repeat of the first point, but my gender would never have been an issue if the Admissions staff hadn't brought it up. It's not really something I talk about much unless someone is interested. I guess they are interested.

A comment from a student averred that "All Wellesley students, to the best of my knowledge, are biologically female at the time of admission" and made reference to a policy (also unwritten, as far as I know) that I've heard before, to wit: "Wellesley admits women and graduates students." Well, I'm sorry to have to spoil the oversimplified notions that are taught in certain introductory women's studies classes (perhaps the ones at Wellesley, perhaps not, I'm not sure), but sex and gender are inseparable and not all Wellesley students are biologically female at the time of admission. "Biologically female" and "biologically male" are transphobic turns of phrase that make no sense unless you accept the idea that for any given human being, all gendered aspects of their embodiment (chromosomal type, hormonal balance, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, secondary sex characteristics, neurological perception of one's own body as male or female, and I could go on) consistently map to the same binary sex category -- or at least the idea that humans who have a mix of conflicting gendered characteristics are somehow sub-human or atypical examples of the category "human". These phrases are deceptive as they attempt to clothe a social judgment in pseudo-scientific garments. They are political. They are misleading.

Lest you think I'm being pedantic, the conceptual vacuity of the notion of an objectively determinable mapping from person to "biological sex" is highly relevant to the question at hand. "Biological sex", even if such a thing did exist, has nothing to do with admission to Wellesley or any other women's college that I know of. To enroll in the college, I was not required to submit medical records that proved I had certain reproductive organs; proof that my chromosomes had an XX karyotype (I don't know whether they do or not -- do you know what yours are?); proof that I had certain levels of certain hormones in my bloodstream; or any other data that would establish the conformance of my body to the definition of "biological femaleness" that is hegemonic in our culture. I didn't even have to submit a photograph of myself! And the school does not require in-person interviews (alum interviews like the one I originally offered to do serve a function akin to that of an extra recommendation letter: they can strengthen a student's application, but can never weaken it, is my understanding, anyway). I suspect most parties involved, whether they're cis or trans, would find any request to submit such evidence to be demeaning and degrading, with good reason. So how do the readers of student applications determine whether the student is a woman? Why, by inspecting the student's first name (for the majority who have gendered first names, anyway) and the pronouns used in their recommendation letters, of course.

So -- biology has nothing to do with it. The fallacy that biology has something to do with it is just the transphobic fallacy that there's a causal relationship between social gender and any objectively measurable -- "biological" -- characteristics.

I was born biologically male, which I know because my brain has an internal mental map that describes certain body parts I was born without and is conspicuously silent on the matter of certain body parts I was born with. When I studied the arguments in favor of dualism and in favor of materialism in Philosophy 215 at Wellesley, the former didn't seem to have much going for them. So I conclude that the brain is part of the body, and hence, is biological. What makes me male is biological, making me biologically male. Of course, there are some aspects of my embodiment that other people would describe as being "female". But I know that people exist who have conflicting gendered characteristics in one body, since I've met and talked with many of them. Since I have a uterus and I have a brain, the latter of which is pretty definitively male (I didn't learn to need what I need to do during sex or to need to see a male face and body in the mirror -- it would have been in nobody's interest to teach me to need those things), and I'm a feminist, I think my brain determines who I am, not my uterus. Typically, in the culture in which I live, we associate identity with the brain. You don't inspect your ovaries or testicles to determine whether you're Buddhist, left-handed, extroverted, or whether you like the Red Sox; you experience those identities through your mind. And likewise with gender.

Therefore, the assertion that Wellesley "admits women and graduates students" is simply false. The notion that trans men start out as girls or women and become men, or trans women start out as boys or men and become women, is both transphobic and obfuscatory. Given the messages that Western culture bombards its youth with about the inherent untrustworthiness of the individual on matters of one's own identity, it's not surprising that many people don't reach an awareness of what their gender actually is until well after the age when one applies to college. The answer to that is not to subscribe to the imaginary causal relationship between extrinsic gender and intrinsic gender.

The answer is to acknowledge that the concept of a single-gender institution is a fiction, as it requires an ability to read other people's minds that, if anyone had it, would have been put to far more sinister uses by now. And again, any appeals to the notion of a single "biological", "measurable" sex that always corresponds to the letter an observer wrote on a given person's birth certificate are highly irrelevant, as no college or university I know of even tries to measure that attribute in any of its applicants. One could say that one is running a college for people whose birth certificates have the letter "F" on them; saying this would put one closer to expressing the true intent honestly, I suspect. But that would be unsatisfactory as well because -- again, as far as I know -- no single-gender institution requires prospective students to submit legal documentation of their gender. And even if they began requiring that, it would seem like an awfully weird organizing principle for an educational institution. "We admit students who have an 'F' written on their birth certificate and graduate students" just doesn't have the same ring to it. And for students, having to submit a copy of their birth certificate (certified? Or would just a photocopy be okay, to rein in the high cost of college applications these days?) along with their application could make them wonder whether they are applying to college or running for President.

Some people questioned my assertion that Wellesley is at most a "historically women's college". I hope this post has clarified why it's untenable to see it as anything else. Those who would cling to the idea of a "women's college" while paying lip service to trans self-determination lean on the concept of separating out only "biologically female" people to justify what makes a college like Wellesley special. But there is just no such thing as a notion of "biological femaleness" that has any relevance to one's educational and social life, and can be measured objectively. Thus, defenders of the notion of a "women's college" need to refine their definition or try harder.

Please note that I'm not talking about whether single-sex institutions are desirable, just about whether they're possible; if they're not possible, then their desirability is a moot point. It's certainly possible to focus on educating women without claiming to be a single-sex institution. That's why I suggested the phrasing "historically women's college". There are certainly other possible formulations. And of course, nothing I've said is incompatible with an admissions policy that says that admission is restricted to students who identify as female at the time of admission. As far as I know, this is not the current policy, because as far as I know (and people can correct me on this if I'm wrong), Wellesley does admit out trans men and does not admit trans women. However, if such a policy were implemented in the future, it would have to come with an awareness that only admitting people who are conscious of themselves as being women at a given point in time is not equivalent to "only admitting women".

And none of this says very much about people who don't identify as male or female, which is mostly because that isn't my experience and I don't want to speak for others. Nevertheless, they also deserve to know where they stand.

With that in mind, let me reiterate what I began with: I'm not asking for any change in college policy. I'm asking for honesty about the de facto policy that already exists, a policy that involves admitting men. And to me, honesty about that policy can't mean that the administration accepts the academic, social, spiritual, and financial contributions of male and genderqueer students while telling the general public that it's ashamed of them.

I understand that the matter is being taken seriously by students, faculty, and staff, so at this time, I don't feel that (at least at this time) it's necessary to organize a letter-writing campaign on behalf of alums -- though I still encourage alums to let the Admissions office know how they feel. That isn't to say that the conversation is over; clearly, it's just begun. An issue that I haven't taken on because it's not directly relevant is that of trans women as students; I don't know whether Wellesley has a policy on admitting trans women, either, but I would be very surprised if Wellesley departed from all the other women's colleges I'm familiar with and admitted trans women who were early enough in transition that their legal name and/or recommendations would make their trans status an issue. I would be happy to be told I'm mistaken, but fear that I'm not. Trans women experience everything that constitutes the reasons why women's colleges are still necessary, and they belong at Wellesley as much as anyone.

Postscript: Why it matters.

A bit far afield from the subject of the previous post, but here are some more reasons why you might want to think about teaching yourself to talk about cis people and trans people rather than people who are biologically some gender or the other:

• Because of the popular belief that trans women aren't "biologically female", many US states will deny such a person the right to correct her birth certificate to reflect her gender. (Same for trans men.) While cis people always have the right to have government-issued documentation that reflects their social gender, trans people are frequently denied that right. The justification for this inequality is that government-issued documentation reflects one's "biological gender". Being denied the right to carry documentation that doesn't reflect the gender one socially presents as -- again, a right that cis people never have to think twice about -- renders one vulnerable to rape and other physical assault.
  
  
• Because of the popular belief that trans men aren't "biologically male", a trans man's health insurance company can deny him medically necessary care for no reason other than the concept that such care is intended to change one's sex or gender. (Same for trans women.) Even though the American Medical Association's stance is that treatment that brings one's physical characteristics into line with one's biological (neurological) sex is medically necessary, the non-evidence-based notion that transitioning is a matter of "changing sex" or "changing gender" provides a political foundation for the systematic denial of health care to some people. For many trans people, said health care is a matter of life and death; one recent study showed that 41% of trans people attempt suicide at some point in their life.
  
  
• The notion that it's possible to "discover" that a trans woman is "biologically male" is the foundation for the trans-panic defense, which means that a cis man can murder a trans woman with no legal consequences if he has sex with her while fully aware of her trans status and later regrets it. Similar reasoning is used to legally deny trans people such luxuries as the right to use a public bathroom.
  

So usage of terms like "biologically male" and "biologically female" is not harmless imprecision, and calling it out is not mere PC policing. Language is the primary tool used to reinforce the culture of oppression of those who can't or won't live with their arbitrarily assigned gender, so the language you choose to use affects whether you participate in reinforcing a certain culture of violence, or in actively resisting it. Of course, the consequences of that oppression are all too real.