Moving Beyond Cis-terhood

Abstract

in 2013, controversy sparked student protests, campus debates, and national attention when Smith College denied admittance to Calliope Wong-a trans woman. Since then, eight women's colleges have revised their admissions policies to include different gender identities such as trans women and genderqueer people. given the recency of such policies, we interrogate the ways the category "woman" is determined through certain alignments of biology-, legal-, and identity-based criteria. Through an inductive analysis of administrative scripts appearing both in student newspapers and in trans admittance policies, we highlight two areas U.S. women's colleges straddle while creating these policies: inclusion/exclusion scripts of self-identification and legal documentation, and tradition-/activism-speak. Through these tensions, women's college admittance policies not only construct "womanhood" but also serve as regulatory norms that redo gender as a structuring agent within the gendered organization.

Transgender student experiences in single‐sexcolleges

“…As Stainback, Kleiner, and Skaggs (2016) find, women's increasing participation in the workforce and holding positions of power serve as "agent[s] of change," challenging prevailing gender hierarchies by decreasing workplace segregation and increasing diversity policies. As such, organizational structures and the hierarchies built within them are not static: as organizations change, the gendered organization is redone in new and potentially more equitable forms (Britton, 2000;Britton & Logan, 2008;Nanney & Brunsma, 2017;Stainback et al, 2016).…”

“…Marine (2009, p. 4) defines these policies as the way colleges "codify, formalize, and endeavor to bring uniformity to institutional practice, and to thereby declare their official stance toward a population or issue." Although some gender-selective colleges have statements of affirmation, nondiscrimination policies, or accept trans students on a case-by-case basis, Marine (2009) and others (see Boskey & Ganor, 2019;Nanney & Brunsma, 2017) contend that it is important that institutions adopt formal, public policies in order for transgender applicants to easily determine their eligibility.…”

“…Nanney and Brunsma (2017), Boskey and Ganor (2019), and Kett (2015) take up these policies and show that these policies vary widely from institution to institution. For example, Mount Holyoke College's (2018) admission policy, which has been lauded as the "golden standard" and "most inclusive" of admission policies4 (Kett, 2015;Nanney & Brunsma, 2017;Weber, 2016), states:…”

“…In fact, there exist over 14 different combinations of who may or may not apply and matriculate at genderselective institutions on the basis of legal status/documentation, biology and medical transition, and selfidentification (Nanney & Brunsma, 2017). At the time of this writing, at least 9 women's colleges admit trans men (though this varies depending on self-identification or legal documentation) and approximately 10 admit non-binary applicants, although the majority of policies require non-binary applicants to also identify as women and/or have female documentation.…”

“…The only group not considered for admission is cisgender men. Mount Holyoke, a gender-diverse women's college,1 was the second women's college in the United States and first of the Seven Sisters women's college consortium to adopt such an admission policy following protests surrounding Calliope Wong, a trans woman who was denied admission to Smith College in 2013 because of the sex marker on her Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form (Nanney & Brunsma, 2017;Weber, 2016).…”