Women and Gender

Shields: Mills College’s trans* acceptance policy shows progress

On Aug. 19, “The San Francisco Gate” published an article about Mills College, a women’s college which has recently decided to allow trans* applicants into their school. Of our nation’s 119 single-sex colleges for men or women, Mills College is the only one to accept trans* and non-gendered students for admission.

Under this new policy, which will be in effect as students return to classes on Aug. 27, a wider variety of gender identities will be considered for submission into Mills College. This includes applicants who were “not assigned to the female sex at birth” but identify as women and applicants who are non-gendered but were assigned the female sex at birth.

This new policy is a great start for Mills College but it still perpetuates a very narrow view of gender. The policy states that, “female students who become male after enrolling may stay and graduate.” Though they didn’t mean to, Mills College implies that a trans* person suddenly becomes a new gender and that there is a defined marker for when someone becomes a man or a woman.

This is not just a case of poor wording — this is insensitivity. One small micro-aggression like this may not seem especially hurtful, but it perpetuates the notion that trans* people are not really men or women. This is a notion that the trans* community hears every day as well, as a notion that many use as an excuse to discriminate against and even inflict violence upon trans* people.

Also, under this policy, applicants must either identify themselves as male or female, which diminishes gender into a binary and will inevitably lead to people having to misidentify themselves if they do not belong to either gender. 



Not only does this policy force applicants to misidentify themselves but also non-gendered students who were assigned male sex at birth but who don’t identify as male or female are not permitted to enter Mills College. In short, Mills College only allows non-gendered people who they deem to be girls into their school.

The focus on whether or not someone is a real girl completely detracts from Mills College’s efforts to take a gender-neutral approach to admissions and to make trans* students feel more included. It also further perpetuates the struggle that trans* people must go through on a daily basis by drawing rigid lines for who does and does not classify as a girl.

Women’s colleges can provide a uniquely safe space for women and people who do not fit the gender binary. Mills College is off to a great start and hopefully it will continue to widen its definition of gender as well as inspire other schools to widen their views as well. 

Mandisa Shields is a sophomore newspaper and online journalism major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @mandisashields. 





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