So the discussion forum whatever for the week of the 24 hasn't opened up yet, so I guess I'll start the

conversation about the Wellesley article here - because my copy is dripping green highlighting ink and I am full of
fervor.
My very first problem with the article is the yellow journalism inspired title - the kind of title that is just begging for
clicks!

This title makes a lot of assumptions about gender, being transgender, and what it takes to make a man. While
many of these men who are students at Wellesly may transition while at Wellesly, they all had confusion about
their gender identity before attending Wellesly - and it's not surprising that these students were the age of college
students before they started to transition, considered the hoops one has to jump through in order to transition. I'd
be interested in the number of people who have seen the headline of the article and assumed that this all women's
school was making its students into men. It's just a clunky headline/title.

As I got to the back half of the first page and got to the part, "Of all the people at a multiethnic women's college
who could hold the school's "diversity" seat, the least fitting one was a white man" (emphasis not mine) all I could
think about was the absence of the word cisgender between white and man. While the concept of trans-identity is
central to this piece, it is at some point so conveniently left out.

I was torn, while reading this article, between assigning men-privilege to transmen and contemplating the potential
transmisandry of it all (which is an odd word for me to write out - I discuss transmisogyny all the time and
transphobia to a lesser degree, but because of the systematic privilege of men, I think this is the first time I've
ever written out transmisandry).

As I got to the bottom of the back of the first page I reached the line, "... at Wellesley, masculine-of-center
students are cultural minorities; by numbers alone..." and I wonder if that observation was the author's or
Timothy's. It is commonly understood that men are, by numbers, a minority - but the use of the word culturally
there is then what becomes interesting, because cultures are constructed by people, and culturally speaking - men
are the ones who have the majority of power to broker. However, trans people have little to no power to broker,
and make up less a part of the population then cisgender men - who have all the power, or cisgender women, who
are a numerical majority. Either way you read it, however, it seems to read true, Wellesley stands to cultivate a
cultural context that is for women (in Wellesley's case, maybe 'Womyn born Womyn').

Could Wellesley's mostly conservative position on transgender people be symptomatic of what it is as an
institution? Could this college where 'women become men' actually just be an institution where women become
women? The article states that, "... but even in the early 1960s, Wellesley, for example, taught students how to
get groceries inot the back of a station wagon without exponsing their thighs."

It isn't fair to mention Wellesley as an institution that awards 'MRS' degrees, however, without also mentioning
that, "Wellesley alumnae in particular are awarded more science and engineering doctorates than female graduates
of any other liberal-arts college in the nation... "
Akwardly, at the bottom of the front of the second page the author states, "As women's colleges challenged the
conventions of womanhood, they drew a disproportionate number of students who identified as lesbian or
bisexual." It is my opinion that all this sentence does is to try to conflate sexual orientation and gender identity -
and to mark as similar the work it takes to accept and make room for transgender people and LGB people.

The back of page two we see the conversation of the whole 'sisterhood'/'siblinghood' conversation start. In my
frank opinion - if you cannot or will not use gender-neutral and gender-inclusive language like 'siblinghood' (or
'they' versus 'he' or 'she' to address a highlighted part later in the article) then you should be blatant about that
when advertising for your school, and when picking who you admit - if you only want womyn born womyn - tell
that to your applicants outright.

I felt uncomfortable that the author didn't cite the statement, "Recent female graduates working full time earn far
less than their male counterparts and more experienced women are often still shut out of corporate and political
leadership..." (emphasis mine).

Here are some links (from the first page of the google search 'female graduates earn less than males') that I
found:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/student-life/10595641/Female-graduates-expect-to-
earn-1500-less-than-male-peers.html

http://theconversation.com/male-graduates-earn-more-than-female-graduates-study-28101

http://www.womensagenda.com.au/talking-about/opinions/female-graduates-earn-less-than-their-males-peers-
this-is-how-some-ceos-are-fixing-it/201406224206#.VEND4vnF8bg

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-04/female-graduate-pay-gap-doubles/4452348

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male%E2%80%93female_income_disparity_in_the_United_States

http://educationbythenumbers.org/content/wage-gap-young-college-age-men-women-surprisingly-high_1516/

We get to the end of the back of page two... "Hollins University, a small women's college in Virginia, established a
policy several years ago stating it would confer diplomas to only women. It also said that students who have
surgery or begin hormone therapy to become men - or who legally take male names - will be "helped to transfer to
another institution." -- That's transphobic, even, dare I say it (even to the chagrin of my trans- and cis- sisters
alike) transmisandric.

But then we have Mount Holyoke and Mills College who, "... on the other hand, recently decided they will not only
continue to welcome students who become trans men while at school but will also admit those who identify on their
applications as trans men."

Midway down the front side of page four things get confusing for me. "Brothers had officially become Siblings and
welcomed anyone anywhere on the gender spectrum except those who identified as women. Meanwhile, Jesse and
some transmasculine students continued to meet unofficially as Brothers..."

Why did Jesse come back to a college he knew was a women's college at all, if what he was going to do was to
seek a man's/masculine space within it?

Our popular cultural narrative says there's plenty of space for men, but does that narrative hold up for transmen?
This piece doesn't suggest so.

On the front of page five, near the bottom, we see the sentence, "But Alex isn't a her, and he told me that his
happiness and success includes being recognized for what he is: a man." and my literal reaction to reading this
was, "WHOA! WHAT A CONCEPT!" (<-- insert smart-alec sarcasm here). Like it shouldn't be that hard to grasp that
a man wants to be treated as a man... but then still I wonder, what is he doing at a women's college? If there are
no singularly men's colleges (and I'm so sure there are), there are plenty of co-ed colleges for Alex to go to...

What gets presented to me for the first time on the bottom of the back of page five still causes a furrow in my
brow. Men are allowed/accepted as professors at Wellesley? But men students are seen as intrusive? As taking up
space? As compromising the safety of the space? I don't understand.

Pages seven and eight were where Padawer packed a punch (I couldn't resist, I'm sorry).

The top of the back of page seven we see just kind of the see this casual conversation on sexual assault? "But as
his body changed, students he didn't even know would run their hands over his biceps. Once at the school pub, an
intoxicated Wellesley woman even grabbed his crotch and that of another trans man."

Crotch inspection with no respect for boundaries... That's a signature move of the cissexist. Period.

At the bottom of the next page we have the quote, "But for some reason, when it's done to trans men here, it
doesn't get read the same way. It's like a free pass, that suddenly it's O.K. to talk about or touch someon'es body
as long as they're not a woman." I wrote out beside it "Or not cis (?).

It got heavier for me as it went on. I highlighted most of the next paragraph and will quote it here:

"While trans men are allowed at most women's colleges if they identify as female when applying, trans women -
people raised male who go on to identify as women - have found it nearly impossible to get through the campus
gates. Arguably, a trans woman's identity is more compatible with a women's college than a trans man's is. But
most women's colleges require that all of an applicant's documentation indicate the candidate is female. [...]
(Admissions policies at private undergraduate schools are exempt from Title IX, which bans gender discrimination
at schools receiving federal funds.)."

I think that speaks for itself... Transmisogyny...

The last paragraph on the bottom of the back of page seven says:

"For its part, Wellesley has never admitted a trans woman, at least not knowingly. Many Wellesley students,
including some who are uncomfortable having trans men on campus, say that academically eligible trans women
should be admitted, regardless of the gender on their application documents."

Institutional transmisogyny, and it goes on, the front of page 8 is a doozy!

"... including one of Wellesley's trans men (I have to stop and note here my sense of Padawer's attempt to pit
trans men and women against each other. I find it hard to believe that the only transmisogynistic Wellesleian voice
to be found belongs to transmen), who asked not to be named because he knew how unpopular his stance would
be. He said that Wellesley should accept only trans women who have begun sex-changing medical treatment or
have legally changed their names or sex on their driver's licenses or birth certificates. "I know that's a lot to ask of
an 18-year-old just applying to college," he said (I'd like to note that HRT can cost up to $85 a month, gender
reassignment surgery costs $10,000 for transwomen, a legal name change costs $165 dollars in MA, where
Wellesley is located, and lastly changing the sex-marker on your license costs $25 and let us be clear, getting your
name or gender marker changed is not as easy as going down with a check and a whim), "but at the same time,
Wellesley needs to maintain its integrity as a safe space for (cis-) women. (Addition of 'cis-' mine) What if someone
who is male-bodied comes here genuinely identified as female, and then decides after a year or two that they
identify as male - and wants to stay at Wellesley?"

The same student went on to say:

"Trans men are a different case; we were raised female, we know what it's like to be treated as females and we
have been discriminated against as females. We get what life has been like for women."

Do they get what life has been life for women? Or do they get what life has been like for transmen? Do they get to
claim both?

Mills College seems to have the best approach for being a modern 'Women's college', in my opinion, "... Mills
College became the first women's college to broaden its admissions policy to include self-identified trans women,
even those who haven't legally or medically transitioned and even if their transcripts or recommendation letters
refer to them as male [...] ... also welcomes biological females who identify anywhere on the gender specturm, as
long as they haven't become legally male."

Mount Holyoke College on-uped Mills, though, "Mount Holyoke College announced a more far-reaching policy: It
would admit all academically qualified students regardless of their anatomy or self-proclaimed gender, except for
those biologically male at birth who still identify as male."

Do I have an 'in conclusion'? While I think on that some more - I'm going to copy and paste my live-blog reactions
from my Facebook.

"it's an intro class - why not just read the 18 page NYT article and go on your merry way?
I'll tell you why, because what isn't this story telling me about trans men in women's colleges? What isn't this story
telling me about trans men in men's colleges? What isn't this story telling me about trans women in men's
colleges? What isn't this story telling me about trans women in women's colleges?
And why does the most absurd of all four of those feel like 'trans women in men's colleges?' (the answer is
personal bias prob [not that that bias isn't based in understanding the ways in which violence occurs amongst
cismen-transwomen in comparison to cismen-transmen or ciswomen-transwomen or ciswomen-transmen]).
that's why."
-- --
"This NYT piece's use of the 'essentialist' and quasi-scientific language of 'female' and 'male' is deeply upsetting.
My belief on the matter: Using male/female indicates you believe their is some scientific basis for gender
socialization and social gender differences, whereas using man/woman indicates you understand that gender is a
social construction - down to the way that we gender genitalia (and thus the people attached to it)."
"That's my problem
that's my problem with this Wellesley-NYT piece... where is the line between reporting on transgender people and
using them as a spectacle? Where is the line between allyship and consumption?"
"Oh goody! I was hoping this piece would end on a transmisogynistic note!"
Oh! Well I'd say those last two quotes about sum up any 'in conclusion' better than I could now, so I'll leave yall
with that.