Overcoming the Challenges
Potential Policies and Practice
It is important to look at the literature both in terms of policy recommendations and how trans students and ally groups have addressed matters of discrimination.
What would an accepting and inclusive campus look like?
Major areas of focus include...
- Writing policy to include protection of trans students rights
- Designating areas of inclusion and sensitivity
- Providing gender-inclusive bathroom/locker rooms
- Creating gender-inclusive options for housing
- Providing trans student support services and training workshops for faculty, staff and non-trans students to create a more inclusive atmosphere that is receptive to change
- Making sure administrators and student leaders (like resident advisers) are kept aware of policies and practices for trans students
- Ensuring that resources are not labeled for specific genders as it can marginalize trans students in using this binary system
At Western Washington University, Logan shares his experience in transitioning while a member of the crew team. He also shares his case study on transgender rights within the NCAA, discovering a double standard as to how transgender men and transgender women are treated in collegiate athletics. His work was to help make a transgender inclusive document for the NCAA, but found that the rules created by the NCAA are unfair towards female transgender women.
Aimee
She identifies and transitioned as a transgender woman. She found class participation was difficult and often anxiety-provoking since she was afraid it would reveal her trans identity. She also had a bad experience with a professor who refused to use her chosen name and gender pronoun. Since she could not legally change her name on the class roster and her professor was unsupportive, she had to drop the class.
“People would look at me funny… it was feelings of real unsafety and real disrespect for me. It just made the class miserable. I couldn’t focus for the rest of the class” (Pryor, 448)
Even though most other professors were receptive to her chosen name and pronoun, the roster remained the same so roll call was always an anxious time for her. Some students have contributed to a negative and hostile environment as she has experienced verbal harassment. She has had a positive response from her most of her peers, however, as they have respected and used her chosen name and pronouns.
Lucas
He identifies as gender queer or “FTW (female to whatever).” He had mixed experiences with coming out where some professors ignored his use of a specific gender pronoun. Some instructors would repeatedly use female gender pronouns even though Lucas would correct them.
“It just made me feel really invalidated... Even though that’s how I identified, that wasn’t who I was” (Pryor, 448)
For roll call, he chose to answer to his birth name since it made things easier and less confrontational. One Spanish professor constantly corrected him over his pronoun use when referring to his girlfriend, suggesting ‘she’ meant ‘boyfriend.’ Another professor split class responses based on men and women which inherently outed him where he described the experience as feeling like an anxiety attack. That professor continued to discuss Thomas Beaty, known as “the pregnant man”, which lead to a very hostile environment as the instructor frequently referred to him as a freak. Lucas felt like he had little support from peers in the classroom although a few have shown support and stood up for his identity.
The Importance of Faculty Support
"Although one can learn from the experiences of transgender students in the classroom, placing the responsibility of educating others (faculty, staff, and peers) on them inherently marginalizes and places them at risk for unwanted harassment. Regardless of field of study, faculty must provide positive learning environments for all students” (Pryor, 452).
Considering the Individual
The importance of individuality in treatment needs to be heavily stressed. Each student is different and will need different accommodations or resources. The push for individual treatment is not new to higher education; offices of academic accommodation help students with learning disabilities thrive in college by creating learning plans and working with faculty. As such, there is a need on college campuses for more resources and respect for trans students.
