Single-sex colleges transitioning for transgender students

Barnard College, a women’s school in New York City, announced on Thursday a new admissions policy. The school will now consider all applicants “who consistently live and identify as women.” This policy includes students who are biologically male, but identify as female, but not vice versa.

Several other women’s colleges made headlines recently by highlighting new policies for transgender students. In 2014, about two dozen students at Wellesley College, an all-women’s school, no longer identified themselves as women. Wellesley, along with Smith College and Mount Holyoke, enacted in the last year policies to deal with such situations.

Barnard’s new policy for transgender students will be effective for the fall of 2016. School president Debora Spar and board of trustees Chairwoman Jolyne Caruso-FitzGerald wrote about the decision after a board member vote: “There was no question that Barnard must reaffirm its mission as a college for women. And there was little debate that trans women should be eligible for admission to Barnard."

While not every single-sex school has enacted a policy for transgender students, most have had ongoing conversations for the last several years.

Gregory Hess, president of Wabash College, an all men’s school in Indiana, said he has spoken with many school presidents about the subject: “They’re all thinking about it, but no one has really tipped their hand as to which way they’re going.”

Hess said Wabash policy has to follow the legal distinction between sex and gender—sex is someone’s biological assignment and gender is how they personally identify.Currently, the state of Indiana does not make a distinction between the two.

“If a student has been accepted into the college, based on the requirements of the school, and they decide to make a transition they are perfectly welcomed to stay here,” he said.

Hess admitted that changes will be inevitable, but Wabash does not feel a need to respond to the growing trend among other single-sex schools: “I don’t think we feel threatened, but we want to be a thoughtful institution. We treat all students on an individual basis, based on the fact that we are college for men. … That’s basically the policy.”

The Associated Press Contributed to the report.