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protection of individuals correcting the misalignment
of their brains and their anatomical sex, while supporting their transition
into society as hormonally reconstituted and surgically corrected citizens.
| When A Female to Male HBS Enrolls In A Woman's College |
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| Opinion - Global Warning | |||
| Lisa Jain Thompson | |||
| Saturday, 08 December 2007 20:00 | |||
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Confusing celebrity with living
 Founded in 1889, Barnard was the only college in New York City, and one of the few in the nation, where women could receive the same rigorous and challenging education available to men. The College was named after Frederick A.P. Barnard, then the tenth president of Columbia College. He had argued unsuccessfully for the admission of women to Columbia University.
One of the original Seven Sisters, Barnard was, from the beginning, a place that took women seriously and challenged them intellectually. Nine out of ten students live in college housing and participate in the educational programs, cultural events, and social activities of their residence halls. Barnard has become known for its distinctive academic culture.
In October 1889, the first Barnard class met in a rented brownstone at 343 Madison Avenue; there was a faculty of six and 14 students in the School of Arts. Nine years later, the college moved to its present site on Morningside Heights. In 1900 it was included in the educational system of Columbia University with provisions unique among women's colleges: it was governed by its own trustees, faculty, and dean, and was responsible for its own endowment and facilities, while sharing instruction, the library, and the degree of the university.
Barnard's current enrollment consists of 2,389 undergraduates from 48 states and 39 countries. Of that number, 13% are African-American, Latina or Native American. 17% are Asian. 68% are from outside New York State, 12% are from the western United States, 12% are from New England, 7% are from the South, and 8% are from the Midwest/Southwest.
About 90% of Barnard students live in 11 Barnard residence halls and 4 Columbia residence halls.
The Class of 2010, which includes approximately 556 students, came to Barnard with an average secondary school GPA of 3.91 on a 4.0 scale or 95.3 on a 100-point scale and median SAT scores of 690 for the critical reading section, 670 for the math section, and 690 for the writing section.
The tuition and fees for the 2006-2007 academic year were $33,078; room and board, $11,392.
Granted, the man in question is young and still early in transition, but why a woman's college, especially Barnard?
Barnard College is specifically designed for the education of women. Women make up over half the faculty.
Last fall, Raemond Grosz, an early transition female to male (apparently HBS), enrolled at Barnard. Moments into his first year orientation, Grosz remembers thinking:
I'm struck by two things:
Grosz's explanation of why he enrolled seems rather naïve for someone qualified to matriculate at Barnard
Or perhaps it is only a reflection of youth and a somewhat sheltered life. He enrolled at a woman's college which has history of women students who come from socially conservative and well-off families. (Barnard is not Brown, another of the seven sisters).
By the time First Year Orientation was finished, Grosz's female roommate informed him that she was uneasy about sharing a dorm room with him. Barnard College offered Grosz two alternatives:
Single rooms are not available for first year students at Barnard.
At the same time, Grosz was growing more uncomfortable with Barnard
Which, of course, is the point: the rest of the first year class is female, Grosz apparently is an HBS male (and a man who apparently thinks of Grey's Anatomy as a weekly chick flick).
Unable to find a new roommate, and unwilling to remain with his current one, Grosz lived off campus.
The situation was resolved when Grosz transferred to the School of General Studies at Columbia which is affiliated with Barnard.
Grosz said he was surprised by the amount of ignorance he has encountered from Columbia students, saying that he had been called a transvestite by more than one
Grosz, now at Columbia, added that gay and lesbian students at Columbia seem to have a distinct place on campus that transgender students do not.
The confusion between cross-dressers and transgenders on one hand, and HBS men and women on the other is common, one of the fall-outs of lumping everyone under the Big T GBLT umbrella. HBS needs in transition are specific and different from transgenders and cross-dressers as Grosz quickly discovered.
His initial choice of Barnard as his college is questionable and indicative of an HBS male emerging from the transgender community in the early stages of transition. Bernard's admission policy states that a student must be physically a woman to be accepted. Grosz, in his own mind as well as his outward appearance, is male. Since his transition was not yet complete, College policy would have allowed him to remain at Bernard and graduated as a man.
Not that Grosz was comfortable during his short time at Bernard. Simple things such as the silhouettes of women on the Barnard wall, all of which have feminine hairstyles, made him feel he did not belong – he is a guy who felt out of place at a woman's college. Surprise, surprise!
The comments of some of the Barnard and Columbia students and faculty were more direct.
What HBS men and women need most of all is common sense. We cannot just barge into new situations, announce we are HBS, and demand that everyone and everything change to accommodate us. Sometimes the need of the many, exceed the needs of the one.
The best approach is for HBS men and women to work within the system. The radical transgressors among us are a small minority. The rest of us are men and women born with a medical condition we treat during that part of our lives we call transition.
Transition should never be a gauntlet we throw down to challenge the rest of world. If Grosz had thought things through, if he had been better prepared or farther along in transition before he applied to Barnard, all of this could have been avoided, the very proper sensibilities of the Barnard women maintained, and the glare of still another media circus gracefully sidestepped.
And, in the end, don't we all just want is to get on with our lives as men and women and avoid becoming a political cause celebre?
 The TS-Si News Service is a collaborative effort by TS-Si.org editors, contributors, and corresponding institutions. Sources can include the cited individuals and organizations, as well as TS-Si.org staff contributions. Articles and news reports do not necessarily convey official positions of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. We welcome your comments. Use the form below to leave a public comment or send private correspondence via the TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.TS-Si is dedicated to the acceptance, medical treatment, and legal protection of individuals correcting the misalignment of their brains and their anatomical sex, while supporting their transition into society as hormonally reconstituted and surgically corrected citizens.
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| Last Updated on Saturday, 08 December 2007 17:03 |
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