In addition to the issue of gender identity, within the transgendered movement there is also the matter of sex-reassignment surgery, formerly known as sex-change operations.
Posted on 04/29/2003 5:00:17 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Monday, April 28, 2003 -- NORTHAMPTON - Smith College students earlier this month made a decision some might find mystifying: Although Smith is a women's college, the students voted to change the language of their student constitution so that the pronouns "she" and "her" would be replaced with gender-neutral terms. The vote applies only to student government documents, and not to official college publications, so none of the college's brochures will excise the female pronouns.
The student government vote is an indication of a deeper issue facing Smith College, and other same-sex institutions, which is that a growing number of students identify themselves as transgender, and say they feel uncomfortable with female pronouns.
"Smith College is a college for women, and within that there is a place for all kinds of women," said Brenda Allen, director of institutional diversity.
In addition to the issue of gender identity, within the transgendered movement there is also the matter of sex-reassignment surgery, formerly known as sex-change operations.
Dean of the College Maureen Mahoney said there is no policy in place at Smith that prevents students from undergoing sex-reassignment surgery while students are at the college. But she admits that the matter raises complex issues that the college has yet to fully deal with.
She said that though Smith is a women's college and only accepts women, the school has no intention of rejecting students who undergo a sex-reassignment surgery while a student.
"There is no mechanism, nor would we want to go around monitoring anyone," said Mahoney. "It's a complicated situation and we're responding to it and learning at the same time."
Lindsay Watson, who recently ended her term as Student Government Association president, said she introduced the initiative as a way to attract a wider range of students to student government.
Watson said she was thinking particularly of students who identify themselves as transgendered, and therefore may be uncomfortable using female pronouns to describe themselves.
"One of the things I spent some time looking into is what is discouraging people from getting involved (in student government)," said Watson. "This was something that screamed really loudly."
The initiative, which was voted on over a three-day period April 15 through April 17, passed by a 50- vote margin, with 1,115 students casting electronic votes, according to Smith spokeswoman Laurie Fenlason.
The vote stirred enough controversy that the SGA held a special forum to discuss the issue the weekend before the vote.
According to Watson, at that meeting some students expressed concerns that the move could change Smith policy and open the door to turning Smith into a coeducational institution.
However, according to Watson, this was never at issue. "I'm flattered that people think the student government has that much influence, which we don't," said Watson.
Toby Davis, a senior who is co-chair of what is called the "T" committee, a transgendered students group on campus, expressed approval of the vote.
"When Watson came and talked to us about it, we were of course pretty psyched this would come from the head of the SGA," Davis said. "It is making the SGA to me personally feel like a more welcoming organization."
The vote means that as of next fall term, any instance in SGA constitution of the word "she" will be replaced with the term "the student," and the pronoun "her" will either be deleted or changed to the word "the."
"I think that some students were concerned that the identity of Smith as a single-sex institution - as a women's college - would be tainted in some way," said Julie Mencher, a Northampton psychotherapist who was recently hired to serve as transgender specialist at the college.
According to Mencher, most of the students she counsels do not see themselves as transsexual - that is, they are not necessarily interested in using medical means to change their bodies so that they appear as the opposite sex. Rather, she said, they are exploring their gender.
"There are a lot of students here who identify as transgender but don't identify as male. They identify in a more gender-ambiguous way," explained Mencher. "They have come to a campus where that's very much supported."
Sunshine DeWitt can be reached at sdewitt@gazettenet.com.
In addition to the issue of gender identity, within the transgendered movement there is also the matter of sex-reassignment surgery, formerly known as sex-change operations.
Are we to believe that a growing number of human beings are being born into the "wrong" gender, for reasons unknonw, or could it be that these confused young people are being influenced by external forces into thinking that is their problem?
Unbelievable. Un-freaking-believable. The number one problem that "screams out" on an American college campus is the discomfort lesbians feel about the pronoun "she." Don't these women know what a real problem is?
Of course, when a woman's college transitions, in a mere 20 years, from an institution that prepares ladies to an institution dominated by lesbians, what other outcome is likely?
Ladies and gents, we are watching Sodom and Gomorrah rise up again in front of our very eyes.
In the offices of a corporate headquarters last week, I photo-shopped a picture of a colleague onto a picture of Mt. Rushmore as part of birthday decorations for that person. Fully half the people didn't GET it, didn't know what this was a picture OF, honetly didn't KNOW it was Mt. Rushmore or even what that monument IS. I am talking MBA's here. One person guessed that the birthday honoree was in the picture, but thought his was the ABRAHAM LINCOLN face.
(because it offends the indians... oops... Native Americans... who live in the valley and find the mountain "offensive.")
One evening recently, I plugged into Google the word "Alcatraz," wanting to read about the island and the prison. The government site for Alcatraz is mostly about...INDIANS, and mostly about the illegal, anarchic occupation of Alcatraz circa 1970, treating that incident as some sort of watershed for Indians. Most of the content of the site involved Indians. You had to look to find anything about its history (other than the occupation) over the last 2 or 3 hundred years, and especially about the famed prison. Kids of the future will prepare to view movies about Alcatraz (The Rock, etc.) and will surely be surprised to learn it isn't about native American radical politics.
Why do I have a feeling that at Smith, there's no shortage of things that scream really loudly?
Director of Institutional Diversity. Pathetic. The parents' tuition dollars pay for this junk. Of course, I am sure every college has one. Corporations have entire departments doing the work of the politically correct god the left worships.
Oh really? Funny, but I've never had any confusion about being a woman, nor did anyone else whom I knew there.
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