The Board of Trustees at Scripps College in California has announced that the school will now admit transgender women. The new policy will be in effect for all Fall 2016 applicants.
In a notice to the Scripps community, the Board of Trustees stated that the new policy will include applicants who report that the sex listed on their current birth certificate is ‘female’ and applicants who self-identify as women. The school will not require government-issued documentation to verify sex or gender identity.
In the school’s Frequently Asked Questions, Scripps clarifies that transmen whose legal sex is ‘male’ are not eligible for admission under the policy change. Although, the school states the following: “We recognize that transgender men do not have the same history and lived experience as cisgender men, and that formally admitting transgender men supports the educational goal of building strong minds among gender minorities.”
This fall, more than 580 students supported a petition for a transgender-inclusive admissions policy.
Earlier this year, Mills College in Oakland, CA and Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts became the first two single-sex schools in the nation to open up admission to transgender students who identify as female.
Lynn Pasquerella, Mount Holyoke’s president, announced the change to their policy during her convocation address to new students at the start of the school year. “We recognize that what it means to be a woman is not static,” she said. “Just as early feminists argued that reducing women to their biological functions was a foundation of women’s oppression, we acknowledge that gender identity is not reducible to the body. And we are mindful that exclusion from the category of ‘woman’ based on properties of birth is nothing new.”
Media Resources: Scripps College Admission Policy FAQ; “Support A Trans-Inclusive Admission Policy!” Facebook Page 11/21/14; CMC Forum 11/21/14; Inside Higher Ed 9/3/14, 12/8/14; KQED Radio 8/21/14
