Transmen in Western Mass

Open the Boston Globe Magazine this Sunday, the one with Bill Cosby on the cover with the promise of an article discussing the pedagogical impact of Fat Albert, and meet the the women of Mount Holyoke College who are deciding to become men.

Leading the contents page is this quote:

"I cried the day I woke up and found my breasts gone." -Mt. Holyoke transgender junior Kevin Murphy.

You just can't buy press like that.

And its branding you just can't erase. Spend your millions on identity work. Develop that logo. Convince yourself itself not a problem. No matter what you do, no matter how many percentages you release on the number of straight women in the student body there will be public perception. There may be as many lesbians at Mount Holyoke and Smith colleges as there are at Barnard or Berkeley or Oberlin (where the students introduce themselves with their pronoun preferences, as in "My name is Anne and I go by 'her' and 'she'.") but it really doesn't matter. Because the line in the article that will have senior leadership, admissions, development, and communications—not to mention trustees, alumni, and some faculty—going slightly nuts—is this one:

"No parent is surprised anymore when their daughter goes to an all-women's college and then comes out as a lesbian."

Really? Of course not. But it doesn't matter. Of all the great things going on at Mount Holyoke this is the story the Magazine wants.

Sure, the more interesting question is whether a women who becomes a man has any place in an all-women's college. And, at what point, is this person a man? Does that, by definition, make the dorms co-ed? Is that fair to the other women? What is the institution's role? These matters are lightly touched upon in the article but they are not the focus. Because this is not an article about higher education. The article is more about gender identity in college-aged women. Unfortunately, wittingly or not, the article also obviates years of Mount Holyoke's own attempts to balance its own identity. And as compassionate as I can be to the students in the article who are confronting the issues of their lives bravely, one would still be hardpressed to consider this "hit" good news.