In the News

Saturday, July 30th

Transgender teen from Madison hopes public service announcement will help stop bullying

Kenny Blaha, a transgender teen from Madison, CT, speaks out against bullies. For Kenny, who is unsure with which gender he identifies, high school has been rife with discrimination-both conscious and inadvertent- from students and administration. With his PSA, Kenny hopes to reduce bullying for LGBT students in the future.

Transgender Students in Same Sex Colleges

Erin Buzuvis, an associate law professor at Western New England college, writes an interesting article on her Title IX blog about the issue of transgender students attending all-women colleges. According to Title IX, an individual is allowed access to an all-female insitution if her legal gender status is female. But transitioning takes time, and in the resulting ambiguity many questions emerge. Should a male-to-female individual who identifies as a woman, but whose gender is still legally male, be allowed to enroll in a female college? Or can someone transitioning from female-to-male be allowed admission?

Buzovis' piece comes in response to a Higher Ed article that offers an overview on the discussion women's colleges are having regarding gender identity. Cerri Banks, the dean at Mount Holyoke College, an all-women's school, says in the article:

“I think higher education should be at the forefront of that, not sort of catching up to the rest of the world...What I hope is we’ll have the conversation, we’ll have the policies in practice, and then we’ll move on. It will no longer be a hot-button issue and we’ll move on to other issues.”

Her positive statement hopefully will reflect the actions of other women's schools.

Buzuvis contributed her opinion at the end of her article:

The bottom line for now, however, is one the article gets right. College admissions policymakers, like Title IX policymakers will be increasingly confronted with questions about transgender students' eligibility for single-sex colleges and other single-sex spaces. In my view, they should and can legally strive to be as inclusive as possible.