When Girls Graduate as Guys

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
When Girls Graduate as Guys
47
Thu, 05-24-2007 - 1:46pm

What else can you do while gulping down 2 bottles of 4 fl oz of cough & cold medicine from Friday to Tuesday’s night? Who catches a cold in May? What else can I do since I’m sick of sleeping? I caught up on reading newspapers I’ve been neglecting. The Boston Globe magazine has a title “When Girls graduate as Guys” caught my attention.
Written by Adrian Brune, oh, this is from 4.8.2007 edition.

The article covers a dilemma women’s colleges are facing. The debate?

-Is it still a women’s college when some students who were females as freshmen are males by graduation day?
-If transmen are graduating from women’s colleges, is it fair/right/legal to forbid males born from attending women’s colleges?
-If women’s colleges are there to encourage/provide knowledge and skills on empowerment/to be the best you can be as a woman and some of their students don’t want to be women, does that defeats the purpose of being at a women’s college?

Comments by some of the transgenders are interesting too. I understand transgenders are people who feel they are not born with a body they feel uncomfortable with (to put it mildly). They were biological women but they wanted more to be men. One of the transmen said “I cried the day after I woke up and found my breasts gone.”…”with each stage, I feel like I’ve been losing my lesbian identity and that’s hard to give up.” What he said got me wondering. If transgenders have been struggling to realize their desires to be men, do they really have a lesbian identity? Is the lesbian identity automatically granted just because they were born as female, like their applications to women’s colleges goes through the pipelines because they’re of the female sex? Will we ship a toaster without questions when a transgender who was biological male complete the sex change and attracted to women? (wouldn’t offering a new car instead of a toaster be a better recruiting kit?)

FYI: Transgender can legally change the sex on their license in Massachusetts.

Unfortunately, no website was provided in the article so I can’t link it with my post for anyone interested in reading the article. The author is a freelance writer for The Hartford Courant and addy is magazine@globe.com if you want to request a copy.

One more question, since I am asking do you view me as having transphobia? The debate is on some of the schools websites and the article quoted a reply to a question "let the transphobia debate begin again." That reply got me wondering if I will be view that way too. *smile*

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-04-2004
Sun, 05-27-2007 - 9:35pm

Guess you would have expected me to answer, and yup... ready or not, here I come.


More than anything else, it was the lesbian community that embraced me and pulled me into where I belonged. Partly here, partly in other parts of iV, specifically individuals like smiely and lav and kowski, along with nursepam, nony, ms kitty,

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-23-2006
Mon, 05-28-2007 - 2:39pm
nelle! So good to see you girlfriend!

 PPCLSIG.jpg picture by CalyD44

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-04-2004
Mon, 05-28-2007 - 3:27pm

Thanks... I know, and really should. The history here on this specific board goes back quite a ways... 1 February, 2001 to be exact.


*hugs*

Sometimes
Sometimes
I see much more than's good for me
The first thing that's on my mind
The last place I look each time


~
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-16-2005
Tue, 05-29-2007 - 2:17pm

Awesome post, Nelle! It's great to see you!


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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-04-2004
Tue, 05-29-2007 - 10:17pm

Thank you...


this issue is one that goes beyond the dyke community into the larger women's community. Out and about transfolk is a relatively new phenomenon. Where once there were a few brave souls (I have a link to an interview with Christine Jorgensen in 1958 on my blog under lgbt issues, it is fascinating stuff, very ahead of her time on overall lgbt rights) transmen and transwomen are turning up everywhere, there are more than anyone ever imagined. Transmen tend to be more invisible, but they are equally numerous.


Because this is so new, people are trying to adapt to

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2007
Tue, 05-29-2007 - 11:03pm

Nell, okay off topic here, but I couldn't find the thread where you told me about Blue Diamonds. I downloaded it onto my iPod. Great song!!!

Thanks

Hugs

Blue

BLUE DIA
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-04-2004
Wed, 05-30-2007 - 6:46am

Ah... I'll repeat it. Michael Glabicki, band member of Rusted Root, wrote this song based on his life experience.


Michael was struck by a car around the age of 3, and almost died. When the song was first released, I heard him interviewed, where he told this story... anyway, whilst near death, he had visions of a goddess coming to him, telling him he was not ready to die, she comforted and sent him back. He claims to talk with her from time to time, talk in that sort of way someone might have a one way conversation with God.


I've loved the song since I first heard it, and as one who's spiritual representation is best summed up by Sue Monk Kidd in Dance of the Dissident Daughter, it was something I could relate to - not to mention the song lyrics, which talk of staying strong and

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-16-2005
Wed, 05-30-2007 - 11:19am

"More than anything, it starts with respecting the right of people to

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2007
Wed, 05-30-2007 - 6:38pm

Nell, thanks again, I love the song.

Blue

BLUE DIA
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-29-2004
Fri, 06-01-2007 - 3:18am

Some may question... but the greater dyke community... embraces. And I am proud, oh so very proud of my place in this community. It is... home.

Here, here! Glasses up to you and Sebastian! I didn't join in on this great conversation, but I admire people who know exactly what they are and who they are! Love to y'all!

hugs


halo

hugs

halo