Transgender men couldn’t graduate from a women’s college in Virginia. Now they can
Hollins University was one of only a few women’s colleges that barred its students who transitioned to men from graduating.
Not anymore.
The private university in Roanoke, Virginia, updated its policy on transgender students to allow undergraduates who transition to male — socially and medically — to complete their studies.
“They remain eligible to earn a Hollins degree,” the new policy states. “If, during a student’s time at Hollins, the student decides that Hollins, as a women’s college, no longer offers the appropriate educational environment, Hollins will offer guidance and resources to assist in making choices that are best for that student.”
Hollins previously required students undergoing sex reassignment to transfer out, according to an academic paper published by Georgia State University citing the former policy.
The term sex reassignment included any student who self-identified as a male and had hormone therapy, surgery or a legal name change.
It left open the possibility for students at Hollins who only transitioned socially to still graduate, according to the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law. But those who opted to begin any sort of sex reassignment were only permitted to stay until they completed 64 credit hours — or roughly four semesters for students who take 15 hours per semester.
At least two other women’s colleges in the United States still maintain similar policies barring students who transition from graduating — Converse College in South Carolina and Bennett College in North Carolina.
Converse defines sex reassignment as an individual who self-identifies as male and receives hormone therapy, surgery or a legal name change. At Bennett, any student who “decides to self-identify as a male” is no longer eligible for a degree, according to a 2017 admissions policy.
Students and community members had urged Hollins University’s Board of Trustees to revisit its transgender policy, prompting the creation of a Transgender Policy Task Force during the 2018-19 academic year.
According to the task force, the policy underwent previous reconstructions in 2013 and 2016.
The latest updates were formally adopted by a unanimous board on Saturday, Alexandra Trower, chairwoman of the Board of Trustees, told the Roanoke Times.
Hollins already admitted transgender women. But under the new policy, the newspaper reported, they “no longer have to complete a full surgical transition to be eligible for admission.”
All students who “consistently live and identify as women” are eligible, but non-binary students and transgender men are not.
“We are an institution that wants to support every single student, that cares about every single student, that wants every single student to reach their potential,” Trower said, according to the Times. “To penalize an individual for making the very difficult decision to transition and saying they have to leave their community, their friends, their teachers and leadership positions felt very much at odds with who we are.”
This story was originally published October 31, 2019 at 1:20 PM.
