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sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

Abstract

Historically women’s colleges, particularly those which are predominantly white, have a long and complicated history with their relationship to both feminism, equity, and transgender justice. Using a trans liberation framework, I have critically analyzed the trans student admission policies from four historically women’s colleges. Those institutions are: Bryn Mawr College, Hollins University, Mount Holyoke College and Smith College. My analysis includes how these policies both perpetuate, and reinforce harmful gender and sex binaries. Additionally, my research explores how these policies work to create an environment that ultimately does not best serve trans, nor cisgendered students. By calling on scholarship by key figures in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies such as Judith Butler and Bobby Noble, I explain how these schools, as well as all single sex institutions, can and should shift from institutions that primarily serve cisgendered women, to institutions that serve all who fall under the category of “gender oppressed”.

Publication Date

2021

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