論文“It’s about Being Wanted”:
Creating a “Gender-Inclusive” Campus
at U.S. Women’s Colleges
Maki IKOMA

Introduction
In the United States, an increasing number of higher education institutions
have been placing diversity at the core of their educational missions. On many
campuses, diversity is now discussed at the institutional level—in terms of
mission statements, strategic-planning documents, and the attempt to build
diversity in leadership.1 Women’s colleges are no exception. The majority ofexisting women’s colleges in the U.S. also assert the importance of fostering
campus diversity in their visions and mission statements today.2 In particular,
their commitment to diversity has been highlighted in recent years through thedebate surrounding the admittance of transgender women, which has been an
important part of a national conversation about equity and inclusion in the U.S.
In recognition of evolving understanding of gender identities, over twenty
women’s colleges since 2014 have revisited the meaning of “women” andincluded a wider range of gender diversity in their new admissions policies by
being trans-inclusive. Opening doors to historically underrepresented genderminorities, these women’s colleges have indeed made big institutional changes
to foster diversity and inclusion.
However, as numerous studies have shown, ensuring access to higher
education and increasing enrollment of students from historically marginalized
backgrounds are not alone sufficient to foster campus diversity and inclusion.
Erin Armstrong, a trans woman student at Mills College, describes the major

1
2

Daryl G. Smith, Diversity’s Promise for Higher Education: Making It Work, 3rd ed. (Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020), 68.
Based on the data obtained through Women’s College Coalition (https://www.
womenscolleges.org/colleges) as well as the website of each college, there are twentynine remaining women’s colleges in the U.S. as of April 2022.
43

論

文

challenge women’s colleges face in fostering diversity and inclusion:
When I arrived on campus, no place existed where I could be myself.
Everywhere I went, people were discussing whether or not Trans*
women belonged here . . . And yet, in all of that, the voices of Trans*
women were missing. That space simply didn’t exist, and that made all
the difference . . . Sure, the school had announced a policy saying that I
COULD be here, that I was allowed, but no one was saying that I
SHOULD be here, that I was wanted. And without that sense of belonging,
I was afraid. This is why I think creating space is so important. It’s
about creating a place of belonging . . . It’s more than just being allowed;
it’s about being wanted. [emphasis added]3
As Armstrong’s remark demonstrates, officially “allowing” people to be part ofthe community alone does not automatically lead to creating a safe, comfortable
space, nor does it suddenly make them feel “wanted.” In other words, fostering
diversity and inclusion on campus requires much more than changing
admissions policies. It requires campus-wide efforts in truly welcoming a diverse
student body, and in making those students feel “wanted.”
Armstrong is not the only student who has pushed this issue forward. In fact,
since 2014 a large number of students have been actively pushing their
institutions to think further about how to be truly “inclusive” of diverse gendergroups. In various campus spaces beyond the classroom, such as student
newspapers and campus activism, students with diverse gender identities (e.g.,cisgender women, trans women, trans men, non-binary people) have been
sharing concerns and discontent, and suggesting improvements to theircolleges’ efforts in addressing the issues of “inclusion.” Their activism anddialogue center on the question of what “inclusion” means in a single-sex
institution for “women,” mainly focusing on the issues concerning how to“welcome” and “support” diverse gender groups.
Their efforts have particularly focused on ways of improving recruitment andsupport. They have, for instance, criticized a lack of advertising that made clear

3

44Erin Armstrong, “Creating Space Means…,” The Campanil, May 1, 2015, http://www.
thecampanil.com/creating-space-means/

“It’s about Being Wanted”: Creating a “Gender-Inclusive” Campus at U.S. Women’s Colleges

new admissions policies that welcome a wide range of gender identities. They
have complained that colleges are doing too little to actively seek out transstudents, and for continuing to call themselves a “women’s college.” There has
also been significant concern about the lack of support for enrolled trans and/or
gender non-conforming students, and about the widespread use of genderedlanguage on campus, both at institutional and interpersonal levels. These issues
highlight remaining issues that go beyond simply ensuring access for gender
non-conforming students at women’s colleges. As Daryl G. Smith, a scholar
focusing on fostering diversity in higher education, argues, “While the changing‘face’ of a campus might be inspirational, diversity ‘by looking’ says nothing
about student success, campus climate, institutional effectiveness, or graduatestudent or faculty profiles.”4 Creating an “inclusive” space for diverse gendergroups, therefore, requires much more than ensuring access. This is precisely
the issue that students have been debating and urging their institutions to thinkfurther today.
The issues at stake are not unique to women’s colleges. They are in fact
connected to larger, fundamental issues about inclusion and democracy, issues
that a number of scholars have investigated. One of the most important andinfluential models has been labeled “deliberative democracy,” which attempts tocreate a model of democratic decision-making that emphasizes inclusion anddeliberation, rather than a simple model of majority democratic rule that often
in fact favors certain interest groups.5 A number of scholars have been debating
how this model of democracy could include diverse perspectives of all citizens
in a democratic discussion. The prominent political theorist Iris Marion Young,for example, criticizes some exclusionary implications of this model, and

4
5Smith, Diversity’s Promise, 91.
For some important works in theories of deliberative democracy, see Jürgen Habermas,
The Theory of Communicative Action: Reason and the Rationalization of Society, Volume.1: Reason
and the Rationalization of Society, trans. Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984);
Joshua Cohen, “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy,” in The Good Polity: Normative
Analysis of the State, ed. Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 1734; Jane J. Mansbridge, “A Deliberative Theory of Interest Representation,” in The
Politics of Interests: Interest Groups Transformed, ed. Mark P. Petracca (New York:
Routledge, 1992), 32-57. Helpful overviews of the field include, Simone Chambers,“Deliberative Democracy Theory,” Annual Review of Political Science 6 (June 2003): 307-26;
Frank Cunningham, Theories of Democracy: A Critical Introduction (London: Routledge,
2002), 163-83.
45

論

文

proposes instead revisions that highlight the importance of employing multiple
forms of communication and acknowledging differences and disagreement inpublic discussion to promote greater inclusion.6 These theoretical works ondeliberative democracy have greatly contributed to facilitating critical debates
on how “inclusion” can be promoted in a culturally diverse democratic society.7
The implications of these works are also at the center of public debates oncollege and university campuses. As research on higher education has revealed,
college and university students have engaged in forms of deliberative
democracy that are challenging institutional norms around the issues of“inclusion.” Their efforts include various student organizations calling attention
to discriminatory practices and protesting for campus reforms, particularly
beginning in the late 1960s and 1970s,8 students’ quest for promoting inclusionand diversity across racial, ethnic and national lines in the 1990s,9 and somenation-wide student activism addressing inclusion issues utilizing technology in
6

7

8

9

46

In particular, Young criticized the premise of argument in political communication andthe assumption of unity in deliberative democracy, and made some revisions to thismodel. Her revised theory called “communicative democracy” proposes the use ofgreeting, rhetoric and narrative, in addition to argument, to ensure that the voices ofdiverse citizens are heard in democratic discussions. For more, see Iris Marion Young,
Inclusion and Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Iris Marion Young,“Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy,” in Intersecting Voices:
Dilemmas of Gender, Political Philosophy, and Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1997), 60-74.
Other theoretical works developing the conceptions of democracy include, Paul Healy,“Situated Cosmopolitanism, and the Conditions of Its Possibility: Transformative
Dialogue as a Response to the Challenge of Difference,” Cosmos and History: The Journal of
Natural and Social Philosophy 7, no. 2 (2011): 157-78; John S. Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy
and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
See Robert A. Rhoads, “Student Activism, Diversity, and the Struggle for a Just Society,”
Journal of Diversity in Higher Education 9, no. 3 (2016): 190-93; Robert A. Rhoads, Freedom’s
Web: Student Activism in an Age of Cultural Diversity (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2000), 28-60; Christopher J. Broadhurst and Angel L. Velez, “Historicaland Contemporary Contexts of Student Activism in U.S. Higher Education,” in Student
Activism, Politics, and Campus Climate in Higher Education, ed. Demetri L. Morgan andCharles H.F. Davis III (New York: Routledge, 2019), 5-12.
An increasing number of students in the 1990s took part in various activism, particularly
concerning issues of multiculturalism, group identity, and promoting diversity. Some
prominent student protests of the 1990s, including students’ protest at Mills College and
UCLA students’ protest for the elevation of Chicano Studies, reflect what Robert A.
Rhoads calls “collective consciousness,” as various student groups were willing toorganize movements collectively and support each other across racial, ethnic andnational lines. See Broadhurst and Velez, 15-6; Rhoads, Freedom’s Web, 219-44.

“It’s about Being Wanted”: Creating a “Gender-Inclusive” Campus at U.S. Women’s Colleges

the more recent years.10 The “inclusion” issue that students at women’s colleges
have been pushing forward in recent years, therefore, is situated within thislarger debate on inclusion and democracy, and has emerged as part of thedecades-long history of college and university students fighting for “inclusion”
that have profoundly shaped the meaning of higher education.
This paper, therefore, explores the issue of “gender inclusivity” within thisbroader deliberative democracy context by focusing on student activism inwomen’s colleges. In particular it investigates how contemporary students arepushing women’s colleges to think further about the meaning of “inclusion”
beyond the issue of enrollment. Examining how students have created new
avenues of discussion and deliberation through student newspapers and studentled activism, this paper reveals that while adopting trans-inclusive admissions
policies was indeed a step forward in creating an “inclusive” space at women’scolleges, it in fact opened up a range of additional issues that students havepushed forward through activism aimed at making women’s colleges more“inclusive.” As deliberative democracy advocates have suggested, this activism
has in fact led to a larger dialogue about the meaning of “inclusion.” While somestudents center their definition on the needs of gender non-conforming students
to foster “inclusion” on campus, others fear that such an emphasis could in fact
lead to oppressing or marginalizing other groups of students and counteracting
efforts at “inclusion.” In short, student activism has opened campuses to newperspectives and new voices that demonstrate a conundrum deliberative
democracy seeks to mediate. While centering the needs of trans and/or gender
non-conforming students is vital for fostering “inclusion,” campus activism hasrevealed that these attempts at fostering “inclusion” have the ironic potential of
reproducing the “oppression” and “marginalization” that students themselves
have been so actively trying to avoid.
10

Some recent, notable student activism utilizing technology include, “I, Too, Am, Harvard(ITA)” movement and the activism led by “Smith Q&A.” For the role of visual and social
media in student organizing ITA movement, see Richard S. L. Blissett and Dominique J.
Baker, “Seeing is More than Believing: Visual Media, Social Media, and Anti-Racism on
College Campuses,” PUBLIC: Arts, Design, Humanities 4, no. 1 (2018): https://public.
imaginingamerica.org/blog/article/seeing-is-more-than-believing-visual-media-socialmedia-and-anti-racism-on-college-campuses/; As for “Smith Q&A” activism, see Colt KeoMeier and Lance Hicks, “Youth,” in Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for theTransgender Community, ed. Laura Erickson-Schroth (New York: Oxford University Press,
2014), 471.
47

論

文

As Young has written in her study on inclusion and democracy, when there
are diverse groups with “very different values, perspectives, and assumptions
they bring to the issue,” deep disagreement could arise. 11 Under suchcircumstances, it becomes critical that all participants understand “the sources
and terms of disagreement . . . if they are to do justice.” 12 The complex,
somewhat paradoxical reality students are facing over deep disagreements
about what specifically defines “inclusion,” therefore, represents a significant
challenge to creating “inclusive” spaces in women’s colleges today wherestudents are not just enrolled, but are “wanted.” Putting this conundrum at thecenter, this paper contributes to expanding our understanding of the larger
debates about how student activism helps reshape and redefine the role ofwomen’s colleges in the twenty-first century through the issues of “inclusion.”

Lack of“Inclusion”: Problems Students Have Confronted“Trans Women Belong at Smith.” This is the sentiment used in a social media
photo campaign launched by Smith Q&A, the student activists at Smith College,in 2013. 13 In support of the admission of Calliope Wong, a trans woman
applicant, a large number of Smith students and their allies across the country
joined this campaign, posting their photos with this sentiment on social media.
Along with the stories Wong shared on her Tumblr blog, this activism spreadwidely, leading to a nationwide debate and eventually resulting in many
women’s colleges changing their admissions policies to be trans-inclusive since2014. And as of 2022, over twenty women’s colleges (including Smith) haveannounced admissions policies that officially allow trans and other gender nonconforming students to enroll at women’s colleges. These new policies led many
gender non-conforming students and their allies to expect that women’scolleges would make their spaces “inclusive” of diverse gender identities andfoster a sense of “belonging.”

11
12
13

48

Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 44.
Young, 44.
“Smith Q&A” is an official student organization founded in 2013 at Smith College,
advocating for the adoption of trans-inclusive admissions policies at women’s colleges. It
helped educate the campus community about transgender women by holding an online
photo campaign and organizing an online trans-national petition with change.org. See
Keo-Meier and Hicks, “Youth,” 471.

“It’s about Being Wanted”: Creating a “Gender-Inclusive” Campus at U.S. Women’s Colleges

Admission Policies
However, for the past eight years (2014-2022), it seems that such expectations
have not been sufficiently met as students confront a lack of “inclusion” invarious places. First and foremost, since the announcement of the newadmissions policies, students have claimed that women’s colleges have not been
active enough to advertise their new policies or to recruit trans students.
Having witnessed a lack of active recruitment at the Office of Admissions, forinstance, a Mount Holyoke student named Emily Jetmore (’18) who worked as atour guide, urged the Office to “actively seek out trans students and market
Mount Holyoke for what it is.”14 Students also point out as problematic the term
“women’s college” since they believe that the term “women” tends to only
refer to cisgender women. They claim that it sends the message “that [their]cisgender female students are the primary focus of [the] institution”15 and“[erases] or [diminishes] the existence of trans students, nonbinary students andanyone else who does not solely identify as a cis women.”16 Student activists
have therefore suggested calling their institutions an “historically women’scollege,” a “gender-diverse women’s college,” or a “women-centered college.”
However, as one Bryn Mawr College student said, tour guides were not allowed
to call Bryn Mawr a “historically women’s college,” which often led to “[omitting]key parts of their experiences at Bryn Mawr” and giving “a less authentic
picture of the school” to prospective students.17 Likewise, according to one
student at Mount Holyoke, until around 2017 guides at Mount Holyoke weretold to use the term “women’s college” and to mention the school’s trans14

Emily Jetmore, “Admissions Needs to Acknowledge and Respect Transgender
Students,” Mount Holyoke News, March 31, 2017, https://www.mountholyokenews.com/
opinion/2017/3/31/admissions-needs-to-acknowledge-and-respect-transgender-students
15 Philosophy Students, “Letter to the President from Philosophy Students Regarding‘Women’s College’ Title,” The Simmons Voice, April 14, 2017, https://simmonsvoice.
com/8312/2016-2017/letter-to-the-president-from-philosophy-students-regarding-womenscollege-title/
16 Declan Langton, “Administration Grapples with Diversity Recognition: What Is a
‘Women’s College ’?” Mount Holyoke News, October 27, 2019, http://www.
mountholyokenews.com/campus-life/2019/10/27/administration-grapples-with-diversityrecognition-what-is-a-womens-college
17 Leo Baudhuin, “Women’s College on Paper, Not in Practice: Trans and Nonbinary
Students Reflect on Life at Bryn Mawr,” The Bi-College News, March 6, 2020, https://
bicollegenews.com/2020/03/06/womens-college-on-paper-not-in-practice-trans-andnonbinary-students-reflect-on-life-at-bryn-mawr/
49

論

文

inclusive admissions policy only when asked.18
As students’ experiences show, women’s colleges, while officially stating thatthey welcome trans and/or gender non-conforming students, have not marketed
these changes openly to prospective students. A number of students in fact had
not even known about the new policies prior to entry. Kai Chuckas (’20), whocame out as trans in high school, checked the “female” box in his application
because he was not aware that womanhood was not required at Mount Holyoke
College.19 Another Mount Holyoke student, David Nejezchleba (’22), also thought“it was a women’s college” when applying.20 In addition, public records indicatedthat few trans women have enrolled since 2014. One of them, Genevieve Love(’22), said that while she was not expecting to meet “a ton of trans womenstudents” at Bryn Mawr, she was surprised instead to “not find any at all.”21
There is also a significant absence of trans women of color. Ninotska Love (’20),
one of the first out trans women of color at Wellesley College, hoped that she
would not be “the only trans woman of color in [her] class” and believed that“[t]here has to be one for others to follow.”22 Yet trans women of color sufferbarriers not just from their gender identity, but from socioeconomic factors thatmake it hard to finance their education. This led two trans women at Mills
College, Erin Armstrong and Mia Satya, to call for extending scholarships totrans women of color to actively recruit them to Mills.23 As these students
claimed, if women’s colleges continued to resist marketing their new policies or
actively recruiting diverse gender groups, it would be very difficult to make agender-diverse and inclusive space that their colleges had opened in their new
admissions policies.

18

19
20
21
22

23

50

Nora Caplan-Bricker, “Who Is a Women’s College For? As Transgender Students Claim
Their Space, Traditionalists See an Identity Crisis,” The Chronicle of Higher Education,
January 20, 2019, https://www.chronicle.com/article/who-is-a-womens-collegefor/?cid2=gen_login_refresh&cid=gen_sign_in
Caplan-Bricker, “A Women’s College.”
Langton, “Administration Grapples.”Baudhuin, “Women’s College on Paper.”Hugh Ryan, “Themstory: What It’s Like to Be Trans at a Women’s College,” Hugh Ryan,
February 27, 2018, http://www.hughryan.org/recent-work/2018/2/27/themstory-whatits-like-to-be-trans-at-a-womens-college
Ari Nussbaum, “‘I Belong Here’: Transgender Women Discuss Experiences on Campus,”
The Campanil, April 4, 2015, http://eic.opalstacked.com/i-belong-here-transgender-womendiscuss-experiences-on-campus/

“It’s about Being Wanted”: Creating a “Gender-Inclusive” Campus at U.S. Women’s Colleges

Gendered Language
Lack of “inclusion” is not only present at the time of entry. Students havealso faced it on campus, particularly in the widespread use of genderedlanguage, both at institutional and interpersonal levels. At the institutional level,
many women’s college communications continue to use terms such as “women,”“ladies,” “she” or “her.” Hearing and seeing such terms in Convocation,
Commencement, college websites and official documents, many trans and/or
gender non-conforming students have felt excluded, ignored, or devalued inwhat it supposed to be a “gender-inclusive” campus environment. Caedyn
Busche (’17), a trans student at Mount Holyoke, strongly criticized genderedlanguage used to “maintain that every single person at this school is awoman.” 24 Since many trans and/or gender non-conforming students find“women,” “ladies,” and “she” pronouns gender exclusive language, they are
troubled by college administrators continually using these terms for institutional
communication.
The use of gendered language has also complicated everyday interpersonal
relations. Students at many colleges, including Simmons University, revealed
that trans and non-binary students have faced exclusion on a daily basis by theways in which faculty assumed their pronouns to be she/her/hers. One transstudent at Simmons, for instance, has been misgendered in their classes, which
often made them “dread going to class” and led to “a negative impact on [their]
performance in those classes.”25 The use of gendered language has also been asensitive issue in interactions with alums. The struggle Sarah/Sal Cosmedy (’20)
experienced is a good example. As a member of the V8s, an a cappella group at
Mount Holyoke, Cosmedy, who then identified as a genderfluid transmasculine
person, often performed at alum events where alums always welcomed thegroup with “an overtly feminine category,” greeting with, for example,

24

Caedyn Busche, “The Administration Cannot Continue to Ignore Trans Students,” Mount
Holyoke News, September 29, 2016, http://www.mountholyokenews.com/
opinion/2016/9/29/the-administration-cannot-continue-to-ignore-trans-students
25 Lennox Orion, “Misgendering and Microaggressions: Students’ Call for Identity
Awareness,” The Simmons Voice, March 23, 2017, https://simmonsvoice.com/8039/
features/misgendering-and-microaggressions-students-call-for-identity-awareness/
51

論

文

“Welcomes, ladies!”26 On the one hand, Cosmedy, who at that time also used he/him pronouns, understood that alums were trying to be kind, using suchgendered language “to extend hospitality and make [them] feel welcome,” which
they were grateful for.27 However, at the same time, Cosmedy was hurt because
they were misgendered over and over again. Cosmedy stated, “It’s hard tounderstand how especially isolating it is to be excluded from language that is
intended to be kind . . . I know in my heart that they care so much, but still I’m
wounded because I feel excluded by their attempt at inclusion.”28 Cosmedy
clearly straddled between alum’s intentions of being inclusive of the V8smembers and the feeling of exclusion they received as a result. And while
Cosmedy wished to correct them for misgendering them, they found it scary to
do so considering that alums are important donors to the College. Assuming all
students identify as “women” and use she/her/hers for pronouns is indeed
harmful for trans and/or gender non-conforming students as it implies only twogenders exist, erasing the presence of those who identify outside of the genderbinary. Thus, as one Barnard College student claimed, such assumption“questions the identity that non-binary and transgender people have developed
over the years.” 29 Yet Cosmedy’s struggle also reveals how complex andsensitive the issue surrounding gendered language is, particularly in interaction
with alums. Those alums seem to use gendered language as a way to be more“inclusive” while the very same language makes trans and/or gender nonconforming students feel “excluded.”Institutional Memory
In addition to the use of gendered language, another “inclusion” issue
students have faced is the absence of official documentations about theexperiences of trans and/or gender non-conforming students. While working on

26

Sarah/Sal Cosmedy, “As Mount Holyoke Evolves, Alums Must Too,” Mount Holyoke News,May 1, 2018, http://www.mountholyokenews.com/visibility/2018/5/1/as-mount-holyokeevolves-alums-must-too
27 Cosmedy, “Mount Holyoke Evolves.” As several articles subsequently published on
Mount Holyoke News suggest Cosmedy’s changing preference for they/them pronouns,
the present paper uses they/them to refer to Cosmedy.
28 Cosmedy.
29 Angela Tran, “Perfecting the Pronouns,” The Barnard Bulletin, December 2018/January
2019, 32, https://issuu.com/barnardbulletin/docs/december_18_issu/152

“It’s about Being Wanted”: Creating a “Gender-Inclusive” Campus at U.S. Women’s Colleges

his thesis at Smith College, Sam Davis (’17) noticed the lack of information
about the history of trans students in the Sophia Smith archives, which madehim question why the trans student body, “a present force” of the college, is
excluded from the college archives.30 Likewise, students at Wellesley pointed
out the lack of accessible data on the experiences of trans students in The
Wellesley News (the independent student newspaper of Wellesley College), as wellas the alumnae magazine and Wellesley’s official data on student bodydemographics. They argue that since “the selection of which datasets arecollected and published is not without bias,” the lack of accessible data or“archival silence” on trans students at Wellesley is “either a deliberate
administrative choice or a form of neglect on their part.”31 They consider theirabsence from the archival record and the colleges’ official documentations
another form of exclusion.
In short, although women’s colleges officially began welcoming trans and/or
gender non-conforming students, there are still many barriers to the creation ofa “gender-inclusive” campus. Without making efforts to market the newadmissions policies, to use gender affirming language both at institutional andinterpersonal levels, and to officially acknowledge their presence in the campus
community, women’s colleges give the impression that trans and/or gender
non-conforming students are left behind, excluded and less “wanted.”

Pursuing“Inclusion”: Student-Led Activism and Dialogue
Recognizing the lack of “inclusion” for trans and/or gender non-conforming
students, students at women’s colleges have been actively pursuing “inclusion”
by raising awareness of the problems they have faced and taking action toestablish gender-inclusive practices and policies to make trans and/or gender
non-conforming students feel “wanted” and “included.” Various student-led
efforts have demonstrated the importance of centering the needs of trans and/30

Patience Kayira, “Sam Davis Presents ‘In Our Own Words’ in His Powerful Senior
Thesis,” The Sophian, April 27, 2017, https://thesophian.com/sam-davis-presents-in-ourown-words-in-his-powerful-senior-thesis/
31 The Wellesley News Staff, “We’re Not All ‘Wellesley Women’ Anymore. What’s Taking
the College So Long to See That?,” The Wellesley News, May 13, 2021, https://thewellesleynews.com/2021/05/13/were-not-all-wellesley-women-anymore-whats-takingthe-college-so-long-to-see-that/
53

論

文

or gender non-conforming students and called for more actions to be taken byboth college administrations and student body to make actual changes on
campus.

College Administration
First, students’ efforts have focused on the role of college administrations.
Using various approaches, students have urged administrators to raiseawareness of the harmful effects of using gendered language, the lack ofaccessible data on trans experiences, as well as the necessity to support transwomen of color. Students majoring and minoring in philosophy at Simmons
University, for example, collectively wrote a letter to the then President Helen
G. Drinan to make a request that she reconsider calling Simmons a “women’scollege.” As the term “women’s college” used in Drinan’s email to the Simmonscommunity “ignores and delegitimizes the experiences and needs of trans andgender nonconforming students,” they called attention to “the lack ofunderstanding of diversity [they] see in [their] university’s administration” andurged Drinan to “bridge this gap of knowledge and support” and take action tounderstand the students’ needs.32
A number of students also published opinion articles in colleges’ student
newspapers regarding the use of she/her/hers pronouns in institutional
communication. One of the articles published in Mount Holyoke News in 2016, forinstance, was a student’s harsh criticism of the use of she/her/hers on theuniversity Diploma,33 which later helped push the registrar’s office to investigate
and to eventually change the language on the Diploma. The Diploma now
describes a Diploma holder in a genderless way.34
Also, some student called for more administrative attention to trans lives on
campus by making a film and an archive specifically centering on theexperiences of trans and non-binary students. A senior thesis project by Sam
Davis (’17) communicated a strong message to the administration that transstudents are present in the campus community and that they deserve more

32 Philosophy Students, “Letter to the President.”
33 Busche, “The Administration Cannot Continue.”
34 Eileen O’grady, “Diplomas to Display Gender-Neutral Language This Year,” Mount
Holyoke News, April 13, 2017, http://www.mountholyokenews.com/news/2017/4/13/
diplomas-to-display-gender-neutral-language-this-year
54

“It’s about Being Wanted”: Creating a “Gender-Inclusive” Campus at U.S. Women’s Colleges

visibility. Davis, noticing the lack of documentations of trans lives in Sophia
Smith archives, conducted interviews with Smith students and alumni who
identified as trans and/or non-binary for his documentary project entitled “In
Our Own Words: On Being Trans at Smith,” and created the first trans archiveat Smith.35 He explored how trans and/or non-binary students would fit into
Smith’s vision of “women for the world” and the kinds of support ordiscouragement they received from the administration and their peers.36 His
work has been a significant addition to the Smith College Archives, further
raising awareness of trans experiences to the administration and Smith
community as a whole.
Furthermore, student-led efforts even pushed the administration toacknowledge the need to address the intersection of race and gender identity atMills, which resulted in creating the Miss Major Scholarship, a scholarshipspecifically for trans women of color. Seeing the administration failing to takethe lead on addressing the lack of representation of trans women of color, Erin
Armstrong, a president of Gender Splendor (a campus club specifically made forthe discussion of gender identity at Mills), said that the club felt urged to push
this issue forward by themselves and met with dean of students to create thisscholarship. Armstrong believes that this scholarship not only “[sends] amessage that [trans women of color] are wanted” but also “seeks to address thesocioeconomic barriers that stand in their way.”37
Using different strategies, students have organized and taken action urging
their administrations to acknowledge the problems that hinder the creation of“inclusion” on campus. And by showing how the problems can be overcome,they have pushed college administrators to make real changes to help transand/or gender non-conforming students feel “wanted” and “included.”Student Body
Student-led efforts have also demonstrated that creating an “inclusive” space
35

36
37

Kayira, “Sam Davis.” Also see Trans Archive Oral History Project by Sam Davis, 20162017, CA-MS-01201, Smith College Archives Repository, Neilson Library, Northampton,
MA, U.S.A.
Davis, Trans Archive Oral History.
Abbey Flentje, “Gender Splendor Spearheads Efforts to Make Mills More Inclusive,” TheCampanil, December 2, 2015, http://eic.opalstacked.com/gender-splendor-spearheadsefforts-to-make-mills-more-inclusive/
55

論

文

requires active involvement of the entire student body, not just specificindividuals. Campus-wide student involvement, in short, is critical to raisingawareness of the “inclusion” issues and to creating a space where trans and/or
gender non-conforming students can feel “wanted.” At Bryn Mawr, for example,
students’ preferred names are now everywhere and there is a common,
campus-wide practice for students to introduce themselves with their names
and preferred pronouns. One non-binary student said that since this campuswide habit was “already [in school] before [they] got to school,” it wasreassuring and helped them “feel instantly comfortable upon stepping onto
campus.”38 Students’ collective efforts to make this campus-wide habit played an
important role in creating such “comfortable” spaces for gender non-conforming
students.
At Mills, the campus club Gender Splendor also asserted the importance ofstudent involvement in Trans Week of Visibility (TWV), “a week of activities atMills aimed at creating space for transgender, gender variant and gender nonconforming people on campus,” 39 which they began hosting in 2015 inconjunction with Transgender Day of Visibility.40 Acknowledging a lack ofspaces for trans students, the club, as part of TWV activities, put up signs invarious places on campus that said, “Trans* people (blank) here,” and asked
students to fill in the blank to describe who trans people are and/or what transpeople do.41 A sign posted to the entrance pillar, for example, read “Trans*
people go to school here.”42 Others included, “Trans* people are welcome here”
and “Trans* people belong here.”43 This activity, involving and encouraging
students’ active participation across campus, highlighted the idea that each
student matters in acknowledging the presence of trans people and creating an“inclusive” space for them. The activity was so appealing to the student body
38
39
40
41

42
43
56

Baudhuin, “Women’s College on Paper.”Britt Hart, “Trans Week of Visibility Celebrates Transgender Lives at Mills,” TheCampanil, March 31, 2016, http://eic.opalstacked.com/trans-week-of-visibility/
Transgender Day of Visibility is an event that annually occurs on March 31 to celebratetransgender people and raise awareness of discrimination they have faced.
Hart, “Trans Week of Visibility.” Also see Samantha Lachman, “Women’s Colleges Are
Admitting Trans and Gender-Fluid Applicants. Now What?,” HuffPost, Published May 5,
2015; Last modified December 6, 2017, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trans-policieswomens-colleges_n_7183892
Hart, “Trans Week of Visibility.”Hart.

“It’s about Being Wanted”: Creating a “Gender-Inclusive” Campus at U.S. Women’s Collegesthat students asked that the signs stay up even after TWV was over.44
These student-led efforts demonstrate that creating an “inclusive” space does
not just mean making a specific area or group on campus, but means creating awidespread “inclusive” practice and a welcoming atmosphere all across campus
so that no matter where on campus they go, trans and/or gender nonconforming students can feel safe for being who they are and feel a sense of
belonging. And to make it happen, campus-wide student involvement isnecessary.

Struggles among Gender Groups
To address the problems faced by trans and/or gender non-conforming
students, students have taken action to pursue “inclusion” and proposed a wide
range of ways to improve the campus environment. However, in an effort topursue “inclusion,” some groups of students whose gender identities areperceived as “privileged” on campus have deeply straddled between their
expected “role” to support other gender minorities and the college’s womencentered traditions.

Cisgender Students
One such student group is cisgender women. As some student-led efforts
have highlighted, within the entire student body, there is a specific role thatcisgender women are expected to serve. That is, cisgender women are expectedto acknowledge their “privilege” and take the lead in supporting trans and/or
gender non-conforming students on campus. As Bradley Campbell and Jason
Manning claim, “Any individual person can be classified in terms of multiplesocially meaningful categories” such as “black or white, male or female, gay or
straight, Christian or Muslim.”45 Since having memberships in not only somemore advantaged categories but also some more disadvantaged ones is common
for many people, they argue that “not even members of marginalized groups
are safe from accusations of being privileged and insensitive to the suffering of

44 Lachman, “Women’s Colleges Are Admitting.”
45 Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe
Spaces, and the New Culture Wars (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 167.
57

論

文

the less fortunate.”46 In women’s colleges today, some groups of students
believe that cisgender women are in more advantaged categories, or have more“privilege,” than other gender groups. For example, one trans student at Mount
Holyoke described that there exists a hierarchy in Mount Holyoke, which starts
with “white, cis, heterosexual women” at the top.47 He claimed that while
women still struggle against men in a larger society, it is important tounderstand that because there is “a different positioning in this insulated four
years,” cisgender students need to “acknowledge their power and privilege.”48
Students holding similar views, therefore, believe that it is cisgender women
who should take the initiative in working on “inclusion” issues and actively
fighting for their trans peers.
Since the adoption of trans-inclusive admissions policies, students with suchviews have been pushing their cisgender peers to acknowledge and use their“privilege” to support trans and/or gender non-conforming students. In
particular, these students have actively published opinion articles in student-led
newspapers, which mainly explain what cisgender women should do to be goodallies to their trans peers. For example, an article by a cisgender woman Chloe
Jensen (’20) demonstrates that while correcting misgendering can often be
unsafe for trans students, it never is for cisgender students, including herself.49
In supporting trans and non-binary students, therefore, she tells her cisgenderpeers to not only introduce themselves with pronouns and use trans and nonbinary students’ correct pronouns even when they are not in the room, but also
actively correct each other when they misgender trans or non-binary students.
Doing so, she argues, would lead not only to respecting trans and non-binary
identities, but also to telling other cisgender students to continue respecting
them.50 Jensen, acknowledging that she is “not only perceived as a woman” atMount Holyoke but also “as a woman in a place that specifically caters to [her]and other cis women,” highlights the importance of cisgender women educatingeach other so that they can normalize the practice of respecting trans and/or
46
47
48
49

50
58

Campbell and Manning, Victimhood Culture, 168.
Caplan-Bricker, “A Women’s College.”
Caplan-Bricker.
Chloe Jensen, “Discussing Gender at a Historically Women’s College,” Mount Holyoke
News, October 27, 2016, https://www.mountholyokenews.com/opinion/2016/10/27/
discussing-gender-at-a-historically-womens-college?rq=privilege
Jensen, “Discussing Gender.”“It’s about Being Wanted”: Creating a “Gender-Inclusive” Campus at U.S. Women’s Colleges

non-binary identities on campus.51
Many trans and other gender and sexual minority students expect suchsupport from cisgender women for the same reason. In an article titled “AnOpen Letter to Cis Women,” Hayley Van Allen (’21) at Scripps College
maintained that in supporting trans peers on campus “[w]hite cis women
especially cannot remain silent when given the privilege and ability to fightagainst transphobia with few repercussions,” further claiming that they should“amplify the voices of trans folks,” using “their cis privilege on behalf of theirtrans siblings” and “organizing and showing up for protests that center transfolks.”52
As these students reveal, cisgender women are now expected to fully use
their “privilege” to help create a better place for trans and/or gender nonconforming students. The perceived “hierarchy” in women’s colleges seems tohave created a new expected role and/or duty for cisgender women in making
an “inclusive” space for trans and/or gender non-conforming students.
However, some cisgender women find this perceived “privilege” or
expectation problematic. One cisgender woman at Mount Holyoke feels that
because there is a perception that “the one who isn’t privileged is the one who
isn’t a woman here,” cisgender women who are perceived as more “privileged”
in women’s colleges are expected to prioritize the needs of the mostmarginalized students to care about social justice.53 And yet, as anothercisgender woman suggests, cisgender women are still fighting against sexism insociety. She thinks it is important for the College to acknowledge that“educating women is still radical in and of itself.”54 She thus demonstrates thatwhile she believes trans and gender non-conforming students also belong at
Mount Holyoke, the College is still “a place that is for women, that recognizes
there are people who have had experiences similar to women who don’t
identify as women.”55 As Campbell and Manning argued that people “whocombine many victim identities will claim and be accorded greater moral status

51
52
53
54
55

Jensen.
Hayley Van Allen, “An Open Letter to Cis Women,” The Scripps Voice, February 28, 2019,http://scrippsvoice.com/an-open-letter-to-cis-women/
Caplan-Bricker, “A Women’s College.”
Caplan-Bricker.
Caplan-Bricker.
59

論

文

than those with only a few,”56 cisgender women, who are considered having
fewer so-called “victim identities” in women’s colleges, seem to straddle
between the college’s women-centered traditions and their new expected roleto center the needs of the less “privileged.”Trans Men Students
Another student group who has similarly struggled with their perceived“privilege” is trans men. As one trans student describes himself as having “thejuxtaposition of a body that can contain both an oppressed group and an
oppressive one—a transgender person and the perception of a white man,”57
trans men are often perceived to be in both privileged and less privileged
groups. In women’s colleges, because of their identification as male, they areoften perceived to be more “privileged” than other gender groups. For instance,
Leo Rachman (’20) noticed that after his medical transition to male, people’s
reactions have changed in class. Knowing that some trans men could “[embody]
toxic masculine traits” when they start taking hormones, he claimed in anarticle he wrote before the transition that when he goes on hormones he would
hope to “remain kind and giving” and try his best to “stay true to [himself].”58
As his article suggests, he believes he has not changed his way of contributing
to class discussion since transition. However, he feels that when he speaks up
people now react to his “male” voice differently, making him feel “not welcome,or that [he’s] taking up too much space in the department.”59 Trans men, while
being perceived as another “oppressed” gender minority for being transgender,
are also considered having certain “power” or “privilege” since they now passas “men.” Thus, in women’s colleges where education has been traditionallycentered on women to rival that of male-only institutions, they tend to encountermoments where they feel unwelcome or feel pressured to police their behaviors.
While acknowledging the importance of centering the needs of trans and/or
gender non-conforming students, some student groups have struggled with the
56
57

Campbell and Manning, Victimhood Culture, 167-8.
Hunter R. Myers, “Smith’s Trans Problem,” The Sophian, December 8, 2017, https://thesophian.com/2017-12-8-smiths-trans-problem-564te/
58 Leo Rachman, “Navigating Personal Masculinities for Trans Men,” Mount Holyoke News,
April 15, 2018, http://www.mountholyokenews.com/visibility/2018/4/15/navigatingpersonal-masculinities-for-trans-men
59 Caplan-Bricker, “A Women’s College.”60

“It’s about Being Wanted”: Creating a “Gender-Inclusive” Campus at U.S. Women’s Colleges

feeling of oppression. Perceived as having more “privilege” than other gendergroups on campus, both cisgender women and trans men feel somewhatpressured to police their own language and behaviors for the purpose ofcelebrating “inclusion” for their peers with other gender identities. It is as if
policing their behavior or silencing their voice became a responsibility that
ensures that the voices of the more “marginalized” can be heard.

Conclusion
With the rise of coeducational colleges across the country, women are allowed
to attend not just women’s colleges but any college or university in the U.S.
today, including the ones that once only admitted men. In such an era, students
who intentionally “choose” to attend a women’s college do not just go there to
get an education. They actively participate in debating the role of women’scolleges, asking why women’s colleges matter today, and through activism they
push their institutions to make meaningful changes. As their recent activism
focusing on creating trans-inclusive admissions policies demonstrates, students
are not passive recipients of a college education. Rather, they are the central
driving force for actively defining and shaping the meaning of women’s colleges.
Our analysis of students’ recent activism on “gender inclusivity” further
highlights their continued efforts. While officially admitting trans and/or gender
non-conforming students was a significant step forward in making women’scolleges “inclusive,” students have shown that this is not enough. Recognizing a
range of existing “inclusion” issues (e.g., the widespread use of genderedlanguage) that make trans and/or gender non-conforming students feelunwelcome or less “wanted,” students have not only called attention to thoseissues but engaged in various activism and dialogue to solve them. As an
individual, a group or an organization, a large number of students took action toestablish gender-inclusive practices and policies using different approaches,
including publishing opinion articles, organizing gender awareness events andcreating a trans archive. By so doing, they have pushed both theiradministrations and the student body to acknowledge existing issues and toproactively make a difference for trans and/or gender non-conforming students.
And yet, for all the student activism that has pushed forward many crucialchanges around the issue of “inclusion,” students deeply struggle with the

61

論

文

meaning of “inclusion.” As various student-led efforts we examined demonstrate,
most students agree that fostering “inclusion” must center on the needs oftrans and/or gender non-conforming students. However, some fear that
fostering “inclusion” this way could “oppress” and “marginalize” others,
precisely the sorts of exclusion students are trying to overcome. Perceived ashaving more “privilege” in women’s colleges, some cisgender women and transmen in fact have felt pressured to police their behavior or to silence their voice
for the purpose of embracing “inclusion” for their less “privileged” peers. A
sense of discomfort, in short, was generated in an effort to create an “inclusive”
atmosphere for them. Given the obvious fact that cisgender women and transmen are also part of a campus community, their struggles urge the community
to question whether a space created based on such pressures and a sense of
discomfort could truly be an “inclusive” environment for all. Their struggles
suggest that centering the needs of trans and/or gender non-conforming
students to the point where other students are pressured to feel the need tosilence their voices may not lead to the creation of an “inclusive” space in atrue sense.
As studies on inclusion and democracy suggest, differences, disagreement or
struggle frequently emerge and are highlighted in public discussion, particularly
when there are differing values, interests or perspectives among participants.
The students’ active pursuit of “inclusion” in contemporary women’s colleges
also highlights this point, revealing their struggles over what specifically defines“inclusion” and demonstrating the complexity of achieving “inclusion” fordiverse gender identities. These debates also show that, as some deliberative
democracy theorists have suggested, any conclusion must rely on forms ofcommunication that do not favor or oppress any member of that conversation.
By sharing their struggles and addressing the complexity of this issue,
therefore, these students contribute to further involving the campus community
to think about what “inclusion” truly means and how it can be better promoted
in contemporary, gender-diverse women’s colleges.
Various student-led efforts that we examined, then, further demonstrate thecritical role of students in shaping and even democratizing contemporary
women’s colleges. From admissions policies to the creation of an “inclusive”
space on campus, it is students, rather than administrators, that actively pushedforward the issue of “gender inclusivity” and further illuminated the complexity

62

“It’s about Being Wanted”: Creating a “Gender-Inclusive” Campus at U.S. Women’s Collegesof what it means to be “inclusive” of diverse gender identities. Our investigationin this paper thus contributes to expanding our understanding of how student
activism confronts fundamental challenges of democratic decision-making,inclusion, and the continued challenge to institutional norms that are reshaping
the role of contemporary women’s colleges.
Bibliography
Allen, Hayley Van. “An Open Letter to Cis Women.” The Scripps Voice, February 28, 2019.
http://scrippsvoice.com/an-open-letter-to-cis-women/.
Armstrong, Erin. “Creating Space Means….” The Campanil, May 1, 2015. http://www.
thecampanil.com/creating-space-means/.
Baudhuin, Leo. “Women’s College on Paper, Not in Practice: Trans and Nonbinary Students
Reflect on Life at Bryn Mawr.” The Bi-College News, March 6, 2020. https://
bicollegenews.com/2020/03/06/womens-college-on-paper-not-in-practice-trans-andnonbinary-students-reflect-on-life-at-bryn-mawr/.
Blissett, Richard S. L., and Dominique J. Baker. “Seeing is More than Believing: Visual Media,
Social Media, and Anti-Racism on College Campuses.” PUBLIC: Arts, Design, Humanities
4, no. 1 (2018). https://public.imaginingamerica.org/blog/article/seeing-is-more-thanbelieving-visual-media-social-media-and-anti-racism-on-college-campuses/.
Broadhurst, Christopher J., and Angel L. Velez. “Historical and Contemporary Contexts ofStudent Activism in U.S. Higher Education.” In Student Activism, Politics, and Campus
Climate in Higher Education, edited by Demetri L. Morgan and Charles H.F. Davis III,
3-20. New York: Routledge, 2019.
Busche, Caedyn. “The Administration Cannot Continue to Ignore Trans Students.” Mount
Holyoke News, September 29, 2016. http://www.mountholyokenews.com/
opinion/2016/9/29/the-administration-cannot-continue-to-ignore-trans-students.
Campbell, Bradley, and Jason Manning. The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe
Spaces, and the New Culture Wars. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Caplan-Bricker, Nora. “Who Is a Women’s College For? As Transgender Students Claim
Their Space, Traditionalists See an Identity Crisis.” The Chronicle of Higher Education,
January 20, 2019. https://www.chronicle.com/article/who-is-a-womens-collegefor/?cid2=gen_login_refresh&cid=gen_sign_in.
Chambers, Simone. “Deliberative Democracy Theory.” Annual Review of Political Science 6, (June2003): 307-26.
Cohen, Joshua. “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy.” In The Good Polity: Normative
Analysis of the State, edited by Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit, 17-34. Oxford: BasilBlackwell, 1989.
Cosmedy, Sarah/Sal. “As Mount Holyoke Evolves, Alums Must Too.” Mount Holyoke News,May 1, 2018. http://www.mountholyokenews.com/visibility/2018/5/1/as-mountholyoke-evolves-alums-must-too.
Cunningham, Frank. Theories of Democracy: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, 2002.
Davis, Sam. Trans Archive Oral History Project. Smith College Archives Repository, Neilson
Library, Northampton, MA, U.S.A.
Dryzek, John S. Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2000.
Flentje, Abbey. “Gender Splendor Spearheads Efforts to Make Mills More Inclusive.” The
63

論

文

Campanil, December 2, 2015. http://eic.opalstacked.com/gender-splendor-spearheadsefforts-to-make-mills-more-inclusive/.
Habermas, Jürgen. The Theory of Communicative Action: Reason and the Rationalization of Society,
Volume.1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Translated by Thomas McCarthy.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1984.
Hart, Britt. “Trans Week of Visibility Celebrates Transgender Lives at Mills.” The Campanil,
March 31, 2016. http://eic.opalstacked.com/trans-week-of-visibility/.
Healy, Paul. “Situated Cosmopolitanism, and the Conditions of Its Possibility: Transformative
Dialogue as a Response to the Challenge of Difference.” Cosmos and History: The Journalof Natural and Social Philosophy 7, no. 2 (2011): 157-78.
Jensen, Chloe. “Discussing Gender at a Historically Women’s College.” Mount Holyoke News,
October 27, 2016. https://www.mountholyokenews.com/opinion/2016/10/27/
discussing-gender-at-a-historically-womens-college?rq=privilege.
Jetmore, Emily. “Admissions Needs to Acknowledge and Respect Transgender Students.”
Mount Holyoke News, March 31, 2017. https://www.mountholyokenews.com/
opinion/2017/3/31/admissions-needs-to-acknowledge-and-respect-transgenderstudents.
Kayira, Patience. “Sam Davis Presents ‘In Our Own Words’ in His Powerful Senior Thesis.”
The Sophian, April 27, 2017. https://thesophian.com/sam-davis-presents-in-our-ownwords-in-his-powerful-senior-thesis//.
Keo-Meier, Colt, and Lance Hicks. “Youth.” In Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for theTransgender Community, edited by Laura Erickson-Schroth, 446-75. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2014.
Lachman, Samantha. “Women’s Colleges Are Admitting Trans and Gender-Fluid Applicants.
Now What?” HuffPost, Published May 5, 2015; Last modified December 6, 2017. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trans-policies-womens-colleges_n_7183892.
Langton, Declan. “Administration Grapples with Diversity Recognition: What Is a ‘Women’sCollege’?” Mount Holyoke News, October 27, 2019. http://www.mountholyokenews.com/
campus-life/2019/10/27/administration-grapples-with-diversity-recognition-what-is-awomens-college.
Mansbridge, Jane J. “A Deliberative Theory of Interest Representation.” In The Politics ofInterests: Interest Groups Transformed, edited by Mark P. Petracca, 32-57. New York:
Routledge, 1992.
Myers, Hunter R. “Smith’s Trans Problem.” The Sophian, December 8, 2017. https://thesophian.com/2017-12-8-smiths-trans-problem-564te/.
Nussbaum, Ari. “‘I Belong Here’: Transgender Women Discuss Experiences on Campus.” TheCampanil, April 4, 2015. http://eic.opalstacked.com/i-belong-here-transgender-womendiscuss-experiences-on-campus/.
O’grady, Eileen. “Diplomas to Display Gender-Neutral Language This Year.” Mount Holyoke
News, April 13, 2017. http://www.mountholyokenews.com/news/2017/4/13/diplomasto-display-gender-neutral-language-this-year.
Orion, Lennox. “Misgendering and Microaggressions: Students’ Call for Identity Awareness.”
The Simmons Voice, March 23, 2017. https://simmonsvoice.com/8039/features/
misgendering-and-microaggressions-students-call-for-identity-awareness/.
Philosophy Students. “Letter to the President from Philosophy Students Regarding ‘Women’sCollege’ Title.” The Simmons Voice, April 14, 2017. https://simmonsvoice.com/8312/20162017/letter-to-the-president-from-philosophy-students-regarding-womens-college-title/.
Rachman, Leo. “Navigating Personal Masculinities for Trans Men.” Mount Holyoke News, April

64

“It’s about Being Wanted”: Creating a “Gender-Inclusive” Campus at U.S. Women’s Colleges

15, 2018. http://www.mountholyokenews.com/visibility/2018/4/15/navigatingpersonal-masculinities-for-trans-men.
Rhoads, Robert A. Freedom’s Web: Student Activism in an Age of Cultural Diversity. Baltimore, MD:
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
———. “Student Activism, Diversity, and the Struggle for a Just Society.” Journal of Diversity
in Higher Education 9, no. 3 (2016): 189-202.
Ryan, Hugh. “Themstory: What It’s Like to Be Trans at a Women’s College.” Hugh Ryan,
February 27, 2018. http://www.hughryan.org/recent-work/2018/2/27/themstorywhat-its-like-to-be-trans-at-a-womens-college.
Smith, Daryl G. Diversity’s Promise for Higher Education: Making It Work. 3rd ed. Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020.
Tran, Angela. “Perfecting the Pronouns.” The Barnard Bulletin, December 2018/January 2019.
https://issuu.com/barnardbulletin/docs/december_18_issu/1.
The Wellesley News Staff. “We’re Not All ‘Wellesley Women’ Anymore. What’s Taking theCollege So Long to See That?” The Wellesley News, May 13, 2021. https://thewellesleynews.com/2021/05/13/were-not-all-wellesley-women-anymore-whatstaking-the-college-so-long-to-see-that/.
Women’s College Coalition. Accessed April 22, 2022. https://www.womenscolleges.org/.
Young, Iris Marion. “Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy.” InIntersecting Voices: Dilemmas of Gender, Political Philosophy, and Policy, 60-74. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.
———. Inclusion and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

65

論

文

Abstract“It’s about Being Wanted”:
Creating a “Gender-Inclusive” Campus
at U.S. Women’s Colleges
Maki IKOMA
Since 2014, many women’s colleges in the United States have made big
institutional changes to foster diversity and inclusion by adopting trans-inclusive
admissions policies. However, as various student-led efforts have demonstrated,changing admissions policies alone does not automatically lead to creating an“inclusive” campus for diverse gender identities. This paper explores this issue
regarding “gender inclusivity” within the larger democratic context by focusing
on student activism in contemporary women’s colleges. In particular, it looks at
how students are pushing women’s colleges to think further about the meaningof “inclusion” beyond the issue of enrollment and how to create a “genderinclusive” campus.
Examining various student-led efforts at women’s colleges mainly throughstudent newspapers and student-led campus activism between 2014 and 2022,
this paper reveals the critical role of students in pushing forward the issue of“gender inclusivity” as well as their struggles over the meaning of “inclusion.”
Recognizing a range of existing “inclusion” issues that make transgender and/or gender non-conforming students feel unwelcome or less “wanted,” a large
number of students have taken action to establish gender-inclusive practices
and policies across campus, pushing both their administrations and the student
body to proactively make meaningful changes.
Yet as studies on inclusion and democracy suggest, students’ attempts at
fostering “inclusion” also reveal their struggles over what specifically defines“inclusion.” While most agree that fostering “inclusion” must center on theneeds of transgender and/or gender non-conforming students, some fear thatsuch an emphasis could in fact lead to “oppressing” or “marginalizing” othergroups of students and counteracting efforts at “inclusion.” Attempts at
fostering “inclusion,” in short, have the ironic potential of reproducing the“oppression” and “marginalization” that students have been trying hard to66

“It’s about Being Wanted”: Creating a “Gender-Inclusive” Campus at U.S. Women’s Colleges

overcome. This complex, somewhat paradoxical reality students have been
facing over the meaning of “inclusion,” therefore, represents a significant
challenge to creating a “gender-inclusive” campus.
Various student-led efforts, in short, demonstrate the critical role of students
in reshaping the meaning of women’s colleges. Through various forms ofactivism, students have not only raised awareness of the existing “inclusion”
issues, but further illuminated the complexity of promoting “inclusion” incontemporary, gender-diverse women’s colleges. This paper, by illustrating thiscomplexity, contributes to expanding our understanding of how student
activism continues to challenge institutional norms around the issue of“inclusion” and to reshape the role of contemporary women’s colleges.

67