Higher Education LGBT
Articles Digest #146
1. CARLISLE SENTINEL (Pennsylvania)
Esera Tuaolo speaks at Shippensburg University
2. LEGAL TIMES Column argues in favor of allowing Judge Advocate
General's Corps to recruit on law school campuses, despite the military's
anti-gay discrimination
3. DAILY HAMPSHIRE GAZETTE (Northampton, Mass.) Male to
female/Female tomale: profile of Mitch Boucher, a FTM graduate student at the
University of Massachusetts at Amherst,
4. CAMPUS PRESS Embracing multiple identities: Panel to discuss
international issues in the GLBT community
5. DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN (University of Pennsylvania) New LGBT
Center location reaches one-year milestone
6. ASSOCIATED PRESS Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry
is appealing for donations in an e-mail accusing the GOP of allowing the sale
of racist and antigay T-shirts at a convention of college Republicans this
summer
7. BROWN DAILY HERALD (Brown University) Column: Religion made
me do it
8. ALBANY TIMES-UNION (New York) Tolerance is an issue for gays
in college; Those living together in dorms can be at odds if they are of
different orientations
Carlisle Sentinel, September 24, 2003
Box 130, Carlisle, PA, 17013
(Fax: 717-243-3121 ) (E-Mail: frontdoor@cumberlink.com )
( http://www.cumberlink.com ) http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2003/09/24/sports/sports02.txt
TUAOLO SPEAKS AT SHIPPENSBURG UNIVERSITY
By Jeff Kayer
For nine years, Esera Tuaolo traveled between five NFL teams with a single mission - to sack the opposing quarterback. Today, almost four years after having retired from the game, his mission has changed.
On Oct. 31, 2002, Tuaolo told the public that he was gay. In fact, for most of his career, he lived with Mitchell Wherley, a man he is still with today.
Tuaolo said he did not feel safe enough to reveal his secret before then, because he thought the testosterone-dominated football world he lived in would almost surely spit him out.
"Being in that football culture is a whole different world," Tuaolo said. "If I came out when I played, I wouldn't have felt safe. Players could have tried to end my career, or I could have lost my job."
Now, almost a year after coming out with the truth, Tuaolo spoke to a large audience Tuesday night at Shippensburg University's Memorial Auditorium, the culmination of the University's Day of Human Understanding. It was the fourth annual Day of Human Understanding for the university.
"Its goal is to bring in people or groups who show diversity," said Dr. Peter Gigliotti, executive director of communication and marketing. "It is important that everyone on campus knows that we live in a very diverse world."
This year's Day of Understanding focused on homosexuality. Five workshops were presented Tuesday to students and faculty alike. The workshops dealt with discussions about same-sex parenting, gender roles, stereotypes and homophobia.
Tuaolo's speech was the final event of the day. He spoke to the audience about his life as a football player, the lie he had to live with during that career and how he managed to end up where he is today.
"I applaud this school and organization for bringing me in to speak," Tuaolo said. "So many schools are afraid of this issue. The message I hope to deliver in my speeches is that we are all human beings, and we should all be respected as that."
Tuaolo was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on July 11, 1968. After growing up on the island of Oahu, he attended Oregon State University, where he majored in speech communication.
Following college, he enjoyed a healthy nine-year career in the NFL, which began with the Green Bay Packers when they drafted him in the second round in 1990. Tuaolo went on to make the all-rookie team in 1991.
He played for the Minnesota Vikings, Jacksonville Jaguars, Atlanta Falcons and the Carolina Panthers during his career. In the 1998 season, Tuaolo played in Super Bowl XXXIII with the Falcons.
The Samoan appeared in a commercial for the Chili's restaurant chain earlier this year. He also is an accomplished musician, releasing a CD in 1995, and did some acting in Minnesota.
Currently, Tuaolo lives in Eden Prairie, Minn., with his partner, Mitchell, and their two children, who were adopted more than two years ago. Mitchell and Michele Tuaolo are 2 1/2-year-old twins.
While he enjoys being with his children, much of Tuaolo's time is spent talking to today's generation about accepting people for who they are. After his speech at Shippensburg, he will appear at the "Out & Equal Conference" in Minneapolis Oct. 3, and at Rutgers University Oct. 7.
Tuaolo says he feels like a new person since revealing his homosexuality to the public, but he never thought that the media coverage that came with it would be so large.
"I didn't think it was going to blow up like it did, but it became a worldwide event," Tuaolo said. "At first I was scared for the safety of my family."
Still, Tuaolo has no regrets about coming out. He said he has refused to live his life based on a lie.
"The reason no one knew about my homosexuality is that I did such a great job of concealing it," he said. "Mitchell would appear as different people. One time he would be my music manager, another time he would be my agent and so on."
What convinced Tuaolo to open up was an incident that occurred when he and Mitchell were on vacation at the Grand Canyon. After a fan approached Tuaolo, the former NFL player had to lie not only about Mitchell, but about his children's adoption.
"To that fan, I was a celebrity who adopted two kids by myself," Tuaolo said. "I said, 'We're not going to do this any more.' I wanted the best for my kids. I didn't want them to grow up and have to lie to them anymore."
As time has passed, Tuaolo said that making his homosexuality public has done more than just bring his family closer together.
"I feel a greater need to go out and talk to groups and people and speak about homophobia, diversity and tolerance," Tuaolo said.
Tuaolo entertained the crowd Tuesday with inspirational songs and with stories, such as the time he sacked former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Randall Cunningham in Tuaolo's rookie year, only to get an anxiety attack when he heard his name in the crowd, fearing someone would find out he was gay and reveal his secret.
Today, that fear is gone. No longer does he have to lie to friends or have to pretend his partner is someone else in public. He is truly a free man.
Legal Times, 22 September 2003
1730 M St., N.W. Suite 802, Washington, D.C. 20036
(Fax: 202-457-0718) (E-Mail: legaltimes@legaltimes.com )
WANT TO TEACH LAW STUDENTS PROFESSIONAL VALUES?
THEN STOP OBSTRUCTING JAG RECRUITMENT
By Eugene Kontorovich
Though the Judge Advocate General's Corps is back on most law school campuses for this fall's recruiting season, the controversy over military recruiting has just entered a new, and potentially more bitter, phase. A group of law schools, joined by a liberal association of law professors, filed suit last Friday in New Jersey federal court challenging the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment, a 1996 federal law that threatens to cut off funding to universities that bar the military from on-campus recruiting. The time is ripe to consider a new solution to the recruitment controversy, one that can be embraced by lawyers of all ideological persuasions.
A few elite law schools began barring the JAG Corps from recruitment in the late 1980s because of the military's discrimination against homosexuals. The ban was adopted by most schools in the early 1990s, prompted by the Clinton administration's much-publicized "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. In 1996, the Connecticut Supreme Court even upheld an injunction that barred public law schools from opening their doors to military recruiters. Over the past few years, however, many schools ended the ban because of concerns that the Pentagon would begin enforcing the dormant Solomon Amendment.
Nonetheless, institutions that formally bowed to the law continue to resist military recruitment in other ways, with professors and students picketing or holding teach-ins during interview sessions, and now with federal litigation. Law schools seem doomed to an annual ritual of campus protests and court battles against the government.
Shared Values
There is room for neutral principles to resolve the recruitment debate in a way that would satisfy both sides - without sacrificing the nondiscrimination principle. The debate over military recruiting at law schools looks like this: One side argues that allowing recruiting makes schools complicit in bigotry and invidious discrimination. The other camp argues that banning recruiting is unpatriotic, an instance of law schools biting the gauntlet that defends them.
Ironically, both sides have ignored a source of common ground: the shared values of the legal profession. One of the most important ethical values of lawyers is that everyone has a right to qualified legal counsel. Indeed, the profession prides itself on ensuring representation to all parties, no matter how foul their crimes or how strange their views.
An important corollary of this principle, codified in Rule 1.2(b) of the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct, is that a lawyer's representation of a client "does not constitute an endorsement of the client's political, economic, social or moral views or activities." This is what separates law from politics. This also allows lawyers to view themselves as professional officers of the court, serving the legal system itself, rather than as mere shills and mouthpieces for their clients.
These principles have a long history in the profession and are enshrined in the leading statements of lawyers' ethical responsibilities. As the ABA's Model Rules puts it, "legal representation should not be denied to people ... whose cause is controversial or the subject of popular disapproval." Similarly, the older Model Code of Professional Responsibility (still used in some states) provides that "regardless of his personal feelings, a lawyer should not decline representation because a client or a cause is unpopular or community reaction is adverse."
Moreover, there is a constitutional guarantee to counsel in criminal cases. This right could hardly be realized if attorneys collectively turned their backs on repugnant clients. Thus it is up to the profession - and in the first instance, the law schools - to inculcate prospective attorneys with the attitudes that would allow them to defend odious and unpopular clients.
The Abandoned Client
Keeping the military off campuses because of its policies contradicts the doctrine of representation for all. To be sure, individual lawyers are not obligated to take clients they disagree with. The duty of representation lies on the profession generally. But schools' resistance to military recruiting, officially encouraged by the American Association of Law Schools, represents an organized, collective abandonment of a particular client.
When the military comes to campus, it is looking to hire lawyers, not to solicit endorsement of its policies. Thus on-campus recruitment falls clearly within the right-to-representation principle. The military's discrimination against homosexuals may be odious, but it has at least a colorable constitutional basis. And if lawyers stand for anything, it is that there is no disgrace in advocating nonfrivolous constitutional arguments. Indeed, these arguments deserve to be made, and by the best possible lawyers.
Law schools have a duty to instill these ethical principles, not to hold themselves above them, as the professors' suit does. It challenges the Solomon Amendment on free speech grounds, arguing that the amendment prevents schools from "decid[ing] what lessons to teach their students," according to a statement by the plaintiffs. Whatever the constitutional merits of the argument, law schools should not feel free to "decide" to teach "lessons" congruent with their political views but at odds with the profession's notions of duty. Teachers can only confuse students by not practicing what they preach. Worse, the schools might make students think that perhaps everything they were taught in their legal ethics class should be taken with a grain of salt.
Schools that have only reluctantly allowed military recruitment because of the Solomon Amendment imperil the ethical principle in other ways as well. For example, the administration at Chicago-Kent College of Law has placed signs expressing its disapproval of the military's policies in front of interview rooms, according to The Boston Globe.
Lawyers should set aside ideological considerations; by insisting on them, the schools continue to obscure the ethical principle. Can picketing interview rooms be anything other than a creation of the adverse "community reaction" that the Model Code says should not dissuade a lawyer from representation? By parading "popular disapproval," the picketers imply that students should in fact buckle to it, despite what the rules of professional conduct state.
Ironically, by neglecting the profession's core principles, law schools disserve gay servicemen, the very people they wish to help. When the military seeks to discharge a soldier for homosexual activity, it puts him before a court-martial. The prosecutor is a JAG officer - but so is the gay soldier's defense lawyer. Thus schools that chase off military recruiters - and these are disproportionately elite schools - prevent gay soldiers from having access to the best possible lawyers for their defense. These gay servicemen are the "collateral damage" or "friendly fire" victims of law school resistance to military recruitment.
Beyond that, barring military recruitment keeps the students from representing any soldier accused of anything.
Coming Together
America's increased respect for the military since Sept. 11, 2001, may help law schools finally see the military recruitment issue through the lens of professional ethics and, thus, realize that the current litigation is ill-advised. The ABA has recently called for civilian attorneys to provide legal services for the military on a pro bono basis. The ABA wants lawyers to volunteer their time helping soldiers with credit, estate, and other legal problems that could arise from an overseas deployment or a reserve call-up. In other words, the ABA itself is recruiting for the military, showing that the principle of the right to counsel trumps policy disagreements.
It also hints at the broader costs of keeping young lawyers away from the JAG Corps. As the military's role in society becomes more prominent due to the war on terror, the denial-of-counsel effects of opposition to recruiting can only become more severe.
. Eugene Kontorovich is an assistant professor at George Mason University School of Law, in Arlington, Va.
DAILY HAMPSHIRE GAZETTE (Northampton, Mass.) Male to female/Female to
male: profile of Mitch Boucher, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst,
Daily Hampshire Gazette, September 25, 2003
115 Conz Street, Northampton, MA, 01060
(Fax: 413-585-5222 ) (E-Mail: letters@gazettenet.com )
( http://www.gazettenet.com/ ) http://www.gazettenet.com/09252003/valley_l/9294.htm
Male to female/Female to male
By Sunshine DeWitt, Staff Writer
Editor's note: In referring to the transgender people profiled in this article, we use the pronouns that they use.
Mitch Boucher, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has the easy charm and good looks of the all-American boy.
Sitting at his desk at the Stonewall Center, a drop-in center for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning students, he seems fully at ease fielding questions from those who stream in and out of the office.
Boucher says many who come into the Stonewall Center assume he is a gay man.
He's not. But he's not a typical man either.
Boucher, 34, is a transgender person - that is, according to the American Psychiatric Association, a person who has a deep sense that the gender assigned at birth is not the right one. Born a girl, Boucher has been living full time as a male for about four years, having successfully undergone what is known as "transition," through the use of hormones and surgery.
A year ago, few students on local campuses would say they were much aware of the fact that there were people like Boucher among them. They might have had a vague idea that some people had "sex changes." Or they might have seen the movie "Boys Don't Cry," which portrayed the life of a transgender teenager in the Midwest who was murdered.
However, during the last academic year the issue suddenly came to the fore at several colleges.
At UMass, with Boucher and a second student leading the way, the student government approved a measure to provide gender-neutral bathroom and shower facilities in dormitories and other college buildings to accommodate transgender people. Last spring, students at Smith College were asked to vote on whether to accept gender-neutral wording in their student constitution.
Outside the Five College area, similar debates took place. At Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., a gender-neutral hall was designated in one dormitory in response to transgender students' requests, while at Northeastern University, the rights of a transgender undergraduate who requested gender-neutral dormitory accommodations became the cause célèbre for a group of law students.
No one knows how common transgenderism is; the United States Census does not include it on its forms. Estimates veer from between one in 2,000 to one in 100,000. In addition, there is no good estimate as to how many people have taken the steps Boucher has to transform their bodies.
Lisette Lahana, a Northampton therapist who specializes in gender issues, says that she has received 140 calls over the past four years from those referred to her for therapy due to their gender identity.
Boucher says he can name at least 15 people he has met at UMass over the past year who identify themselves as transgender. The former assistant director of the Stonewall Center, Stephen Pereira, says he worked with about 12 transgender students per year in the two and a half years he was at the center.
In any case, the issue is one that colleges, where housing and other matters are based on gender, are finding themselves pressed to deal with.
"We are trying very hard to educate our staff about the particular issues the transgender community faces," says Joanne Vanin, vice chancellor of student affairs at UMass.
Smith College has hired therapist Julie Mencher to serve as a "transgender specialist" on campus. While she says there is only a small group of students at Smith who are taking testosterone to alter their bodies, there is a larger number grappling with gender identities.
"There's certainly the group of students who say, 'I always felt like I was in the wrong body,'" says Mencher.
Mitch Boucher, who grew up in Wethersfield, Conn., with an older brother, was raised as a girl. His father was an accountant, and his mother, a social worker.
Boucher says that as a child he was always a tomboy. The year he spent as one of only two girls on the town children's wrestling team, for example, he describes as "the highlight of my childhood." By contrast, he says, he hated the time he spent trying cheerleading.
"I was totally jealous of the guys that got to play football," says Boucher.
In adolescence, he says, things got harder. Watching his body change made him feel "awkward," he says, though he didn't tell anyone. Instead, he worked hard at being feminine but always with a vague sense that "something didn't feel right."
"There's no role models out there," he says. "There's nobody telling you, 'you can be a trans person.'"
Boucher says he remained heterosexual until graduate school, when he began dating women. Still, he says, the lesbian label didn't seem right and he avoided it.
When he was in his mid-20s, a friend gave him a copy of "Stone Butch Blues," a novel about a transgender person based on author Leslie Feinberg's life.
"I really identified with the character," says Boucher. However, he says, the idea of physically changing his body scared him, and he put the book away for a couple of years and tried to forget about it.
When he arrived at UMass a year later, he saw a flier at the women's center on campus for a support group for female-to-male transgender people. He says he hung onto the piece of paper for a year before finding the courage to attend one of the group's meetings. During that time, he says, he did a lot of reading on the topic, always telling himself it was for "academic" reasons.
When he finally decided to check out the support group, however, he knew it was a turning point.
"I was in a roomful of people who were born female but identified as men," Boucher recalls. "That was the first time it really hit me. Like, 'Wow! This is who I am.'"
He realized then, he says, that he could go through the hormone treatments and surgery that would allow him to live as a man.
Yet even before he began his medical transition, he began to live in a gray area between the sexes.
"I was getting more and more masculine-looking," he says.
He kept his hair very short, bound his breasts and wore men's clothing.
"I always felt like I wanted to be more butch, more butch, but I couldn't ever get butch enough," Boucher says. At the same time, his mother, who was divorced from his father, was planning to be remarried. "She wanted me to be her bridesmaid," he recalls. "And as she was looking at me she realized she couldn't put the two pictures together."
They compromised, and he wore a tailored suit appropriate for either gender. Soon after that, mainly, he says, with the help of his transgender friends and a therapist, he started a process known as transition from female to male.
While he says it took his parents some time to get used to the idea, for the most part they have been supportive. For the past three years, he has regularly been receiving shots of testosterone. The results are not subtle. Soon after starting the injections, he began getting more body and facial hair. He has increased muscle tone, and a deeper voice. His face is more angular than it once was, and while he says he always had a bit of a receding hairline, it is now more pronounced.
Boucher says the process was difficult at first, because people didn't always know whether he was male or female. "I was mainly passing as a guy, until I spoke," he says. "And then people would get all flustered and they wouldn't know what to do."
About six months after beginning hormone therapy, Boucher underwent chest reconstruction surgery in New York, which involved a double mastectomy and construction of a male-appearing chest. Such a surgery ranges in price from $5,000 to $10,000.
He says he has not considered genital surgery because he doesn't find it to be necessary or anything he'd like to pursue at this point. Dr. Yvon Menard of the Metropolitan Center for Plastic Surgery in Montreal, Quebec is one of the few North American surgeons who performs these operations. Menard says the cost of such surgeries can be anywhere from $6,300 for a fairly basic surgery that doesn't have a completely realistic appearance, called metaidoioplasty to about $36,000 for a phalloplasty, which includes construction of a functional penis and scrotal implants.
Lisette Lahana, the Northampton therapist who specializes in gender issues, says that while the changes Boucher has gone through can be a powerful remedy for those who believe they've been born in the wrong bodies, no one should approach the process lightly. "Transition is based on careful treatment with a qualified therapist to discuss their readiness to take such a step," says Lahana.
Before she recommends a client to a physician for hormone treatment, Lahana, whose clients range in age from 16 to 60, says she conducts an extensive evaluation. It is based on guidelines set out by the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (www.hbigda.org), an interdisciplinary board of specialists based in Minneapolis, Minn., that has set the standards of care for several decades.
Lahana says that her transgender clients often have difficulty getting such therapy covered by insurance companies, some of which have specific wording in their contracts that prohibit treatments for gender-identity disorders.
Therefore, many of them pay for psychological treatments, hormones and surgeries themselves.
In addition, she says, most insurance companies are confused by people whose medical needs cross both genders. For example, an endocrinologist may list a person as female while the primary care physician's records describes the individual as male. As a result, she says, insurance companies will sometimes refuse to cover necessary treatment, such as gynecological exams, for a transgender patient.
An individual can take legal steps to get gender designations changed on birth certificates and driver's licenses, says Cole Thaler, an attorney in Florence who is a female-to-male transgender himself and has gone through a legal name change. He says anyone can get a name changed simply by applying to probate court and paying a fee of about $80.
To have gender changed on a driver's license, Thaler says, the Registry of Motor Vehicles requires a letter from a physician stating that the person has had irreversible gender-changing surgery. The only cost involved is that of obtaining a new driver's license. To change a gender on a birth certificate, he says, the process is similar. A doctor's letter must be submitted to the city clerk of the community where the individual was born.
Lahana says she advises individuals to spend as long as possible living as a member of the other gender before making any permanent physical changes. She says she coaches students on ways to make that work on campus. "I suggest clients talk to the professor before class and ask to be addressed by [the preferred] name and pronouns."
Taking on a different gender identity, however, isn't easy, as A.J. Crittendon, who graduated from UMass last spring, has discovered. It's not making the transition that's hard, he says, but dealing with others' reactions to it.
At 22, Crittendon, who lives in Amherst, identifies himself as a transgender person, but has not yet undergone a medical transition from female to male. He has adopted the name A.J. and his friends use male pronouns to describe him, though his parents do not. His mother, he says, is beginning to accept his transgender identity.
"She said she didn't like it, she didn't agree with it, but she loves me," he says.
As for his father, Crittendon is hoping his mother will be the one to talk to him about the issue, because he says he hasn't worked up the nerve to do it himself.
His older brother, he says, has offered to pay some of the costs of the physical procedures he plans to seek within the next year.
Crittendon, who grew up in Hawaii, has a laid-back athletic appearance. He wears baggy clothes, and keeps his hair cut Marine-recruit short. On the advice of his therapist, he says, he is taking a full year to consider his choice before starting hormones and undergoing surgery.
Crittendon looks like either a very boyish woman or a young, teenage male. As a result, he says, it is difficult for him to gauge how those around him are perceiving him. He says while at UMass, he had little success talking to professors about his preferred pronoun usage. "They're respectful of the name part but none of them get pronouns," says Crittendon.
His identity was also an issue among his dorm mates.
Crittendon says due to his gender-ambiguous appearance, he had trouble in his role as a dormitory Resident Assistant. In spite of the fact that he was hired to oversee dormitory life, he was often the target of suspicion by the very students he was supposed to be assisting.
Given university rules on bathroom usage, deciding which bathroom to use became particularly troublesome for him.
"My own residents would harass me in the bathroom," Crittendon recalls. He tells the story of a group of male students seeing him through the window of the women's room, and yelling, "'There's a man in the women's room! We're going to have you written up!'"
As a result, Crittendon says, he wrote a letter to the administration in the fall of 2001 requesting a gender-neutral bathroom that he could use without fear of harassment.
Then he turned to Mitch Boucher at the Stonewall Center for help.
They sent out an e-mail asking others to attend an organizational meeting. Thirty-five people showed up. "It blew me away," says Boucher.
Many who came were not transgender themselves, but, according to Boucher, were sympathetic to the cause, which came to be known as the Restroom Revolution. The group formally proposed that there be at least one gender-neutral bathroom in every dormitory. They also asked for a limited number of such bathrooms in other buildings on campus.
Crittendon says it took a year and a half before the administration responded. In the meantime, the students took their grievance to the Student Government Association, which approved their request. Still, debate persisted in an exchange of pro and con letters in the campus newspaper during much of the last academic year.
"I look too much like a boy to use the women's room ... but I am not legally allowed to use the men's room," wrote student Eric Delisle.
Jared Nokes, a student and member of the Student Government Association, countered with the argument that dropping restroom gender rules would be awkward for women. "As a female, could you ever feel comfortable knowing someone can walk in [to a bathroom stall] next to you and lean over at any time?"
In May, Joanne Vanin, vice president of student affairs, announced that two dormitories and one campus building would contain unisex bathrooms. Though it is less than they asked for, Crittendon and Boucher considered it a triumph.
So far, three unisex bathrooms are to be installed, one in the Prince/Crampton dormitory cluster and two in Machmer, a classroom building. A letter from Vanin says one other will be added at a later date, most likely in another part of the Prince/Crampton cluster, if there is a need for it.
"I consider it a step forward," said Boucher earlier this month. "But there's still a lot that needs to be done to make this campus trans friendly."
Across the river in Northampton at Smith College, which had steadfastly held onto its all-female tradition despite the trend for single-sex schools to go coed, the situation has an added dimension. While Smith has a reputation as a lesbian-friendly campus, the college has struggled to decide how transgender students fit in, if at all.
Last spring, the Student Government Association (SGA) asked the student body to change the student government constitution so that it contained only gender-neutral pronouns. During the debate preceding the vote, concerns were raised that such a move would steer Smith in the direction of coeducation.
"We are a single-sex college for women," said Maureen Mahoney, dean of the college at Smith. "That's who we admit."
"If other people want to be called something else, fine," said sophomore Esi Cleland. "But as women we should be confident enough not to want to be called something else."
But Toby Davis, a transgender student who graduated last spring, said he believed that his presence at the school was consistent with the college's original mission. "One of the reasons Smith was founded was to serve those who, because of their gender, are having difficulty having a voice," he said during a panel discussion held on campus in May. "We've all had the disadvantages of being raised a woman."
In the end, the measure passed by 50 votes out of 1,115 cast.
Lindsay Watson, the former SGA president who came up with the idea, said it was basically an attempt to attract more students to student government. "We do have a population on this campus that doesn't refer to itself as 'she,' and doesn't use that pronoun," says Watson.
Maureen Mahoney says that as complex as the issue is for Smith, the college is committed to supporting students in their gender explorations, no matter where this might take them. She says she has no intention of looking up students' medical records, and there is no policy in place for the college to expel a student because she started looking like a man following hormone treatments.
"What we are concerned about is students treating each other respectfully," says Mahoney. "That's a behavior issue, not an identity issue."
Davis, who is tall and stocky, with features that suggest a teenage boy, says that in general the people he meets view him as male. He says he became aware that he was transgender midway through his time at Smith. He told the assembled students, faculty and community members at the spring panel discussion that it was the accepting environment at Smith that allowed him to come to terms with his situation.
"Because Smith is so open about sexuality, it gave me a chance to explore my identity," said Davis.
Julie Mencher, a local therapist, was hired at Smith last year as a transgender specialist. On campus part time to counsel students dealing with gender issues as well as to educate staff members about transgender, Mencher also continues her private practice in Northampton.
She says that there are only a handful of students at Smith who are seriously considering medical transition, but several more who are experimenting with the idea of being another gender.
"There are a lot of students here who identify as transgender but don't identify as male. They identify in a more gender-ambiguous way," says Mencher. "There are only some students who request to be identified as 'he.'"
Just as it was a radical thing at one time to experiment with sexual preference, these days the new edge for many students is to push the boundaries of gender, says Mencher. And, she adds, it is unclear how many of these students will end up identifying themselves as transgender after college, just as many who experiment with lesbianism in college don't always spend their lives with female partners.
"The ages 18 through 22 are a time of experimenting with various kinds of identities," she says.
But for Louis Mitchell, an HIV prevention educator at Tapestry Men's Health Project in Springfield and an undergraduate student at the UMass University Without Walls program, youthful gender incongruity had deep roots.
Born a girl, Mitchell, who is 43, says he knew from the time he was 3 years old that he wanted to be a boy, but didn't know how to express it.
"It never stopped," he says. He says he used to pray to God to be changed into a boy.
He says he lived many of his younger years as a lesbian. "The earliest time I thought, 'I'm trans,' I was 30."
However, it was almost a decade before he took steps to physically change his appearance. For one thing, he says, he wanted to be sure he was ready to tell his mother about it. Also, he says, it was frightening to leave the comfortable world of the lesbian community in the Bay Area of California, where he spent 12 years.
Deeply committed to his Christian faith and a lifelong member of the United Church of Christ, Mitchell says that he decided to transition only after long discussions with his pastor.
He began the process in 1999, just a few months after he met Krysia Villon, 30, a development officer at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley.
By the time they met, Mitchell had already begun asking friends and family to use male pronouns as a way of beginning the process. Villon says she always knew him as "he," even before he started his testosterone treatments. Mitchell has since had chest reconstruction surgery, performed at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield.
Villon says she always considered herself a lesbian, and has never been attracted to men.
Still, the couple says, sparks flew and they fell in love.
"I wasn't clear in my mind that Louis would really look like a guy," says Villon. "I thought, well, he'll just be a little more masculine."
According to Mitchell, the hormones changed him physically in many
ways: His voice got lower, and he has a full beard. There were other changes as well. His feet grew two sizes, something he says he found annoying, because he had to buy a whole new set of shoes.
Also, he has a hard time crying nowadays, which surprised him. He had always prided himself on being able to show his tears.
Villon says that at first she had difficulty getting used to the idea that, given her relationship with Mitchell, people were seeing her as heterosexual.
"I was feeling invisible," says Villon. "It was scary."
Still, Mitchell and Villon got married a year ago last April, in a small ceremony at a divinity school in San Francisco.
Now, Villon says, she accepts that she's being perceived as a heterosexual. Sometimes, she says, she even enjoys the fact that among her co-workers she is seen as just another married woman. She also says that despite her fears about Mitchell's physical changes, she is still very much in love.
Mitchell says that as he has changed, he has come to understand many issues that mystified him earlier in life. He has started to see the dangers of being a black man in this society.
He said that when he was seen as a black female, he wasn't perceived by others as being dangerous or a criminal, but as soon as he began to appear male, he was treated with suspicion, particularly by the police.
"I've been pulled over 600 percent more than before I transitioned," he says.
Mitchell says he considers himself fortunate to have lived a life that includes both male and female experiences. "How many guys can honestly say they know what PMS feels like?" he quips.
However, he adds, undergoing transition had nothing to do with changing his gender: He always knew he was male, he says, and it was just a matter of having his body fit.
"I'm getting to know myself better as a man," he says.
As for UMass graduate student Mitch Boucher, he says there are many things he has had to get used to now that the world perceives him as male. For example, he says, he finds it's no longer acceptable to smile at children in the grocery store or on the street, because parents react suspiciously. A recent trip to the florist was eye opening, he says, because as he purchased some flowers, the woman behind the counter was so friendly and interested in hearing about whether the flowers were for a girlfriend. In the past, he says, it was a completely different experience.
"If they thought I was a lesbian, they weren't going to ask me any questions," he says.
He says he considers himself a straight male due to his sole attraction to women. But he acknowledges the fact that his transgenderism complicates the picture. "I'm a straight queer," he says, laughing.
On the other hand, he adds, "I feel like I'm different from a guy who was born male."
. Sunshine DeWitt is a Gazette reporter. She can be reached at sdewitt@Gazettenet.com.
Campus Press, September 24, 2003
University of Colorado at Boulder, Campus Box 478 Boulder, CO 80309
(E-Mail: cpress@colorado.edu ) ( http://bcn.boulder.co.us/campuspress ) http://bcn.boulder.co.us/campuspress/messages/1224.html
EMBRACING MULTIPLE IDENTITIES
By Andy Castelano, Campus Press Staff Writer
The Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian and Transgender Resource Center will hold a panel to discuss international issues in the GLBT community on Sept. 26.
The resource center, in conjunction with the Office of International Education, is hosting the event as part of International/National Origin Issues month in September, which is a part of the "Empowering Multiple Dimensions of our Identities" program sponsored by the center.
"Many communities only see issues in the United States," said Bruce Smail, director of the resource center. "We're doing this to get some feedback on different issues in different cultures."
Janet Garcia, international student and scholar specialist for the Office of International Education, helped organize the event, lining up the speakers and generating an audience through her contacts.
"We thought it would be very interesting to get a perspective from actual students," Garcia said. "I think people will be interested in the topics we're going to discuss."
Garcia expects to discuss several related international GLBT issues, including comparisons of different cultural attitudes and how these compare with attitudes in the United States.
"We'd like to create an awareness from other countries as well as local perspectives," Garcia said. "This could be very fascinating as people might be aware of issues at home but not (similar issues) in other countries."
The Sept. 26 panel will include Xavier Pires, a senior economics major from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Greg Ford, a senior Asian and Germanic Studies major. Smail, a native of the U.S. Virgin Islands, will also participate in the discussion as a panelist.
Pires presents a unique perspective on GLBT issues as a native of a predominantly Muslim nation while Ford has studied these issues in Southeast Asia, Smail said.
Garcia said these attitudes can be either more or less accepting than U.S. views of GLBT issues, depending on the host country.
For instance, a predominantly Muslim country may be more conservative and less accepting of GLBT lifestyles than a more liberal country like Holland, Garcia said. The United States falls somewhere between the two as far as attitudes are concerned, he said.
The EMDI program is designed to incorporate all parts of a person's identity, while still taking into account the unique issues involved with sexual orientation, Smail said.
The year-long program focuses on different issues in the GLBT community. "One of my biggest concerns is that we don't look at different dimensions of a person," Smail said. "So often we concentrate on GLBT issues without including other parts of a personality."
Thursday's panel is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. in room 1B40 of the Engineering Center.
Daily Pennsylvanian, September 26, 2003
4015 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104
(Fax: 215-898-2050 ) (E-Mail: dailypenn@a1.relay.upenn.edu ) http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/09/26/3f73ff3e60c2d
NEW LGBT CENTER LOCATION REACHES ONE-YEAR MILESTONE
By Molly Petrilla
Today marks the first anniversary of the grand opening for the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center's Carriage House, located at 3907 Spruce Street.
And with a new home, the LGBT Center has spread its wings over the past year with the creation of four new task forces to confront LGBT issues in academia, on the playing field, in dorms and involving racial minorities.
According to LGBT Center Director Bob Schoenberg, the groups are "different than a formally constituted student organization or University committee."
These groups are not funded by the Student Activities Council, and rely on space use and staff support from the LGBT Center's facility.
"These are groups of LGBT-affiliated volunteers working together on a common interest under the umbrella of the LGBT," Schoenberg said. "This is kind of their place of origin and their home base."
The center's annual open house yesterday drew a small group of students and University staff, who came to greet old friends, make new ones and familiarize themselves with the programs at the Carriage House.
"I think it's amazing," College freshman Josh Gafni said of the center. "I came from a very conservative high school... so to have a center here is such a change."
College sophomore Phil Cochetti is heading a new task force which tackles LGBT issues in an academic sense, although the group has not yet taken full flight.
"Right now we're figuring out the best strategy of action," he said. "We're gathering names of different courses that could be LGBT inclusive," which will be put in print when available.
The academic task force also plans to aid professors who would like to approach LGBT issues in the classroom, but don't know how, according to Cochetti.
Also new to the Center this year is QPOC - Queer People of Color - which is headed by Wharton junior Luzern McAllister.
According to McAllister, QPOC's main goal is to raise awareness on campus that there are people who are members of both the LGBT community and the different racial communities.
This past summer, the LGBT Center also began work on a project called Safezone, which will train resident advisers and graduate associates on the best method to help students "who aren't quite ready to come to the LGBT Center," Schoenberg said.
In this way, students "can use their RA or GA as their first line of response," he said. "Safezone stickers would tell those residents that the RA or GA is a safe person to talk to if they're questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity."
And founded last spring was another of the center's new groups - Penn Athletes and Allies Tackling Homophobia and Heterosexism at Penn.
According to College junior and PATH Co-Chairman Paul Farber, the group is "designed to foster dialogue between the LGBT and athletic communities."
"One of our primary goals is to make sure that all athletes and coaches can live up to their potential, and not have to worry about anything outside the playing field," said Farber, a 34th Street staff member.
Schoenberg added that, in part through the development of these new task forces, "we're making very good use of a really wonderful place."
The LGBT Center, which originally occupied the third floor of 3537 Locust Walk, was housed in the 6,000-square-foot house last year, following $2.5 million worth of renovations.
According to Schoenberg, the center's relocation last year reaffirmed the University's support of the LGBT community and its need to receive greater recognition.
Schoenberg added that the move into a larger space has helped the center to attract more students.
"I'm really surprised that they have this type of facility," LGBT Ally and Wharton freshman Marc Krohn said.
The center allows many University groups to use its new space, including ones that are not sponsored by the LGBT. So far, these have included a dance group, Penn's American Civil Liberties Union chapter and several peer health education groups, Schoenberg said.
"Also, it allows us to hold many of our programs in our own space as opposed to having to reserve a room in Houston Hall or Logan Hall," he said, adding that the number of people who use the center is "much larger than it ever could have been on Locust."
But though Cochetti said he "loves the new space," he added, "I kind of miss the little things, like how we used to have a Gay Pride Flag that flew right outside our office.
"Though we got an amazing space, we're not really as central as we were before."
Associated Press, September 26, 2003 http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/269/nation/Kerry_pitch_faults_GOP_in_salesof_graphic_T_shirts+.shtml
KERRY PITCH FAULTS GOP IN SALE OF GRAPHIC [ANTIGAY] T-SHIRTS [AT COLLEGE CONVENTION] By Sharon Theimer, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is appealing for donations in an e-mail accusing the GOP of allowing the sale of racist and antigay T-shirts at a convention of college Republicans this summer.
The e-mail yesterday, also posted on Kerry's campaign website, includes a photo of the shirts.
One says ''No Muslims No Terrorism.'' Another has a photo of black filmmaker Spike Lee and the message ''Bring back the blacklist.'' A third shows a photo of lesbian television personality Rosie O'Donnell and her partner with the line ''Mr. (?) and Mrs. (?) Rosie O'Donnell.'' Another says ''The Clinton Legacy'' and shows the World Trade Center after a plane crashed into it.
Kerry's e-mail said the T-shirts, from a company called Ocents, were displayed and sold at the College Republicans National Convention in Washington in July.
''The divisive slogans and graphic pictures are not to be laughed off as campaign rhetoric - they are racist, antigay, and violent,'' Kerry wrote. ''I support the First Amendment, and I am using my right to free speech to protest their politics of division. But our protest must come in actions not words. Click here to contribute now.''
Kerry told prospective donors he's ''taken the high road in this campaign'' and needs their support ''to send George Bush and his right-wing friends back to Texas.''
Kerry wrote that donations were especially important before the third fund-raising quarter ends Sept. 30.
David Joyslin, spokesman for the College Republican National Committee, said his group had nothing to do with the T-shirts, and was unfamiliar with the company that sold them.
''We sold over 50 tables to vendors. We didn't monitor every single product of every single vendor,'' Joyslin said. ''Obviously our organization wouldn't endorse any statements of the sort that I saw on the Internet.''
Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel declined to comment.
The T-shirts were spotted at the GOP convention by a Kerry supporter who was staying in the same hotel, Kerry spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Kerry is among several presidential hopefuls making last-minute e-mail pitches for contributions before the current fund-raising period ends next week.
Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman sent an e-mail Wednesday night citing the third-quarter deadline and telling potential donors next year's election could be as close as 2000's. ''Democratic presidential candidates are so desperate they'll say anything to get elected,'' Mehlman wrote. ''Special interest groups have committed to raising over $400 million in soft money specifically to defeat President Bush.''
Brown Daily Herald, September 26, 2003
Brown University, Box 2538, Providence, RI, 02906
(Fax: 401-351-9297 ) (E-Mail: Mailer on their web page )
( http://www.browndailyherald.com )
RELIGION MADE ME DO IT
By Brian Rainey
There has been an important public discussion over religion in the pages of The Herald this week. The recent debate over the Vatican's anti-gay theology raises issues far beyond the topic of human sexuality. It raises important and fundamental questions about religion's relationship to society and culture. In fact, it raises questions about the nature of religion itself.
The recent debate centers on the argument that the Vatican's recent document should not be "dismissed as bigotry" simply because it implied that homosexuality was "evil" and argued that gay and lesbian families would do "violence" to children. The Vatican isn't bigoted; it's simply being loyal to its tradition. This contention is not unique to apologists of the Vatican. Protestants use the same kind of rhetoric when they appeal to what the Bible "clearly says" about the topic. They're not bigots; they're just following "clear" biblical teaching. Similarly, anti-gay Jews and Muslims defend their positions by claiming that they are innocently reading what the Torah and Qu'ran "clearly say" about homosexuality.
These kinds of "religion-made-me-do-it" arguments assume that theology exists in a vacuum and is untouched by popular prejudices, politics or society. People make these arguments as if there were not a mountain of historical examples showing that the prejudices and assumptions of our society will always play an intrinsic role in hermeneutics and interpretation.
This becomes quite obvious when looking at the issue of slavery.
It is often assumed that American Christians were evenly divided over slavery. The truth is that major dissent over slavery did not happen until it had been an institution for centuries. Until the late 18th century, white Christians in the U.S. almost universally accepted slavery. Not even Quakers opposed slavery en masse until after the American Revolution. Even after the Revolution, the vast majority of Christians supported slavery until the abolitionist movement of the 1830s. Of course, there were always dissenters, but anti-slavery positions were on the fringe and marginalized.
Katie Geneva Cannon, a theologian specializing in African-American biblical interpretation, notes that until the abolitionist movement of the 1830s, "the white church evaded responsibility and surrendered prerogatives to slavocracy. For most of the years that chattel slavery existed, the mainline Protestant churches never legislated against slavery, seldom disciplined slaveholders and most gently apologized for the 'peculiar institution.'"
Lester Scherer recounts the sorry state of Christianity in his book, Slavery and the Churches in Early America 1619-1819 (Eerdmans, 1975): "Like Hebrew, Greek, Roman and Muslim civilizations, Christian society also failed to produce any tradition of dissent in the matter of slavery. This absence of an 'abolitionist' tradition made it hard for persons of a later time to find Christian language for expressing a radical anti-slavery position." And indeed, major church figures like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, several church councils (particularly Gangra and Toledo), countless papal edicts, and the Bible itself supported slavery. The Christian tradition was so pro-slavery that abolitionists had to practically construct anti-slavery theology from whole cloth!
But somehow Christians did construct anti-slavery theology despite overwhelming odds. So how did that which was "obvious" and "clear" to almost all Christians before, suddenly become less obvious and clear? Did some Christians wake up one morning and suddenly decide that two centuries of Christian doctrine was wrong? Did they just open their Bibles one day and determine that almost all of their Christian peers were mistaken?
The answer lies in the social situation of the United States. Towards the latter part of the 18th century, the institution of slavery was dying out, which created an environment more favorable for abolitionism. So it is at this time that abolitionist ideas became more prevalent - though certainly not popular. In the 1830s, however, the invention of the cotton gin made slavery profitable again and slavery expanded. This proliferation of slavery exacerbated the massive tensions between northern capitalism and the southern slaveocracy, which led to major political conflict. As people took sides in this political conflict, ideology became extremely important. Thus religion, which is such an important part of American life, was an ideological weapon in a political battle between north and south.
Clearly, Christian theology changes with the social climate. When slavery was in its heyday from the 17th to the early 19th century, Christianity was overwhelmingly supportive of the institution and Christian hermeneutical strategies and interpretations supported the prevailing sentiments. Slavery was such a given that its harmony with natural law and God's design was "obvious." When that sentiment changed due to political developments, Christian interpretations changed as well. Suddenly, the Bible and church tradition were not so obvious.
Now that slavery has been relegated to the dustbin of history and is seen as "intrinsically evil" (as John Paul II put it, contradicting Church doctrine which universally held that slavery, in and of itself, was not wrong), these pro-slavery passages and edicts are ignored or reinterpreted - often in creative ways that make no sense of the original text.
As a result, no one can hide behind Bibles, Talmuds or Qu'rans to say, "religion-made-me-do-it." Theology is a political act. Theology takes sides in ideological conflicts. It both reflects and reinforces popular prejudices. Theology, hermeneutics and interpretations of tradition are not self-contained, autonomous phenomena; and there is no such thing as "just" engaging tradition or a sacred text.
The Times-Union, September 27, 2003
645 Albany-Shaker Road, Albany, NY, 12201
(Fax: 518-454-5628 ) (E-Mail: tuletters@timesunion.com )
( http://www.timesunion.com ) http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=173934&category=R
EGIO
NOTHER&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=9/27/2003
TOLERANCE AN ISSUE FOR GAYS IN COLLEGE
THOSE LIVING TOGETHER IN DORMS CAN BE AT ODDS IF OF DIFFERENT ORIENTATIONS By Alan Wechsler, Staff Writer
When Emily Guzman came to the University at Albany last year, she wasn't exactly best friends with her roommate.
But things got a lot worse once her roommate found out she was a lesbian.
After that, the roommate refused to change clothes in her presence, instead taking her clothes to the bathroom down the hall or waiting until Guzman left. And the two rarely talked. Once, during an argument, the roommate made an offensive comment referring to Guzman's sexual orientation.
"She'd say stuff like that because she knew it would upset me," she said. "I wasn't in my room much because she made it uncomfortable."
Guzman, now 21, tolerated it for one semester, avoiding the room whenever possible, and finally moved out in December.
Meeting a roommate at college, especially as a freshman, can be a scary experience. It's doubly so for students who are attracted to the same sex or otherwise questioning their sexuality. With National Coming Out Day approaching, it's an issue that is on the minds of many gay students who live in dormitories.
Coming Out Day, an event that many gays use as a time to announce their sexuality to friends or family, is Oct. 11.
At college, a freshman roommate can make or break the experience. A good match could turn a stranger into a best friend. A terrible match could mean a semester of torment followed by staff intervention.
Add a topic as controversial as homosexuality to the room, and the stress level rises. Even if attraction is the last thing on a gay student's mind.
"She wasn't my type," Guzman said of her roommate. "Maybe if I told her that she might have felt better."
Jess Horowitz, former president of the student group Pride Alliance, last year considered creating a workshop for college students on how to (and how not to) "come out" to their roommates. Horowitz, now a senior from Yorktown majoring in women's studies, said she had heard from a handful of Pride members who had problems with roommates due to their sexuality.
"We really wanted to get in touch with the new incoming students," she said. "This would have been a worthwhile event, a way to reach out and help students."
In the end, the group decided not to have the event because no one felt qualified to offer that sort of counseling.
Horowitz, now 21, had her own negative experience with a straight roommate a few years ago while living in Freedom Quad, an apartment-style residence near the UAlbany uptown campus. Once she came out to the roommate, who was president of a Christian organization, the two basically stopped talking.
"She never told me I was going to hell. She was never malicious or mean," she said. "It was kind of an unspoken thing that we didn't support each other."
In the summer of 2002, before Toby Sorge was to begin school as a freshman at Siena College, he decided to call his future roommate and tell him of his sexuality. The results were not positive.
"He wanted to switch roommates," said Sorge, 19, of Bogota, N.J. "It was really disheartening. I came to college to have new experiences, and my first experience was not that good."
Sorge, now a sophomore, was able to change rooms before school began. He currently lives with a friend, Stephen Hensel of Voorheesville, who is straight.
"It's not a problem for me," said Hensel, also a sophomore. "I know Toby personally, and I know he's about as good a person as you're going to find. Everything works out from there."
But many other gay students, apprehensive or not, find themselves with welcoming roommates.
It took Jessica Gahring, now a dorm resident adviser at Russell Sage College, several months after arriving at college before she felt comfortable announcing that she was a lesbian.
"I was really nervous," she said. But when she told her roommate and other friends, they said, "We knew that you were gay, we were just waiting for you to tell us," Gahring recalled.
Gahring, a senior originally from Vestal, Broome County, is president of Pride and Diversity, a campus group that welcomes people of all sexualities.
At Skidmore College, junior Jennifer O'Connell has felt welcomed, she said. A women's studies student from Demarest, N.J., O'Connell said she's struggled with her sexuality since the eighth grade. She said she never had a problem with roommates, and currently lives in the Sexuality Awareness House, a two-story apartment in the campus townhouse residence halls, which is decorated with a rainbow flag on the front. Both gay and straight students live there, she said.
"Of my friends who have had problems with roommates, it hasn't been because of their sexuality," she said. "It's been because of their traits."
Don Hastings, director of residential life at Skidmore, said when students sign up for housing with an unknown roommate, they can't choose them on the basis of their sexual orientation, just as they can't choose roommates based on race.
"We're very clear that we don't house on that basis - that's the law," he said.
But he said there hasn't been a problem between a gay and straight roommate, at least that he's heard of, since the mid-'90s.
"Students are more open, more understanding," he said. "They're more comfortable."
Estela Rivero, director of Counseling Center at UAlbany, said she, too, has not heard of many problems between roommates over sexuality. She said gay students are usually much more concerned about coming out to parents and other family members than to roommates.
"I think it's something you have to come to terms with," she said in regard to students comfort level with a roommate's sexuality. "We would encourage a student to talk to a student and express his concerns and see if we can turn it into a teachable moment."