Hi. I'm Em. I'm nineteen, and I have a vagina. I'm dating a man, and he has a vagina, too.
Oh, yeah. We're both trans.
Aside from that, we have something else in common. It's not that we both want to travel someday, or that we're English majors. It's nothing like our obsessions with "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" or The Front Bottoms. My boyfriend and I are actively shunned by the Hollins student body.
Hollins has been a "women's college" since its establishment in 1842. That being said, not everyone at Hollins self-identifies as female. I'm non-binary, which means I don't identify with either end of the gender binary (i.e. male or female). I use they/them pronouns because they're gender neutral, and a lot of people (not all) respect that. My boyfriend identifies as male, despite being assigned female at birth. These differences in the majority of the Hollins community-- cis (white) female, meaning they were assigned female at birth and self-identify as female-- are generally accepted but not overly promoted. So, what's the big deal?
The Hollins community doesn't want people like me here. They don't want people like my boyfriend here-- people who are trans, who aren't cis females and are okay with it. They don't want people who aren't going to scream, "girls support girls" every time they interact with another cis female. Why wouldn't I say that? I'm glad you asked. I'm not a girl, and because I'm trans, the Hollins student body excludes me from their various cliques and uses the term "sisterhood" to describe the whole community, despite the fact that a significant portion of the community deviates from the binary.
Some Friday in April, The Hollins Activity Board invited two male a capella group to the school to perform. This was all done in good spirit, but it rubbed me the wrong way. Seeing the Hollins student body passionately enjoying the show made my stomach turn. These same people who had said Hollins was a sanctified women's space were gladly welcoming cis males to their campus. After I tweeted my distaste for the event, a senior replied to my tweet saying they "didn't see the correlation" between Hollins being a single-sex institution and showcasing male sex appeal while shunning the male presence in the student body. For lack of a better response, I removed the senior from my social media because people who are like that just won't get it.
What is that, anyway? Aside from the TERFs (Transgender Exclusive Radical Feminism), there is a prominent opinion (mostly with sophomores who set first-years such as myself up for failure and ostracization with cyber-bullying and alienation techniques) that trans people don't belong in a woman-centered space. I fully believe women deserve their own spaces (if you ever question this standpoint, feel free to message me as opposed to attacking me online), but if and only if they are willing to support other marginalized groups such as transgender people. It's hypocritical to insist that (cis) women achieve equality and have safe spaces at the expense and exclusion of the trans community.
This brings up the issue of having male professors. While some students reject the male presence in the student body, they do not outwardly display their opposition to being taught by people with penises. If there were ever to be a change in the rules to make Hollins a "true, woman-centered space", the elimination of all men from the community would be expected, not just non-binary individuals or people who are transitioning from female to male. To add more wood to the fire, I am curious as to what these students' opinions are on trans women. After someone has fully transitioned from male to female, would they be welcomed with the same up-your-cootch-support as cis white feminists are on this campus?
While I wish I could delve into these issues myself and uncover the true feelings of the opposition (everything I know is second-hand or straight off Twitter), I do not see myself ever having a civil dialogue with the same people who bully me online simply for being vocal about the transphobia they perpetuate at Hollins. This is an incredibly one-sided argument, as I will not be doing anything to service the other half, but I'm sure I'll be reading about it online soon.
