Northwestern University is facing an interesting controversy that captures the new reality for schools in dealing with alternative gender identifications. A freshman at the school was born a female but now identifies as a male. Adam Davies wants to participate in Greek life but is not ready to join a fraternity. So Davies has asked to join a sorority as a male with a female body. He insists that his interest “transcends the gender binary” but some have objected to leaving such choices to the individual’s determination on gender.
Davies says that he is in transition to a male as a transgender student.
Various sororities have begun to open up their ranks to transgender students. In this case, however, no sorority (among 12 at the school) extended Davies an offer to join. The case has opened up a debate as to whether sororities that reject such applicants should be found as violating discrimination rules.
Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in education but the federal government has declared social fraternities and sororities are exempt. A May 13th letter from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education states that greek organizations “are therefore permitted under Title IX to set their own policies regarding the sex, including the gender identity, of their members.”
MARIA DO CARMO G. DIAS eu não conheço o Rio de Janeiro, mas procure se informar de um centro espírita na linha de estudos de Allan Kardec, hoje existente em todo o nosso País, abraços.
I don’t want to quibble but how exactly does a male transition to a male again?
If I’ve done the math correctly:
The protagonist was born female.
But thinks she’s a male.
Now she’s going to college, and wants to join what I will call a student living community.
But I guess born males intimidate her/him. So joining a fraternity is out.
So she wants to join a sorority.
But heck, I would like to have had a four year slumber party with chicks whose average age was 20. And I was born a male.
LOL I am so going back to college and calling myself a female and joining a sorority and then suing if they try to stop me.
i might even join the womens volleyball team. There are some sexy chicks on volleyball teams.
I might even join the cheerleader team. Being in the shower and locker room would be AWESOME
He is bent, he is bent. He is bent all the way.
From his first gingerale. To has last dying day.
Send him to Dartmouth. Or Harvard or Yale.
Call up his parents. And put them in jail.
I find this grotesque. As I have stated before, albeit in a different context, anyone who wishes to ‘change’ his sex (of course his DNA will remain the same) is deranged. Any doctor who encourages this, should be debarred from the practice of medicine.
Well, I can relate to this. I too, was a male college student attempting to relate to female bodies.
I see no problem with the student applying to either the fraternity or the sorority of his/her choice. But whatever fraternity or sorority the individual applies to requires that the applicant pass certain tests before they can be admitted:
Hmmm, what is missing in this story?
WORK
How has college become the land of privilege? I worked hard to get into college, and after I got in, I worked even harder. What are they doing in college now days?
Not to mention the poor kids that go to work after high school– they don’t have the privilege of college, or the time to contemplate their navels.
Weimerica, fin de siecle.
I love that term, “fin de siecle.” Which is French for “tip of the cycle” which is the part the pedestrians get hit with. But as the French always say, ” leu sui Arnaut qu’amas l’aura E chatz le lebre ab lo bou E nadi contra suberna” which means “when cats pass gas, they are free to go underground.”
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
No, ‘fin de siecle’ = ‘end of the century’.
I know, And the other quote is not really about cats passing gas. But don’t tell anybody else, OK???
🙂
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Is this the 21st century remake of the movie Victor/Victoria?
There are a surprising number of people who identify as merpeople. They consider their silicone flipper to be a prosthetic. Interesting, and I like quirky stuff. But the sky is the limit as far as self identity, which is the problem when you try to force the world to change to accommodate it. Tolerance has to work both ways.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4125624/Inside-America-s-secret-community-MERMAIDS.html
Your point addresses a larger, valid question regarding accommodation. However, In this instance a transgender individual simply asked to join a club, was denied and respectfully yielded. His motives were not governed by trying to be an agent of a grand political and social change (that is not to say there are not larger movements afoot which I assume you are alluding to) but rather a person who wished for camaraderie among schoolmates. Unfortunately that extrapolates to a mostly dissonant discourse which he must suffer through, though admittedly an important discourse where all sides have high stakes. Society has norms that are long accepted and aid in a healthy function of day to day life. My point is to consider “norms” and the “individual” respectfully in the same discussion. Not referring to your post Karen but the majority of the rest, I can say transgender individuals are a grossly misunderstood minority.
Hope I have worked it both ways…
This case, where a born woman thinks she’s a man but wants to join an all-female living community means either that the commitment to living as a man can be less than 100%, or that she wants to live with the sex she is attracted to.
That is an understandable assertion because in the world of the “binary” it is confusing, since it must be either/or. Trans gender transitioning is a timeline based progression and it portends dubiousness. My impression is that “he” (trans male) seeks camaradrie with a group with which he self identifies (at this time in transition). The community at large rejects gender fluid concepts and interprets motivations like this as sexual in nature rather than, for example, mitigating body/gender dysphoria. Exposure to a fully functioning, tax paying and productive transgender member of society or acquaintance is about nill for most. Hence no basis for understanding. Admittedly it is a tough one for all as numbers are problematic.
Sign at entrance to Sorryity: No Dongs Allowed.
Perhaps the rejections were based upon other issues.
If the freek thinks he is Npoleon, does he get to join the French Club??? Even though he doesn’t speek French?
Skweeky Fromm
Girl Reporter