Wednesday, January 18th, 2017 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, January 18th, 2017 // The Statement

5B

Navigating New Policies
and Old Prejudices

L

SA junior Emily Kaufman jokingly refers to
herself as a “trans-mama,” a guide of sorts to other
women at the University who are navigating what

it means to be a transgender woman on campus.

“When I first came to this University I knew I was a

woman but I didn’t look like a woman,” Kaufman said. “I
started transitioning between the fall of ‘14 and winter ’15
my freshman year. There was only one other trans girl I
knew about in the entire undergraduate class early on.”

In October 2016, Kaufman gained national attention

when Cosmopolitan magazine published a profile of her


decision to rush a sorority on campus, under the headline
“Can Trans Girls Be Sorority Girls?”

Candid and witty during our interview at the State

Street Espresso Royale, she describes the growth of the
population of trans women on campus as slow but gradual.

“A few more came in. A few more came out,” Kaufman

said.

Gender identity refers to an individual’s internal self-

perceived gender — this self-identification could be male
or female, but also may fall outside the conventional
binary. The manner in which people externally present
their gender — commonly through appearance, dress and
behavior — is referred to as gender expression.

Those who are born with a biological sex that matches

their gender identity and expression are categorized
as cisgender, while transgender generally describes
those whose biological sex, gender identity and gender
expression do not align. An estimated 0.6 percent of the
U.S. adult population identifies as transgender, according
to a UCLA Law School study.

Her freshman year, Kaufman lived in the Gender

Inclusive Living Environment, housed in East Quad
and established in 2013. The housing community
supports students who identify as transgender or gender-
nonconforming.

In her first semesters on campus, professors would

frequently mis-identify her as a male — unaware of her
gender transition — which Kaufman accepted with an air

of inevitability.

“That’s sort of the way it goes,” she said. “Unless you’re

blessed with a feminine heart-shaped face and bombed
with makeup.”

As an active member of the campus LGBTQ community,

Kaufman hopes to educate peers and faculty on how to
better understand transgender identity and avoid the
misunderstandings she finds prevalent on campus.

“The biggest problems that I’ve had at this University

are with professors... they are for the most part ignorant on
trans issues,” Kaufman said, citing an incident in which one
of her professors referred to Caitlin Jenner as transsexual,
an outdated term many people find overly clinical. “It’s
not okay that they are teaching people who maybe aren’t
experienced with trans stuff false information. I am not
cool with that.”

However, Kaufman acknowledged many many of these

misunderstandings result not from malice, but a lack of
information.

“Expecting everyone to have this knowledge is

problematic,” Kaufman said. “They don’t have access to
this knowledge, they don’t know. There’s some things
you’re not going to find on Google. There are some things
you can only learn from another trans person.”

For instance, someone may not realize that asking a

trans person for his or her pre-transition name can be
offensive and hurtful, she said.

***

On October 5, 2016 University President Mark Schlissel

announced the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiative,
aimed at promoting an inclusive and diverse campus
environment through the implementation of individual
strategic plans within each of the University’s 19 schools
and colleges, administrative units, athletics and the health
system.

Recently, the University’s administration has taken

steps to assist transgender students amid the rollout of the

campus-wide Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Plan.

For instance, a newly implemented preferred pronoun

policy — adopted in October 2016 — allows students to
choose the pronouns they self-identify with on Wolverine
Access to avoid misidentification by professors.

The policy was met with some backlash from some

segments of the University community. LSA junior Grant
Strobl, chair of the conservative student group Young
Americans for Freedom, drew national attention when
he changed his pronouns on Wolverine Access to “His
Majesty,” mocking the new policy.

The Spectrum Center, located in the Michigan Union, is

a resource for members of the LGBTQ campus community.
Founded in 1970, the center was the first of its kind at an
American college, and worked to promote policy that would
bar University discrimination against students based on
sexual orientation. In 1995, the Center expanded to provide
resources for transgender students and professionals on
campus, and it’s since fought to educate and activate the
University community to promote inclusion and support
for LBGTQ students.

Will Sherry, director of the Spectrum Center, said the

center functions not only to promote and pursue policy
change, but also to ensure these practices remain in place
beyond their initial implementation.

The Spectrum Center makes space for LGBTQ student

leadership, employing students part-time to serve in
various education and advocacy capacities. The center’s
student advocacy board — which Kaufman sits on —
provides training and workshops on inclusivity to different
student organizations and departments.

“One of the biggest obstacles is always just education,

lack of information, getting information out to people in
a way that they can grapple with that if that is something
that is new for them and that is a big goal of our center,”
Sherry said. “I don’t think that should be on every person
who holds that identity (to educate others), and so it’s really
important to have structures like our center in place.”

Sherry stressed that the most important role of the center

Transgender
on Campus:

b y M a r i a R o b i n s -S o m e r v i l l e, D a i l y A r t s W r i t e r

is not simply to introduce new rules — like the preferred
pronoun policy — but also to fundamentally shift how the
campus community approaches gender and sexuality.

“(The preferred pronoun policy) was a system, a tool that

was put into place this semester...it feels new, in that way,
but the practice is something that we would have expected
of people before the system was in place,” Sherry said. “I
have talked to many students who have greatly benefitted
from being able to assert who they are without having
multiple conversations and have had their gender respected
in the classroom in ways that felt really good for them.”

***

Kinesiology senior Laima Augustaitus said they

experienced insensitive comments, jokes and dismissive
language
from
professors
regarding
their
gender

identification, an issue they attribute in part to a lack of
diversity and dialogue within STEM fields.

They attribute the alienation not as the fault of any

organization or individual, but of a systemic lack of dialogue
on gender identity.

There’s ageism there too, Augustaitus suggested:

“Sometimes people say, my professor’s old, they won’t get
it.”.

Augustaitis’s academic department is small, which they

said limits their anonymity.

“I feel like if I do say something I am automatically

outed to the whole department and it would just get really
uncomfortable,” Augustaitis said. “If I started insisting
in my program of 12 people that they use my pronouns, it
would be followed with: ‘what is that?”

Augustaitus
additionally
addressed
feelings
of

isolation they face as a transgender person in a same-sex
relationship. They described their gender identity as subtle,
and therefore something that is often overlooked and coped
with internally.

“I’ve felt sometimes like I can’t go to a meeting for other

trans or non-binary students because I look the way I do,
like I shouldn’t be allowed to get upset when my pronouns
are misused,” Augustaitis said. “I’m sure other people feel
this way too.”

Overall, they expressed disappointment with the

University’s resources for transgender students, saying
they would have liked to have had access to more LBGTQ
resources and support organizations earlier in their
academic career. Augustaitis was also skeptical of the
University’s DEI initiative, suggesting the efforts are more
cosmetic than substantive, “using people’s identities to
have them speak and do all this emotional labor, but for
what?”

However, Augustaitis has found a place beyond campus.

As a member of the Inter-Cooperative-Council, they found
an educational community they were comfortable in.

“(ICC) has provided not only resources, but people I

could engage in conversation with about identity without
seeming like I was complaining or something that was only
relevant to me,” they said.

Reena Pang is an LSA Junior in the Residential College

who came out as trans last year. Living in East Quad has
provided her with a supportive and open environment, she
says. Being said, there are still challenges to being a trans
woman at the University.

Systems in place at the University to accommodate trans

people, such as gender-inclusive bathrooms and resources
available through the Spectrum Center and CAPS, were
also reassuring to her.

Even with the new pronoun policy, Pang said professors

have misidentified her gender twice already.

“There’s just a feeling of mild anxiety when people

misgender you, especially when professors are doing
it,” Reena said, harkening back to the mentions of a
certain discomfort and power dynamic by Kaufman and
Augustaitus.

She also discussed the infrastructures in place for helping

students transition.

“The University is actually putting out a system through

UHS where people can actually start hormones because
they are training and bringing in endocrinologists to
basically start hormone replacement therapy for people
who need it,” Pang said.

However, there is only one endocrinologist currently

at the University Health System, with a long waiting list.
Additionally UHS is provide blood tests and continuing
hormones, but not necessarily start the hormone
replacement therapy. As Will Sherry of the Spectrum
Center mentioned as a common theme, the resources are
often there, but the access to them is in many cases, very
limited.

“As much as I trust students to be able to understand

things on their own,” Sherry said. “There is a lot of value
in being able to explore identities and talk about them in
a class.”

In saying this she showed hope at least, for the

University community to learn and grow, even as policies
limit access to resources individuals need.

Photo by Claire Abdo