Laurel, I was struck by your letter and some of the ideas you present. You're right: the colleges to which Tracy, Lynx, Pendragon and I are referring are, as a general rule, on the liberal side of the ideological spectrum. That gives transgendered students on campus a better chance at physical survival than they might have elsewhere.

Academically, however, although these are all liberal arts college, their standards, methodology, and admissions requirements aren't just conservative, they're -tough-. That means we have an obligation, as well as an ingrained tendency, to look at things hard, and look at them analytically. This may well be the next idea we have to examine, and I don't think it's going to be easy.

The reason I don't think it's going to be easy is that it's too easy to jump to conclusions. Anecdotal evidence is all I have about transgendered people. I don't know if I've met any Female to Males. I do know I've met Male to Female. Looks? We're all "look-ist" to some extent, and I suspect that regularly improving surgical techniques will tend to that. Chiefly, what I go by is equally subjective: if someone's that desperate to change that s/he will subject him or herself to the drastic hormonal and physical reconfigurations of gender reassignment, that person's dedication ought to count for something.

Rey? I too thought Rey was awfully young to start the process, and I hope Rey has a hysterectomy down the line because that many hormones could have some pretty nasty consequences come peri- or actual menopause. But Rey did go through the Bar Mitzvah, which is a serious commitment. I'd have worried. In fact, I hope Rey comes through this all right.

For Heaven's Sake, I think that it's going to be hard to evolve a way of talking about transgendered people that is -not- insulting, and that's part of the process of dealing. But your suggestion of simply bagging it and coeducating because the time has passed reminds me of some of the discussions we had back in the day: in particular, one young woman who said "well, I've had two years of this, and now I'm ready for a change."

It isn't that easy. It isn't just institutional, or political, or academic, or financial history, in the case of a school like Mount Holyoke: it's actual American history. It would require a complete re-thinking of who and what we are, and who and what we are in relationship to the other four colleges. I could see UMass assimilating all of us, but I suspect Smith, Amherst and Hampshire would react as I am with a sort of "eesh, do we really want to do that?"

Since the discussions in which that young woman was ready for a change, I haven't seen sufficient evidence that it's time. I'm prepared to entertain the possibility that our role is to make ourselves obsolescent, if not obsolete, but I'm not prepared to through the educational institution (and the baby, of whatever gender) out with the proverbial bath.

I'd call that overemotional and impulsive.

I'm not talking about the "johns." What about the male prostitutes? I should think their lives should be very difficult too.

I don't agree with Laurel very often, but Rey -was- very young, in my opinion, to make the switch. You don't have to agree with me on that. Sexual identity -can- be fluid in late adolescence or well into adulthood. But from the little I've read, people who feel as if they're in the wrong bodies tend to sense that young. So I've got a whole lot of confusion going on.

The rest of it -- those are her opinions. I don't necessarily agree, but I do agree that decisions like these have a sensible home for discussion at the very least in the women's colleges. And I think it's a very useful step that she's thinking and writing about this, rather than turning away, thundering damnation (which she doesn't do), or getting violent.

If you can manage to, I think a dialogue might be more helpful than "take this and shove it."

And yeah, I'm not always that self-contained either.

Sorry, MTE. I feel as if I've just come across like the sort of OB-GYN who won't let a 20-something get her tubes tied because she might change her mind.

I used to teach, and I was strongest on undergraduate and graduate advising. So, where you see the transperson, I see the late adolescent, and I'm wuss enough to flinch at a second puberty and a second socialization when the body may still not be done maturing. I don't know the medical process so I don't know if this would make the transgendering process easy or harder. I -do- know, as I said, that people like you know early that you're not where you need to be. I also know that this can make people suicidal. In that case, it becomes life-saving medical care.

Aeschylus, here's my misinformation: someone is convinced that s/he is in the wrong sort of body. It's an evolutionary process: you come to that realization (and therapy); there's living as if you physically already -were- the gender you -are- inside your head; there's hormones; there's gender reassignment surgery (and hormones), which proceeds in stages; and I believe there's living as a man or woman for at least a year before the final surgery can take place.

Please correct me where I'm wrong. Until someone tells me "I've reassigned," and gifts me with the new name in the correct gender, I simply pretend nothing has happened because it's not my place to ask "uh, excuse me, but did you....?"