New policy clarifies 'female' for Mills College admission

Sonj Basha (right), a student who helped shape Mills College's gender policy, lies in bed with partner Barbara Jefferson, who also is gender neutral, at their home in Oakland. Sonj Basha (right), a student who helped shape Mills College's gender policy, lies in bed with partner Barbara Jefferson, who also is gender neutral, at their home in Oakland. Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close New policy clarifies 'female' for Mills College admission 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

As civil rights conflicts go, the plight of transgender and "gender fluid" students being rejected from single-sex colleges is typically down on the list - if it makes the list at all.

The best-known example is last year's rejection by Smith College of Calliope Wong, a transgender high school student who applied to the Massachusetts women's college but was told she didn't qualify because her federal financial aid papers called her male. Smith students are still protesting.

But of the nation's 119 single-sex colleges for men or women, Mills College in Oakland is apparently the only campus that explicitly lets applicants choose a gender and be considered for enrollment - if that choice is female.

The new policy will be in place for the first time as students return to class on Aug. 27. The trustees' enrollment committee unanimously approved it in May, clarifying a host of what-ifs at the stately women's college founded in 1862:

-- Applicants "not assigned to the female sex at birth" but who self-identify as women are welcome.

-- Applicants "who do not fit into the gender binary" - being neither male nor female - are eligible if they were "assigned to the female sex at birth."

-- Students "assigned to the female sex at birth" who have legally become male prior to applying are not eligible unless they apply to the graduate program, which is coeducational.

-- Female students who become male after enrolling may stay and graduate.

Male student a leader

That last point is especially gratifying to Skylar Crownover, an incoming junior who will serve as student body president this year.

"So the new policy says you're allowed to complete your degree, which is awesome," said Crownover, 20, who was admitted to Mills as a woman. Soon afterward, during a welcoming exercise when students were asked for their preferred pronoun, Crownover said "he."

Crownover chose Mills in part because other family members had attended. But after settling into a male identity, he had to consider whether the women's college was for him - and decided that it was.

"Mills has the most open policy with regards to trans students," said Crownover, who emphasized that he is speaking for himself rather than as student body president. "It's been the unwritten policy of Mills for a while now, but to see it finally put down in words and to see it official is a great step."

Of the roughly 1,000 undergraduates at Mills, three to five each year are transgender or identify as something other than the gender they were assigned at birth, said Brian O'Rourke, vice president of enrollment and admissions at Mills, one of 48 women's colleges across the country.

"The purpose of the policy is that we didn't want students to feel excluded in the application process," O'Rourke said. Applicants questioning their gender identity already feel stressed, "and reaching out to a stranger in an admissions office can exacerbate that stress." Having a written policy should make the application process easier, he said.

Conversations about gender identity among students, faculty and staff led the college to create a report in 2013 filled with recommendations on the topic - including prohibiting male-to-female athletes from competing on a women's team until they have completed one year of hormone therapy, and prohibiting female-to-male athletes from competing if they take testosterone.

The decision to change the admissions policy wasn't prompted by Smith's rejection of Wong in March 2013, O'Rourke said, but by its importance to Mills students.

"I'm incredibly pleased" with the new policy, said Sonj Basha, 26, an entering senior who served on the Gender Identity and Expression Subcommittee that helped shape the policy.

"Mills is the only women's college that has a policy around gender-variant inclusion," said Basha, who uses the gender-neutral pronoun "they" rather than "he" or "she."

Yet the policy isn't as all-inclusive as some students would like.

"There's an unseen binarist statement there," said Lynn Conway, 22, a transgender woman and entering sophomore whose explanation might confuse anyone used to thinking of gender as having only two options.

Must be born female

Asked to clarify, Conway said the policy requires gender-neutral applicants "to temporarily misidentify themselves to get into the space," meaning Mills.

In other words, only women need apply.

The policy also specifies that gender-neutral applicants must have been born female. Those born male aren't welcome.

O'Rourke said that in creating the policy, "Mills wanted to reinforce its identity as a women's college. We're proud that we are a women's college at the undergraduate level, so we want make sure we're enrolling students who understand our role as a women's college even if they are questioning" their gender identity.

Remaining a women's college is a huge deal at Mills. In May 1990, the trustees voted to admit men in hopes of raising more money. The action set off a passionate student strike that echoes to this day. Students wearing "Better Dead than C0-Ed" T-shirts blocked administration buildings, jammed campus phone lines, and paraded through campus honking car horns and demanding that the trustees reverse their vote.

They eventually did. And President Mary Metz resigned, having lost the trust of students and alumnae alike.

As one of the few male undergraduates who will earn a Mills diploma, Crownover considered how to reconcile Mills' identity as a women's school with the new policy embracing male students like him.

"I don't feel that opening Mills to trans women and trans men goes against the mission of the strike," he said. Society confers privileges on men, but transgender men have yet to share in those privileges. Women's colleges have traditionally leveled the intellectual playing field for a less privileged group - which today includes trans men, Crownover concluded.

'The next frontier'

It's "100 percent possible for a trans man who passes to gain some of the perks of male privilege," he said, but it may be a while before that includes admission to one of the nation's 77 male-only schools.

"It would be really incredible if a trans man could go to a men's college," Crownover said. "For whatever reason, I couldn't imagine it. I think it would be the next frontier."