by Calliope Wong

On April 24, 2014, student activists at Smith College and their Five-College Consortium allies held a “Trans Women Belong Here” demonstration to both protest their college’s trans woman exclusionary application policies, as well as to put pressure on the college to accept activist group Smith Q&A’s proposal of a gender supplement with two letters of recommendation in lieu of a completely gender-affirming (all female markers) high school transcript as currently required by the college.

photo courtesy of Smith Q&A

The “Trans Women Belong Here” protest came as the direct result of an earlier example of institutional oppression, in which I applied to Smith College, only to have my application returned to me—without any review–based on the arbitrary and illegal reason of my FAFSA (or federal financial aid forms) being marked “male” for selective service reasons.

Though the administration has recently, in the wake of my national media campaign for trans woman inclusion at Smith, formed official policies that require a trans woman to have her full high school transcripts reflect her identity in order to be eligible for acceptance–Smith students and alumnae alike recognize the injustice of such policies. Having the full support of teachers and school districts is yet again an arbitrary and unfair measure of a trans woman’s identity and eligibility for acceptance. Student activists are shocked and appalled that Smith thinks this is the case, and stand in opposition to their college’s institutionally oppressive policies.

For more information on Smith’s policy please visit: smith-q-and-a.tumblr.com/policyreform. There’s a helpful FAQ on the issue at simth-q-and-a.tumblr.com/FAQ To learn more about the campus campaign, email transwomenatsc@gmail.com

Though I wasn’t able to attend the protest, I did contribute a speech that was read by Smith Q&A members. Here it is:

Institutional Oppression is just a meaningless, multisyllabic buzzword if you let it sit on paper—if you don’t unpack the stories, the lived experiences, and the people whose rights are daily curtailed, cut off from any reasonable expectation that they will be afforded the same human dignity and basic levels of access granted to who are more privileged than they. My campaign last year promoting trans woman inclusivity at Smith is only one example of the too-many forms of institution-based of discrimination that keep trans women from enjoying the same basic rights as cisgender (non-transgender) people. Of course there are other areas beyond education that are in dire need of work as well: from establishing equitable healthcare and coverage to creating comprehensive legal protections for transgender folks, we’ve got a long way ahead of us if we’re even to begin to make things fair.

Still, we’re here today to try and fix this one issue, so future generations of trans women applying to women’s colleges can inherit a better education system, one that’s ready for them and the great work they will do. And from there, we’ll only keep pushing the envelope until no one dares to say that being transgender is a problem. It’s not. We’ve got to update our social systems to this reality.

For those of you who are just coming into this fresh, I’m Calliope Wong, and I’m a Chinese-American trans woman (among other things) who’s currently a freshman in the University of Connecticut Honors program. The short story is that I applied to Smith in my senior year of high school, spent the summer talking to Dean Shaver of Admissions trying to find out what the official policy was (there was no official policy for trans women), and ended up jumping through what were essentially hoops made-up by the administration as we went along in the application process. The whole time, I wrote updates in the form of open letters to Smith alumni and the administration—I posted these onto Tumblr, hoping to raise support and awareness for trans women and the unique institutional roadblocks in our way.

Dean Shaver of Admissions sent my application back to me twice without processing or even reading it—the first time, because several clerical errors on my school transcript (that were not under my control, by the way) marked me as “male.” The second time, after I sent my application back with all of the gender markers corrected, Smith refused to read it on account of my FAFSA (the federal financial aid form) being marked “male” for selective service purposes. None of these two reasons for refusing to read my application are legal. You can reject an applicant for any reason you like as a school, but you cannot just flat-out refuse to read an application and send it back without review. And, mind, the FAFSA is a federal document: that’s not under Smith’s jurisdiction whatsoever.

I promised this would be a short summary, so I just want to say—I reached out to people who’d take my story and run with me. Crossposting across social media, reaching out to Smithies past and present and future, to friends who cared. To feminist news sites like Feministing, Jezebel, and Rookie. To mainstream media outlets like the HuffPost, ABC, NBC News. To Smith QnA, who helped with the creation of our official Change.org petition which gathered more than 4000 signatures from across the United States.

 And here we are again. A year later, at a protest aiming to secure equitable application processes for trans women at women’s colleges.

And I did just say the job isn’t finished yet. Though Smith College has agreed in word to finally admit trans women applicants who meet their new requirements, the improbable policies and standards the administration set for trans woman applicants still constitute a very real institutional barrier to inclusion. In QnA’s words, “in most cases only trans women who have been over 18 for a significant amount of time (so not most young women applying to college), have very supportive families and schools, are of considerable financial means, have access to lots of free time, and (in many states but not all) want surgery can apply. Smith refuses to acknowledge that most trans women will not meet their draconian, unrealistic requirements, while simultaneously playing a game of verbal appeasement—as if we are to be placated and satisfied with a policy that isn’t at any sort of real policy. And so we’re gathered here today, to demand change.

Lots of people have told me, from the summer of 2013 up til right now, that this is not worth fighting for. These people have told me that it’s not worth putting myself out there, they’ve told me that all I’m good for is a cheap publicity stunt, they’ve told me that I shouldn’t try to go, in their words, “where I’m not wanted.” I think they believe I’m wasting my time. They’re wrong.

This isn’t about me or any measure of fame. No one’s paying me to do this in my spare time. To be honest, I really don’t have spare time. Tonight I’ve got 2.5 chapters of Biology notes to get through, a poetic pairing final paper due on Thursday—I’m a freshman in college and a person, like anyone else.

I just want the trans women after us to know that being trans is not a problem, and to see that the institutions they so wish to study at and join will welcome them, as equals, with open doors and hearts. I want the kids after us to inherit a better, more just society. And if we can take education as a decisive victory, it’s one important step towards trans equality in our world.

Thank you.