Students at Wellesley College, an all-girls school founded in 1870, voted to allow transgender and nonbinary applicants in a nonbonding referendum Tuesday.
Wellesley College Government Senators unanimously voted Feb. 27 to make language at the college more “inclusive” and to allow biologically male applicants.
“The college will continue to engage all students, including transgender male and nonbinary students, in the important work of building an inclusive academic community where everyone feels they belong,” a spokesperson for Wellesley’s president, Paula Johnson, said in a statement. (RELATED: Major Medical Journal Says Medical Establishment’s Transgender Guidance Not Backed By Evidence)
Johnson previously addressed the referendum, writing in a message earlier in March that “as a college and community, we continue to challenge the norms and power structures that too often leave women, and others of marginalized identities, behind.”
This is an interesting debate and it demonstrates the contractions in some of the more rigid platitudes of trans activism. If trans 👏men 👏are 👏men, by their very definition they shouldn’t be allowed at women’s colleges. https://t.co/S7LYKfxuAv
— Katie Herzog (@kittypurrzog) March 14, 2023
The statement sparked backlash from some on campus, with one opinion article at the student newspaper disagreeing with Johnson’s statement that the college “admits cis, trans, and nonbinary students.”
“In our next cycle, we intend to publish a longer and more thoroughly researched editorial that includes a response to the upcoming student vote on the gender inclusivity ballot question,” the students wrote. “For now, we would like to emphasize that President Johnson’s response is part of a broader trend of Wellesley’s administration and the Board of Trustees intervening in student discourse, which sets a problematic precedent.”
