Women’s Colleges Left Trying to Decide What ‘Women’s College’ Means

Women’s colleges can’t figure out what to do with transgender students.
This kind of thing used to be pretty straightforward: Women’s colleges are for women. But as liberals go to great lengths to rid themselves of traditional binaries, schools defined by the gender of their students are having to decide what to do about applicants who define their gender for themselves.

This week, Bryn Mawr College, in Pennsylvania, decided it makes the most sense to simply take biological sex out of the equation and allow anyone who identifies as a woman to go. In other words: Even if you were born a man, you can go as long you identify as a woman now. On the flip side, if you identify as a man now, you can’t go even if you were born biologically female.

Some women’s colleges are leaving it even more open. For example, Simmons College, in Boston, allows not only those applicants who were born male and now identify as female, but also those who were born female and now identify as male. It also accepts applicants who identify as neither female nor male but consider themselves some combination of both genders or as “gender neutral” entirely. And others, like Barnard College, have no policy and are still deciding what to do.

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