Changing Genders, Changing Policies

From the Chronicle of Higher Education. If you’re a subscriber, you can read it online, along with the comments. Otherwise, here are excerpts:

October 11, 2009
Changing Genders, Changing Policies

By Greta W. Schnetzler and GayLynn Kirn Conant

A significant number of students and faculty and staff members who openly identify themselves as transgender are appearing on college and university campuses.

In fact, nearly 300 colleges and universities have policies that recognize the rights of transgender people to be free from discrimination and harassment. Case law under federal nondiscrimination statutes has also recognized some degree of protection for expression of gender identity, as have some states, counties, and municipalities.

As medical understanding of gender variations has increased, and as treatment and support for people who wish to change gender has become more widely available, it seems natural that the visibility of transgender people on campuses should also increase. But that may depend on the extent to which individual colleges have created a welcoming environment where transgender individuals feel that they belong and know that resources are available to them when difficulties arise.

Perhaps the first step in sending a signal that individuals will be welcomed and respected on your campus, regardless of their gender expression or gender identity, is to explicitly prohibit discrimination against and harassment of students and faculty and staff members for any reason. Posting such policies on the college Web site will help assure transgender people that your administration is committed to equal treatment for all.

Conference on Gender and Gender Identity Politics

Intersecting Variance: Reading Gender & Gender Identity Politics
sponsored by Texas Tech’s Women’s Studies Program

This conference will highlight feminist research on gender and gender identity, exploring meanings of movement and change as connected to, created by, and/or caught up in the presence of women’s, gender, and identity issues, in both contemporary and historical frameworks.

It’s still in the planing stages, but you’ll want to mark your calendar:
Oct 2, 2009 at Texas Tech University, Student Union Bldg, 8:00 – 3:00

The program has created a Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=107797537897

See also the Texas Tech Women’s Studies Program @ http://www.depts.ttu.edu/wstudies

LGBT Awareness Week on Campus

Texas Tech’s Office of Student Diversity Relations and Lubbock PFLAG are hosting a transgender-focused suite of events for the LGBT Awareness Week, 10-6 through 10-10. This is an exciting schedule, and Texas Tech has committed substantial resources to the effort, including bringing two outside speakers for most of the events: Lindsay Marsh, field coordinator of Equality Texas, and Katy Stewart, head of Texas PFLAG.

The schedule and the poster are linked below. Please feel free to print, post, cross-post, and circulate. You are all also welcome to attend any and all events.

TTU – LGBT Schedule, Oct 2008

Poster for LGBT Awareness

Scholarships for Transgender Students

The Transgender Scholarship and Education Legacy Fund for Transgender Identified Students

The International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE), awards numerous scholarships to transgender identified students in the helping and caring professions through its collaborative Transgender Scholarship and Education Legacy Fund (TSELF) in the United States and Canada. Each scholarship provides supplemental funding for post-secondary students who have a demonstrated ability in and commitment to affecting change in the transgender communities through their commitment to working and being educated in the helping and caring professions. These include, but are not limited to, Social Services, Health Care, Religious Instruction (all denominations), Teaching and the Law. We seek to reflect a broad range of interests, including social services, HIV/AIDS education, law, teaching and education, religious instruction (all denominations), medical and health care as well as the sciences.

Read the entire scholarship pages at http://www.tself.org/index.html

Peeing In Peace

Peeing In Peace: A Resource Guide for Transgender Activists and Allies

A very nice 48-page pdf pamphlet. I would like to use this as a starting point for looking at our university.

See also FORGE Legal Issues

Bathroom Liberation Front

Transgender Workplace Diversity

Tennessee Gender Policy

TBR Adopts Fully Inclusive Non-Discrimination Policy

The Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition is pleased to announce that the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) adopted a non-discrimination and anti-harassment policy that covers both sexual orientation and gender identity. The TBR system covers 6 Universities, 13 Community Colleges, and 28 Tennessee Technology Centers across the state. This policy, adopted on February 13, 2008, immediately affects thousands of students, staff, and faculty.

http://www.tbr.state.tn.us/policies_ guidelines/ personnel_ guidelines/P-080.htm

The Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition encourages each of the TBR member institutions to follow up with their own specific guidelines to enforce this new policy.

The Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition also encourages the University of Tennessee system to follow the TBR lead and adopt a fully inclusive, non-discrimination policy as well. Until this move by TBR, not one single institution of higher learning in Tennessee, public or private, had a non-discrimination or anti-harassment policy covering all gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender students, staff, or faculty.

We applaud TBR for adopting this policy banning discrimination and harassment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people on all 47 of the campuses under its jurisdiction.

Marisa Richmond
President

The Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition (TTPC) is an organization designed to educate and advocate on behalf of transgender related legislation at the Federal, State and local levels. TTPC is dedicated to raising public awareness and building alliances with other organizations concerned with equal rights legislation.

For more information, or to make a donation, contact:

Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition (TTPC)
P.O. Box 92335
Nashville, TN 37209
http://ttgpac. com
TTGPAC@aol.com
(615)293-6199
(615)353-1834 fax