All-female Wellesley College votes to admit trans men amid no-go from school president Paula Johnson
WELLESLEY, MASSACHUSETTS: Wellesley College students will vote Tuesday, March 14, on whether to allow biological females who currently identify as men to enroll at their all-female college. Founded in 1870, the all-women college has produced several famous figures, including Hillary Clinton, Nora Ephron and Madeleine Albright.
Wellesley is one of the best liberal arts colleges, admitting only female students for 150 years. Now it is holding a vote on whether the application process should be open to people who were born female but now identify as transgender men, as well as non-binary people.
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Paula Johnson, president of the college who is against the new move, alleges it would rewrite its mission "to provide an excellent liberal arts education to women," as per Daily Mail. Meanwhile, Johnson has been supportive of admitting trans females and not trans men. She has even said about admitting trans females, "This is who we are: a women’s college and a diverse community." In spring 2021, the student newspaper of the college stated, "The Wellesley News Editorial Board is once again stating that transgender and nonbinary students have always belonged and will continue to belong at Wellesley, a historically women’s college." Meanwhile, Student body president Alexandra Brooks said, "We’re just asking the administration to put on paper what’s already true of the student body. Trans men go to Wellesley, nonbinary people go to Wellesley, and they kind of always have."
Who is Paula Johnson?
Johnson is the 14th president of Wellesley College. She has been the founder of the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She earned global recognition after her 2013 TED Talk, “His and hers...healthcare,” which continues to raise awareness of the crucial need to understand sex differences in treating disease. Johnson did her Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University and her Master's degree in public health and went on to pursue Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Medical school, as per LinkedIn.
Johnson also has volunteering experiences as the Member of Directors in Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Center for Reproductive Rights, Consortium on Financing Higher Education, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and Johnson & Johnson. She has also been honored with the National Medical Fellowships (NMF) Champions of Health Academic Excellence Award and The Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health Alumni Award of Merit in 2021. Johnson also won Wainwright Social Justice Award in 2018 and was the International Women’s Forum Hall of Fame Inductee in 2015. On a professional front, She worked in Brigham and Women's Hospital for 24 years in different capacities, including Clinical Epidemiologist, Executive Director, Connors Center for Women Health Executive Director, Connors Center for Women’s Health as well as the Director, Center for Cardiovascular Disease. She was the Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School for close to two decades. Later, she became the Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
'The school is already quite trans-inclusive'
The Internet had some great reactions to the polling. A user said, "I don't actually understand the mindset of a transitioned trans man who would apply to Wellesley. It seems awfully... self-invalidating, frankly." "I see it more that trans men are being used as the counter-point to this, but there are already trans-men in the student body so… At the very least, changing the outreach language to use students and alumni rather than women would be more reflective of the reality of the student body. I'll also say that we've already had this fight with historically black colleges, and that an institution can ultimately be accepting of people outside of it's core demographics without fundamentally changing the mission of those institutions," added another.
Another noted, "This is very interesting. The school is already quite trans-inclusive - the president describes it as "a women’s college that admits cis, trans and nonbinary students — all who consistently identify as women." By admitting trans men but not cis men to a women's college, would they be sending the message that trans men aren't really men? Or is "women's college" not a good description of what they're doing?." "Lol this discourse is back from the dead from 15 years ago. Back then colleges were fine with trans men who transitioned while being students, but would generally not ever allow trans women unless those trans women were just stealth and the colleges didn't known. That slowly changed over time, but yea. Wild to see this convo again all these years later.I think Wellesley specifically only started allowing trans women in 2015," claimed a user.
This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.