This is the second of three stories in a series focusing on the experience of transgender students at Columbia.
When Rey Grosz, GS, entered Barnard College as a first-year in 2007, he was already taking male pronouns and planning to begin transitioning from female to male.
Although he had decided to attend a women’s college, Grosz knew several transmen who had graduated from Barnard and assumed everything would be fine.
But midway through orientation week, there were already problems.
“When I got there, my roommates were uncomfortable,” Grosz said. “They told the administration that they didn’t want to live with a boy.”
After just a week, Grosz was staying with a friend at NYU and commuting up to Barnard every day—but technically, there was no reason he couldn’t be there.
“I wasn’t on T. I hadn’t had surgery. There was nothing physical that would make me male,” Grosz said. “It was simply an identity issue.”
“T” refers to testosterone, which causes physical changes such as a deepening voice, more body hair, and increased muscle mass.
Grosz said that he asked to be moved to a single and that Barnard denied his request, saying singles were unavailable to freshmen.
Barnard confirmed that Grosz’s request could not be accommodated. The college has since made two singles available to first-years, for students with disabilities or exceptional circumstances.
“If we received a request for a single room based on a reason related to gender identification, it would be taken into consideration and evaluated based on the particular situation. However, as is the case for any requests for single rooms, we would not be able to guarantee placement. Our policy is that all first year students who elect to live on campus must live within the first year area, without exception,” Avis Hinkson, the dean of Barnard College, said in a statement.
During the last decade, students who do not identify or do not exclusively identify as female, have become increasingly visible at women’s colleges, something schools like Barnard have struggled to address.
Grosz said he went to Barnard’s administration, looking for solutions to his unique situation, which Barnard could not provide at the time.
“They were definitely not mean,” he said. “But they didn’t give me another place to stay, and they kind of made it seem like it would be hard the entire time.”
Ultimately Grosz transferred to Columbia’s School of General Studies, where he is in his final year studying visual arts and anthropology.
At Barnard, students struggled to express how they felt about classmates who don’t identify as strictly female. Many said they were torn between the importance of creating safe spaces and fostering conversations about gender and upholding Barnard’s status as a women’s college.
“I think Barnard has a lot of conversations about gender issues and present themselves as this inclusive, expansive kind of place,” said Sophia Allan, BC ’13.
But at the same time, Allan acknowledged the difficulties Barnard faces in accepting and accommodating transgender students. “It’s definitely a sticky situation,” she said.
Hinkson said Barnard is committed to providing a welcoming environment for all its students.
“In terms of admissions, as a women’s college, Barnard accepts applications only from women. Once students are matriculated, regardless of their identification, we provide support and resources on a case-by-case basis to best accommodate the needs of both the student and the College,” she said.
Avi Edelman, CC ’11 and the president of Everyone Allied Against Homophobia, said that he believes Barnard can be a women’s college and still be supportive of students who don’t identify across traditional gender lines.
“I think that Barnard is still struggling to grasp what it means to be a women’s college when gender is more complicated than just men and women,” he said.
Daly Franco, BC ’12, said she would never want a Barnard student to feel they didn’t belong because of their gender identity.
“It would make me upset to know that a fellow classmate is uncomfortable,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s fair for people to get angry at the school for their decisions, because traditionally Barnard is a women’s college.”
Franco added, “There are some people who go to this school because it’s all women, and to have one male changes that.”
Many Barnard students said they were unsure about the validity of gender as a concept, especially at a school founded on the rejection of certain ideas about gender.
“Gender is a cultural thing. It’s a social construct,” said Tabia Santos, BC ’13. “It’s something that’s forced upon us.”
Santos added that whatever the Barnard administration does, efforts on behalf of transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals cannot be limited to campus.
“It’s going to have be something that goes beyond Barnard,” she said. “Until we as a whole accept being transgender and change our minds, Barnard can’t change everything.”
Hinkson said that Barnard provides its students with a variety of resources related to gender identity.
“Throughout the academic year Barnard’s Office of Diversity Initiatives offers a variety of programs, events, and activities that are intended to support Barnard’s LGBTQ community,” she said. “In addition to the available resources through that office, the Office of Diversity Initiatives also works with several student organizations like Q and EAAH (Everyone Allied Against Homophobia) and campus coalitions like the Barnard Queers and Allies Network and Queer Central to make sure that the campus community is a welcoming, safe space for non gender conforming students.”
She added that the administration plans to reinstate a Transgender Working Group on campus.
Although Grosz said he wished his situation had been handled differently three years ago, he emphasized that the responsibility for changing attitudes on campus cannot rest solely with the administration and policy reforms.
“I don’t know how much more cooperative people would be if there was a system in place,” he said. “Part of the reason that all of this activism stuff is so hard is because we have such a huge student body and a huge campus and so many people coming for different reasons.”
Grosz added that he doesn’t believe there is a definitive way to teach people about transgender issues.
“It’s just something they have to figure out or accept as existing in the world.”
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