This is the third story in a three-part series focusing on the experience of transgender students at Columbia.
The University Senate’s recent vote in support of allowing ROTC’s return to campus after a 40-year absence has elicited differing responses among the University’s transgender students.
The University began debating whether to allow the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps back on campus after Congress repealed the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which prohibited gays and lesbians from serving openly, last December. But many students, including Gavin McGown, CC ’13, argued in the senate’s town hall debates that the military’s continuing ban on transgender and intersex individuals serving means ROTC would violate the University’s nondiscrimination policy—and have been left wondering why the same protection from discrimination isn’t being offered to them.
“If you have a policy that you affirm in nine out of every 10 cases and you don’t affirm it in the one case, in what sense is that actually the policy?” McGown, who identifies as transgender, asked.
Following the senate’s vote to invite ROTC back to campus, Avi Edelman, CC ’11 and president of Everyone Allied Against Homophobia, said that transgender and gender nonconforming students deserve the same protection from the University as gay, lesbian, and bisexual students.
“The University upheld our nondiscrimination policy by not inviting ROTC back when gays and lesbians were excluded,” Edelman said. “But the University is unwilling to make the same inclusion for students who are gender nonconforming or transgender,” he added.
Edelman attributed the passage of the senate resolution to a general ignorance on campus about issues faced by transgender and gender nonconforming students.
“Unfortunately, that ignorance led us to make a decision that makes our campus a little less safe for transgender and gender nonconforming students,” Edelman said.
But some transgender students feel that the nondiscrimination debate was co-opted as a means to generally oppose ROTC’s return.
“I think they’re tokenizing the issue, using it as a ploy,” said Rey Grosz, GS, who identifies as transgender. Though he is glad to see transgender issues brought up on campus, he thinks activists have treated them as a cause du jour.
“People are just hypocritical and just want something to fight for,” Grosz said. “I don’t think that they have a right to speak on behalf of the discriminated-against trans population that aren’t allowed in the military. Not letting ROTC people in—I think that’s discrimination,” though he emphasized that discrimination against transgender students is still present on campus, both in social settings and administrative policy.
Issues like gender-neutral housing and whether or not transwomen should be allowed to attend Barnard are more important issues to debate on campus, Grosz added.
Astronomy professor Jim Applegate, a member of the senate’s Task Force on Military Engagement and a vocal supporter of ROTC, has said that an ROTC program would be entirely consistent with the nondiscrimination policy. He emphasized the clause in the policy which says, “Nothing in this policy shall abridge academic freedom or the University’s educational mission”—a mission that includes educating future military service members as well as civilians about military policy.
Tao Tan, CC ’07, Business ’11, and the chair of the senate’s Student Affairs Committee, agreed that the nondiscrimination policy would not be compromised by ROTC’s return.
“The policy was never meant to be so restrictive as to abridge the University’s educational mission. The football team, for example, discriminates on the basis of sex and gender as well,” he said in an email.
Applegate also disagreed with claims that ROTC’s return would hurt or marginalize transgender students on campus.
“Keeping ROTC off campus does nothing to improve the lives of transgender and gender nonconforming students that I can see. All it does is make the life of an ROTC cadet more difficult without achieving anything positive for anyone else,” Applegate added.
But McGown sees things differently, and points to specific experiences of transgender students on campus.
“There’s an interesting parallel between people who say they get looks for walking around in fatigues and me getting looks for walking around in a dress,” McGown said.
The military specifically prohibits transgender and intersex individuals from serving based on the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is published by the American Psychiatric Association. Used by the military in addition to doctors, researchers, insurance companies, and policy makers, the DSM lists being transsexual as a medical disorder, though the entry was changed from “transsexual” to “gender identity disorder” in 1994.
McGown disagrees with this type of classification and believes that many of the challenges faced by gender nonconforming individuals stem from social, not biological, causes.
“It’s estimated that one transperson a month since 1990 has been a victim of a hate crime resulting in death,” McGown said, adding that there are no federal protections for transpeople.
And despite the senate’s 51-17 vote in favor, McGown believes that allowing ROTC to return to Columbia violates the nondiscrimination policy’s protections based on “gender identity and expression.”
“If it doesn’t apply thoroughly, then how does it apply at all?” McGown asked.
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