I knew a few people at Bryn Mawr


It always seemed like a most excellent liberal arts college, and in particular I enjoyed visiting with the late Jane Oppenheimer, a developmental biologist and historian of science. I was doing a quick refresher on Nettie Stevens, the cytologist working on chromosomes at the dawning of the age of genetics, while preparing my introductory talk on chromosomes and learned something new. I knew that Nettie Stevens studied there and was offered a position on their faculty, and I knew that Bryn Mawr was and is an all-women school, but I just learned an interesting fact about Bryn Mawr:

On February 9, 2015, the college’s board of trustees announced approval of a working group recommendation to expand the undergraduate applicant pool allowing transgender women and intersex individuals identifying as women to apply for admission. This decision made Bryn Mawr the fourth women’s college in the United States to accept trans women. Bryn Mawr “recognizes that gender is fluid and that traditional notions of gender identity and expression can be limiting”, and has the official policy of accepting nonbinary students who were assigned female at birth as well. All current, past, and future students are fully recognized as members of the Bryn Mawr community, regardless of current gender identity.

Well, now I respect that college even more.

Comments

  1. says

    I spent a couple of summers at Haverford College (summer theater program), which was once an all male college and was the brother school to Bryn Mawr, which is nearby. If you wanted to meet the opposite sex, that’s where you’d go. I visited Bryn Mawr a few times, to borrow theater supplies, visit people. Also spent a couple of nights there when I was an ACORN organizer and there was an event on campus that we attended. (Long story) Anyway, Haverford went co-ed in 1980 — I believe there may have been talk of a merger a la Harvard/Radcliffe but it didn’t happen. As you can imagine was something of a blow to Bryn Mawr. They have maintained their all female policy even without a ready supply of available men nearby.

  2. drew says

    I was shocked to know a man who did undergrad at Bryn Mawr, then grad school at UW, where I met him. I had only known it as a women’s school and was surprised that his beardy self would be among their graduates. Last I knew, I worked for App-hole. Wonders never cease.

  3. says

    I agree with Bryn Mawr’s decision here, but I really hope they’re ready for the reich-wing shitstorm that’s almost surely coming.

  4. Ben says

    I’ve generally been of the opinion that single-sex schools are kind of pointless, but this is a good step.

  5. birgerjohansson says

    I wonder if this college teaches its students about the existence of the 235-year-old customs service, because the college Dnald Trmp went to apparently did not.
    He just posted he is going to create the “External Revenue Service” to collect all those tariffs, so the foreigners instead of the Americans will pay. This is wrong on more than one level.

  6. Bekenstein Bound says

    He has a history of taking existing things, “abolishing” them and creating their “replacement” that happens to be pretty much identical, and then taking credit for having created it. For example, NAFTA/USCMA,

    This is entirely in character for someone also known for spamming big ugly gold TRUMP signs on every bit of real estate he gets his grubby mitts on.

    It’s like a one-person version of “not invented here syndrome”.

  7. Silentbob says

    #7 違う

    Presumably, this typically passive-aggressive comment is transphobia.
    What 違う means is apparently that it’s still single-sex apart from the impurity introduced by the transgender people.
    If you have some transphobia to express 違う, don’t be shy, be explicit – say it loud and proud, coward.

  8. badland says

    ffs SilentBob your attack response to chigau is getting fucking stupid. Read again for comprehension. You agree with her.

  9. badland says

    What 違う means is apparently that it’s still single-sex apart from the impurity introduced by the transgender people.

    No, Bob. Chigau is saying trans women are women.

  10. badland says

    Your response is the same as, and equally as stupid, as John Morales’ insistence I was being transphobic when I said that to a secular eye a vestment is similar to a dress.

    Read what’s there.

  11. John Morales says

    [OT]

    “John Morales’ insistence I was being transphobic when I said that to a secular eye a vestment is similar to a dress.”

    Quote me. Go on, try.

  12. M'thew says

    @badland, John Morales,
    Guys, could you please take this somewhere else? It’s getting mighty irritating.

  13. John Morales says

    [OT]

    M’thew, you are confused. There is no ‘us’.

    What happened is that I don’t like it when people pop into threads and defame me.
    If you personally don’t care, well, fine. But you are not me.

    Basically, badland lied. About me. For no good reason at all.

    (Got that?)

  14. M'thew says

    @John,
    You could be the wiser person and not taunt others into a long and derailing back and forth about who wrote what when and how. It’s not all about you.
    So what if badland lied about you? Are you going to be fired or sued because of that? It’s only a blog on the internet, whatever is written here has no real-world consequences for you. But every time you let yourself be dragged into one of these catfights (although it seems more likely you step into them willingly and gladly), you act as if the world is coming to an end and you need to move heaven and earth to save it. It’s so annoying and tedious.
    If you manage to curb your wise guy attitude long enough, people will no longer “defame” you and you will have no need to derail any more threads. So do yourself and the rest of us a favour and grow up. Be the better man.

  15. John Morales says

    You could be the wiser person and not taunt others into a long and derailing back and forth about who wrote what when and how.

    Ahem.

    John Morales’ insistence I was [blah] was #13.

    Where was my alleged taunt?

    So what if badland lied about you?

    Are you supposedly being serious?

    If you manage to curb your wise guy attitude long enough, people will no longer “defame” you [blah]

    Not “defame”, actually defame. No scare quotes.

    That was a straight out lie, out of the blue, and in no way provoked.

    Be the better man.

    I am the better person.

  16. John Morales says

    It’s not all about you.

    This: “John Morales’ [blah]” is specifically, unambiguously about me.

    And that is to what I responded.

    (Your attempted quibbling is as feeble as could be)

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