Changing the frame: queering access to higher education for trans* students

Abstract

College access and graduation results in significant life advantages, including higher lifetime incomes, better physical and mental health outcomes, and greater rates of civic engagement. Unfortunately, trans* youth have been systematically prevented from full participation in post-secondary education due to genderist practices and policies. Employing a queer theoretical frame, this manuscript identifies three critical junctures in the college access process where genderist norms inhibit college access and persistence for trans* youth. Five specific strategies for queering college access by ending or minimizing the impact of genderism are advanced, including cultivating the role of school counseling personnel as advocates, reformation of admissions practices, and attention to fostering gender-inclusive co-curricular activities and student communities.

Keywords:

• Trans* studies
• queer theory
• college access
• higher education

Notes

1. Generally, college and university application processes ask students to self-identify their gender, but in reality they are mostly interested in students’ sex designation, which they will use to assign them to sex-segregated housing in their first year of college as well as reporting data to the government. For more on the costs of this practice for trans* students, see Nicolazzo and Marine (2015).

2. While it is beyond the scope of this study, examining admissions applications’ language and disclosure of sex/gender identity requirements of non-Common App colleges is equally critical.

3. While the NCAA is moving toward greater inclusion of trans* student athletes, the requirements that must be adhered to in order to play as one’s affirmed gender are extremely cumbersome, and students living outside the gender binary must adhere to their birth sex designation in order to compete. The rules as they currently stand (and are enforced) disproportionately impact trans* women and others on the trans* feminine spectrum (Shy, 2007). For more on this policy, see: https://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/Transgender_Handbook_2011_Final.pdf