All-Female Smith College Returns Transgender Woman's Admissions Application

[cali]

Calliope Wong, a high school senior from Connecticut, has twice sent an application to the prestigious all-female Smith College, but her papers have been returned without even an official admissions review.

It's not her grades or SAT scores, but her self-identity as a transgender female.

Wong, 17, was born male, which her family indicated on her federal application for financial aid in order to coincide with her Social Security number. But her admission materials describe her as female.

Smith has told her it cannot process her admission application as a female because the gender markers on her forms conflict.

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http://abcnews.go.com/Health/female-smith-college-returns-transgender-womans-admissions-application/story?id=18805681#.UVX75jesp7k

[Skittles]

1. omg it would be SO hard to amend that process!!

sheesh, a programmer could do it in a few minutes

[cali]

2. I suppose their concern is that they'd open themselves up to lawsuits from

men whose applications they denied on that basis. I gather that Calliope is not a post-operative transgender person. I wonder if it would have been different if she was. The article says that they have no problem with graduating women to men transgender people and Smith is hardly an institution that holds prejudice against trans people. It's known for being very open re gender issues and has a fantastic gender studies dept.