Sex Change and Membership
 

What happens to your membership in a single-sex sorority or fraternity if you choose to alter your gender?

(no, I'm not considering it)

This really makes me laugh. Oh, the things you think about as a result of GreekChat.

I have no idea what the answer to your question is. It never even crossed my mind until the joke in that retro-recruitment thread.

I giggled a little when I saw it in that trainwreck (I'm not assigning blame to either side; I'm just saying the vehicle that was the thread flipped over at some point), but I thought it was in reference to a legacy who had a sex change shortly after birth- a more common procedure.

But if an alum who was in good-standing (but not necessarily hands-on active) had a sex change, would anyone at HQ really be the wiser?

On all the shows I've seen on the Discovery channel, if the person goes all the way with the surgery, they legally change status to whatever gender they have transitioned to. So let's say "Ken" transitions to "Barbie". His driver's license will now read "Female". If "Ken" had previously been a member of XYZ fraternity in college, I would think he would forfeit his membership. Otherwise, wouldn't it put XYZ fraternity in danger of legally not being a single-sex organization anymore?

Oh the things you'll respond to at 3:36 am after taking your teenage brother-in-law to the Harry Potter premiere!:p

could you be refering to a certain thread having to do with a certain retro recruitment story where a certain poster somewhat over reacted?

DING DING DING! We have a winner!:D

i'll bet none of our founders thought this one through! i have no idea what would happen.

Exactly my thought.. I mean technically I'd say the membership would cease. However, I doubt DMV/ Social security administration/ whatever other agencies change your records are going to cross check and call XYZ headquarters and tell them of the operation you had.

We did have a cross dresser come through rush, not once but twice back in the day. It was an interesting situation.

I'd think they'd be given the boot. Our rules clearly specify that a member "must be a man." They do not say "must be a man at the time of initiation" or anything like that. It stands to reason that if they are no longer a man, they are also no longer a member.

Mutilation does not equal sex change
 

I take an opposite attitude. In a traditionalist interpretation, the member has merely maimed himself. Despite the claims perhaps now allowed in the legal system, fraternities holding principles rooted in orthodox religious observance could simply ignore the surgery as a mutilation - no different than if the same effects were due an accident. The state can claim the physical change makes a different sex but a fraternity need not accept the alteration as a real change in sex identity.

BTW, some fraternities allow resignation from membership. Mine does not.

I'm sure all fraternities have means by which a member can be expelled. If a member ceases to meet the minimum requirements which a member must meet, PC or not, they're gone. For us, there are other automatic expulsion rules (like being convicted of a felony, failing to pay dues, etc.)

My interpretation is a literal one -- if one's gender is physically changed, that person, nor the state, nor anyone else views it as a genital mutilation. They view it as gender reassignment.

Far be it from me to tell your fraternity how to treat this situation. How would mine handle it? If you're not a man, you're not a member. Easy.

I don't think a largely conservative, old, traditional organization such as mine is going to wiggle around with shifting definitions of gender so that we can keep a person on the membership roster after gender reassignment. They'll just be out.

Except legally it is not a mutilation. Legally they have changed genders. So legally speaking, you have a woman in your fraternity. I don't really think this would hurt anyone's single sex status, but I guess it theoretically could. I don't think the government knows what to do with the transgendered yet.

BTW, for everyone, take this question and reverse it. Born a man, now a woman, wants to join your sorority (as an alumna possibly due to age) What are y'all's opinons on that?

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ty+controversy

The last pages of the Male Sorority Controversy thread included some of this discussion.

Here is a twist to the situation:

What if a man/woman at the age of 18 decides to have the surgery and become the opposite gender? Can we descriminate at this point if by all legal means Michelle became Michael or if Christopher became Christina? Would your fraternity or sorority let this person rush as their new gender?

Oh, man, take one punchy afternoon at work, add a trainwreck recruitment thread and a dash of Austin Powers, and viola!!!! A whole new thread is created!!!!

It's a man, baby!!!

I think that the "type" of person who would undergo a sex change would also become less active in his/her GLO as the years went on--probably well before any operation or treatment. It would probably be one more figment of their "previous life" that they'd be willing to let go of. I doubt that many post-op transsexuals are lining up for AI.

As progressive as we'd like to think our respective groups are, they are still very conservative and bastions of traditional behavior.

That said, if I wanted a man in my sorority, well, I would have joined a co-ed.

BON-One of my Brothers, after graduation, did have an operation.
I found out while doing a search for my pledge class reunion.
Up until then, I believed that there was only one woman member of SAE.
My Brother is still listed, just under a new name.

Absolutely. We can discriminate for any damn reason we want to. It's just that certain reasons for discrimination can't be actually spoken. If your state has a law (and if you're in Cali, it probably does) forbidding discrimination against transsexuals and y'all found this to be unacceptable, simply cut 'em. No explanation need be given.

I think you are right. I doubt that the member would want to continue in a group that reflects the previous identity.

As far as a transsexual rushing, it's hard for me to imagine too many chapters where the person is going to be "a good fit" to use an expression under discussion in another thread.

Even if you made a deliberate effort not to release the person for this particular issue, I think that the intangible aspects of what people look for in a good member would be genuinely off.

Maybe you're more guided by Thoreau in terms of your moral obligation to resist laws you think are unjust, but this position seems hypocritical: choose to break the law but just make it impossible to be caught.

I agree that if you never even discuss why someone was disqualified for something, no one will be able to prove that you discriminated, but in this example, it would be clear that you did. And unless you are someone who generally believes that we have no obligation to follow laws we don't agree with, it's odd that you, Mr. Law Guy, would float this idea out there.

Truth be told, the way membership selection generally works does not lend itself to disclosure of reasons. Such things are never discussed outside of that room and the ballots are secret.

At any rate, even assuming that you could prove the discrimination occurred, it still might be legal since gender is one of the central aspects of men's and women's fraternities. Transgendered individuals may not meet that organization's requirements along those lines and therefore, the discrimination would be permissible.

The legislative intent is not to force college fraternities and sororities to allow members they don't want. The legislative intent is generally more along the lines of public services and accommodations, workforce issues, etc. At any rate, you never even get to that question because the person suing to get initiated has a burden of proof which would be impossible to prove. How does one prove the results of an unrecorded secret ballot and the reasons behind any one of the ballots cast against association (any of which would have sufficed to exclude that person)?

Impossible. Such a law would be completely unenforceable in the context of our organizations.

Transgendered folks can start their own organizations or they can join Southron's.

Well, I'm pretty sure they can't join Southron's, but once members, they might not be expelled I believe was his point. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure his possible interpretation is that different that the average person's. I don't know that we accept the idea that post-op transsexuals are simply the new assigned gender. And I don't know if that's what the non-discrimination clauses demand.

Within the context of our organizations, I agree that issues of gender are always going to be strange because we can legally discriminate in a way that other institutions can't since we're by definition single sex.

If it were me, I would not be actively involved as an alumni. I think that it would be too much like pretending that I was something I'm not. I can only imagine that after a lifetime of feeling like you don't belong, being involved in a sorority would not be the best experience. idk. lol.

I want to know more about this. Can you tell more?

What I would give to be a fly on the wall at that recruitment:
ABC Rusher: I love your shoes! You have great style!
Rushee: Thank you so much. The ability to wear cute Manolos like these was part of the reason for why I wanted to get a sex change.

but would manolos come in size 16?

Nice.

Hmm....

I would say that if you are a gender-confused individual, sorority membership is probably the last thing on your mind. Seriously, if you consider yourself more like a guy...why would you want to be around flower prints and pink for long periods of time?

I really don't think that a guy who thinks himself a girl would want to be in a trashed out fraternity house and do "manly" things.

Homosexuality is something else entirely. I know some homosexual men who are in fraternities, but they are "manly" and are not at all the stereotype. LOL, most of their brothers don't even know because they don't suspect it even though they freely admit it. There was a guy who tried to rush the sororities last year, but it was shot down. I don't really know any homosexual females, so I cannot comment at all on that.

Be REALISTIC PEOPLE!!!!!

FYI, HQ would probably never know unless you were very very public with it or told them.

So this an interesting thread. I honestly don't know why a fraternity alum who went through a sex change would want to stay a member? I know that sounds harsh, but a fraternity represents a men's only organization (I am NOT refeering to women's fraternities here), and isn't the point of having a sex change to embrace the woman you were all along? So why would this previous male join a fraternity anyways? Its just confusing to me.

Also, I was waiting for the whole homosexual topic to come up and it did. I know both fraternity and sorority members who are homosexual and this is not a problem in their chapters or universities.

I know bisexual and lesbian women who are members of NPC chapters. Mostly it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal.

Yeah, that's less of a big deal. What someone does in the sack is not my business. Whether they meet minimal requirements for membership is.

Wow GC! I have had an ongoing conversation about transgender/transsexual membership within my own sorority. I keep hitting a wall when I try to figure out how one legally changes gender. Does anyone know if you can change your gender on legal documents? I know it's possible to change the gender listed on your SS# file if your birth certificate shows the other sex.

I think that's the biggest issue at this point for me. Personally, if a woman who identified as male and who wanted to be referred to as "he/him" had Theta Nu Xi in his heart and wanted to spend a lifetime supporting our mission and tenets, I would accept the interest. However, I can't imagine that sorority membership would appeal to a female-born male.

The more understandable situation would be a male-born female. And, here's where the situation gets sticky. If a person cannot LEGALLY change his or her gender, extending membership would threaten Title IX exemption. I've considered the option of going co-ed as this would be the most logical move to be as inclusive as possible, but that was not the vision of my founders so I do not support it.

Gender-confused? My, my. I don't know that I've ever met a transgender or transsexual individual who was confused about his or her gender. They all knew who they were inside and who they were outside from an early age.

There's often a period of time where people first identify as gay or bisexual, and eventually figure out that they're really transgender. Particularly if they're not too familiar with the concept. It's basically the confusion of "am I a butch lesbian, or a straight FTM?"

Some people are blessed in that they do truly know who they are, but it's not always so easy.

The whole thread is based on a joke in another thread. There's nobody who really thinks it's a real and pressing issue in Greek life. Just kind of a "hey, I wonder if . . . "

I think the idea though is that the person would want to join the group he or she internally identified with, so it's a girl who feels like a man and wants to join a fraternity or a guy who wants to join a sorority.

And if someone realized this was an issue after college, I don't think it probably figures in to their decision at all.


ETA: I'm not PC, and I'll just say that for I think a bigger section of the population than maybe some of you realize, what you are on the outside and what every cell of your body shows in DNA is in fact your sex or gender.

So when you don't feel like you match on the inside, the issue may your head and not with your reproductive system.

I think some day soon this thinking may seem as generally Neanderthal as thinking that homosexuality was a problem does today. But I don't think most of us are there yet.

To some of us it makes no more sense to think you can choose your gender or sex as it would to think you could choose your race. Sure, you can address all of the elements that are culturally constructed, but if your momma thinks you're white and your DNA says your ancestors are from Europe and you have naturally light pigment, straight blond hair, and blue eyes, many of us would think you were just a little nutty if you felt like you were Black on the inside.

Yes, you can legally change your gender. On your birth certificate, on your social security card, and on your driver's license. It is all part of the process of gender reassignment. Actually it all occurs PRIOR to the reassignment surgery. There are incremental steps in the process...which is carefully dictated by laws involving psychiatrists, physicians and the legal system. I have several M=>F transgendered friends. A good book to read is "She's Not There" by Jennifer Finney Boylan.

wow.... we must be really running low on actual topics.

Well, you know, there is only so many times that you can rehash the effects of telling a PNM "You'll end up where you're meant to" and "You're just not a good fit".

I never really post on here anymore but this one hit home. My chapter bid a woman who was considering reassignment. It was a long process - in terms of her deciding on the bid - ultimately it didn't make sense for her to join (to herself, not the chapter). She felt that because she really was a man, a woman's organization didn't really fit her. The founding principles would never fully click because at the heart of single-sex orgs is that we are single sex.

I think while 99% of the of the chapters in the world will never deal with this, there are a few of us weird non-conformist chapters out there, it is always good to know you aren't the only group posed with the question.

Side note: Reassingment is a very very long process. There is no way you would ever see an 18 year old going through rush who is about to get the surgery. Living as the opposite sex, yes, but probably not reassigned. From what I understand, you need to be completely done with puberty (for men this last much longer than women if you remember hs health class) then you have all of the psych counceling and hormone therapy. It takes years. I think this question is more pertinant to what happens when an alumn gets reassingned (my guess is they would be asked to resign if National ever even found out).