Sororities to allow all female-identifying students to rush

[Ag_Sis]

Hi everyone, I think this is an interesting debate so I'll just give it my two cents:

1) As to the Brown University Panhellenic unilaterally allowing female-identifying students to rush, that doesn't necessarily mean that the individual chapters themselves can or will offer membership to trans PNMs. A similar situation happens at A&M and UT Austin where Panhellenic allowed community college students who take a few classes at the 4-year college to rush. I remember there was such a big brouhaha over Panhellenic "forcing" chapters to accept Blinn TEAM/PACE students, but ultimately, it was the individual sorority's decision whether to accept or not. There was a big debate over whether it was "allowed" or not. There was a big debate over Panhellenic "forcing." But as far as I know, every single sorority at A&M this past year has accepted a Blinn TEAM member.

2) As to whether trans women are really women, I believe Clemongirl gave a much better explanation than I ever could as to the biological delineations. But there do exist women with 3 X chromosomes. As they are asymptomatic, many will not realize it, and they live normal lives as "real" women. Similarly, people with Down's Syndrome have missing chromosomes. Does that mean that they are not "real" humans and should be aborted?

3) Forgetting all of the biological talk about what constitutes a "real" woman, I would like to point out that the 7 Sisters women's colleges (Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Barnard, etc.) all accept transgender women (or anyone who identifies as a woman for that matter). If these "women-only" colleges can accept trans women, why not sororities? Having already been initiated, I see nothing in our ritual that demands a new member possess female sex organs or be born a female.

4) For whatever it's worth, I do actually know someone who is a trans woman who pledged (and was initiated into) a sorority. I do believe that she's told a few of her sisters (her school is more on the liberal side), but I do hope that nationals won't strip her of her membership, especially considering that she's already been initiated and gone through the rituals.

Again, just my two (four) cents.

[clemsongirl]

Originally Posted by Ag_Sis

Hi everyone, I think this is an interesting debate so I'll just give it my two cents:

1) As to the Brown University Panhellenic unilaterally allowing female-identifying students to rush, that doesn't necessarily mean that the individual chapters themselves can or will offer membership to trans PNMs. A similar situation happens at A&M and UT Austin where Panhellenic allowed community college students who take a few classes at the 4-year college to rush. I remember there was such a big brouhaha over Panhellenic "forcing" chapters to accept Blinn TEAM/PACE students, but ultimately, it was the individual sorority's decision whether to accept or not. There was a big debate over whether it was "allowed" or not. There was a big debate over Panhellenic "forcing." But as far as I know, every single sorority at A&M this past year has accepted a Blinn TEAM member.

This is a good point, too: no one is making the chapters offer bids to these girls if they choose not to. I would hope that being trans would not be the reason for not offering membership, but like with the PNM I told the story about above part of private membership selection practices is that chapters don't have to give reasons for not inviting a PNM back to their parties.

Unless this policy was adopted at Tufts or another school that requires that all PNMs be given a bid to a chapter as long as they meet basic membership requirements (are there even other schools that do this?), chapters still retain some measure of autonomy.