This is not only a really fascinating topic, it's a fantastically written article, despite a few discrepancies in language usage. It captures all the sides of what the debate is in its complex and myriad issues, and did so without giving an credence or reference to what are assuredly some bigoted arguments as well. I pulled some of the choice pieces from it that really capture a lot of it accurately.

“All my life here,” Cushman told me, “I’ve been compelled to use the female pronoun more generously to get away from the sexist ‘he.’ I think it’s important to evoke the idea that women are part of humanity. That should be affirmed, especially after being denied for so long. Look, I teach at a women’s college, so whenever I can make women’s identity central to that experience, I try to do that. Being asked to change that is a bit ironic. I don’t agree that this is a ‘historically’ women’s college. It is still a women’s college.”

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“I felt for the first time that something so stable about our school was about to change, and it made me scared,” said Beth, a junior that year, who asked to be identified by only her middle name because she was afraid of offending people she knew. “Changing ‘sister’ to ‘sibling’ didn’t feel like it was including more people; it felt like it was taking something away from sisterhood, transforming our safe space for the sake of someone else. At the same time, I felt guilty feeling that way.” Beth went to Kris Niendorf, the director of residential life, who listened sympathetically and then asked: Why does “sibling” take away from your experience? After thinking about it, Beth concluded that she was connected to her classmates not because of gender but because of their shared experiences at Wellesley. “That year was an epiphany for me. I realized that if we excluded trans students, we’d be fighting on the wrong team. We’d be on the wrong side of history.”

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“I don’t necessarily think we have a right to women’s spaces. But I’m not going to transfer, because this is a place I love, a community I love. I realize that may be a little selfish. It may be a lot selfish.”

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Other trans students have struggled with these questions, too. Last December, a transmasculine Wellesley student wrote an anonymous blog post that shook the school’s trans community. The student wrote to apologize for “acting in the interest of preserving a hurtful system of privileging masculinity.” He continued: “My feelings have changed: I do not think that trans men belong at Wellesley. . . . This doesn’t mean that I think that all trans men should be kicked out of Wellesley or necessarily denied admission.” He acknowledged he didn’t know how Wellesley could best address the trans question, but urged fellow transmasculine classmates to “start talking, and thinking critically, about the space that we are given and occupying, and the space that we are taking from women.”

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Given that 85 percent of the student body cast ballots in that race, his victory suggests most students think that transmasculine students — and transmasculine leaders — belong at Wellesley.

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“The female-identified students somehow place more value on those students,” said Rose Layton, a lesbian who said she views trans students as competitors in the campus dating scene. “They flirt with them, hook up with them. And it’s not just the hetero women, but even people in the queer community. The trans men are always getting this extra bit of acknowledgment. Even though we’re in a women’s college, the fact is men and masculinity get more attention and more value in this social dynamic than women do.”

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"[...] Trans men are a different case; we were raised female, we know what it’s like to be treated as females and we have been discriminated against as females. We get what life has been like for women.”

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Last month, Mount Holyoke College announced a more far-reaching policy: It would admit all academically qualified students regardless of their anatomy or self-proclaimed gender, except for those biologically male at birth who still identify as male. In a list that reflects just how much traditional notions of gender have been upended, Mount Holyoke said eligible candidates now include anyone born biologically female, whether identified as woman, man, neither or “other” and anyone born biologically male who identifies as a woman or “other.” The school president, Lynn Pasquerella, said she and her officers made the decision after concluding it was an issue of civil rights.

These seem to really capture the essence of this. Women's colleges are inherently accepting of minorities and representing them, as that's their entire goal: Give voice and power to the oppressed groups. Those groups should involve related groups who have faced similar things in this society their whole lives, but the safe space is absolutely vital as well. It's the one place where someone can truly get away from men, and catering to them again defeats that, in theory, but I suppose in practice in would be different from person to person. Adding in the other side of it with transwomen makes it more complex as well.

I really don't know how to answer this. I think some of the most important concepts in my philosophy of who I am are inclusion of minorities, guaranteeing rights for the oppressed, and providing women equal voice and a right to safe spaces. I don't see any of these things necessarily at odds in this situation, but it's certainly complex and any of the sides of the argument have legitimate points, none of which are tinged with transmisogyny, thankfully.

This is a timely article too because I was recently discussing this with one of the owners of the bar I work at. I don't consider myself trans at all, mostly because I very easily and comfortably fall into the male role and have no problem presenting as male-- but I sure as fuck don't identify as male. I can't find anything truly creating the male gender identity that seems to separated from masculinity and patriarchal standards. Once I brush away gender roles, and macho-ideals, and expectations and standards that define 'male', I find nearly all of them toxic, constructed, or downright vile. So I simply refuse to call myself male. As a result, I usually find myself far more comfortable around women, and have very few male peers.

I'd thought about it in the past where I would absolutely feel like I would feel more comfortable and possibly learn more at a women's college, partially because so many of the attitudes and required actions of masculinity wouldn't be there to, at the least, subconsciously restrict me and others. Of course I would never go to one, because it's fundamentally wrong to intrude on that. That's a women's space and I am, for all intents and purposes, a man.

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But that's me, a trans person could feel completely differently for any number of reasons. I'd love to see some more trans opinions on this, especially from people not at these colleges. I know we have a few people on Hubski that openly identify as trans, but I can only remember AshShields off the top of my head. Anyone else want to weigh in?