DCG posted: " MyNorthwest.com: Recently, Ron's wife was filling out an
application for Bellevue College when she noticed something interesting.
Instead of the standard "Male" and "Female" boxes that one checks on
applications, there was the question: What is your '" Respond to this
post by replying above this line
New post on *Fellowship of the Minds*
<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/author/dcgere/> Male or Female? Uh uh.
Bellevue College Now Gives You Seven Gender
Choices<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2013/11/27/male-or-female-uh-uh-bellevue-college-now-gives-you-seven-gender-choices/>
by
DCG <http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/author/dcgere/>
[image: men] <http://fellowshipofminds.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/men.jpg>
MyNorthwest.com<http://mynorthwest.com/874/2402529/Local-colleges-offer-7-gender-choices-on-application>:
Recently, Ron's wife was filling out an application for Bellevue College
when she noticed something interesting. Instead of the standard "Male" and
"Female" boxes that one checks on applications, there was the question:
What is your 'gender identity'? *And seven different options*: Feminine,
Masculine, Androgynous, Gender Neutral, Transgender, Other and Prefer Not
To Answer.
Under that is the question: "What is your sexual orientation?" Where you
can then check Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Queer Straight/Heterosexual, Other
or Prefer not to answer.
After Ron showed us the application, we wondered why they were collecting
this data. So I went down to Bellevue College and got some answers from the
LGBTQ Center adviser, Colin Donovan.
"We started collecting the data this fall quarter. *It's about being able
to track how well GLBTQ, and gender variant students, are doing in school
and how we can design better services, better classes, better programs to
make sure these students succeed.* Up until this point there has been no
way to track how that's done."
*The data is 100 percent private and not shared with anyone*, and for now
will only be used internally. This new data collecting system was accepted
by all community and technical colleges in Washington state.
Petri Muhlhausar is involved in the school's LGBTQ Center leadership
program. She says sometimes LGBTQ students have different needs.
"A trans student was in my class and there was an assignment that involved
bringing in pictures of your family from when you were a child," Petri
explained. "She wasn't comfortable bringing in a picture with her birth sex
visual in that picture. She just dropped the class because she didn't know
how to talk to the teacher about it and she was so uncomfortable. And so
we're seeing these kinds of things all the time. Up until now we haven't
had a way to actually take this to administration and point at numbers that
say, 'Look, our students are having a particularly hard time and we need to
do something about this.'"
[image: what a
joke]<http://fellowshipofminds.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/what-a-joke.jpg>
Colin hopes the data, *that will probably be analyzed after a year, could
help fund LGBTQ centers for education and programming*. So that the 500
students who pass through the center every quarter can actually get jobs
after they graduate.
"I believe I am the only out trans staff member at Bellevue College," Colin
said. "I can say, from my own experience, that employment is extremely
difficult for trans and gender variant people. People might be hesitant to
hire someone if they don't fit into one of the other boxes or they might be
worried about some backlash because their customers might not be
comfortable with you. So they just won't hire you. Of course they won't
say that because that's illegal. But that's what happens. *The unemployment
and homeless rate for people who are gender variant is huge* *(no report
cited)*. Being able to collect these statistics will help colleges really
provide support to make sure that we can start to make a dent in these
issues."
Petri hopes the data will help with something very tangible.
"One of the big things that we're looking at, and pushing for, right
now is *gender
neutral bathrooms on campus*. There are fifteen gender neutral bathrooms on
campus but only three of them are available for students and one of them is
specifically for dance students. So that's two gender neutral bathrooms,
both of which are in the library."
It's something that LGBTQ leadership student Teague Crenshaw would
appreciate. "*When I was in drag, one day, and I used the men's bathroom, I
got so much flack.* I had almost everyone in that bathroom saying, 'Why
isn't *she* using the women's bathroom?' and 'Let's take a picture of *her*.'
And all sorts of crap like that."
In a society where we often talk about being colorblind and not seeing
someone as gay, but just as a person; why break down gender and sexual
preference into micro categories?
"If we were all getting treated the same, that would be a great plan and I
would totally be all in favor of it," said Petri. "There are incidences of
harassment. If you say, oh, let's all be blind to this. Let's all treat
everybody the same and pretend these differences don't matter, then you
miss where it does matter and where students are being hurt because of it."
DCG
*DCG <http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/author/dcgere/>* | November 27,
2013 at 3:30 am | Tags: Bellevue
College<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?tag=bellevue-college>|
Categories:
Education <http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?cat=15005908>,
Gays<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?cat=35219924>| URL:
http://wp.me/pKuKY-oje
Comment<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2013/11/27/male-or-female-uh-uh-bellevue-college-now-gives-you-seven-gender-choices/#respond>
See all
comments<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2013/11/27/male-or-female-uh-uh-bellevue-college-now-gives-you-seven-gender-choices/#comments>
Unsubscribe<https://subscribe.wordpress.com/?key=7f89380f46003915c34c2cdd2b126a38&email=bovinescatologists%40gmail.com&b=LQ%3D4AgZ8%2F6ktJaPpSl%2FCdB8WPYA%26Lz%5DvZ5VaYGfcgx%262xB7bLxu>to
no longer receive posts from Fellowship of the Minds.
Change your email settings at Manage
Subscriptions<https://subscribe.wordpress.com/?key=7f89380f46003915c34c2cdd2b126a38&email=bovinescatologists%40gmail.com>.
*Trouble clicking?* Copy and paste this URL into your browser:
http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2013/11/27/male-or-female-uh-uh-bellevue-college-now-gives-you-seven-gender-choices/
Thanks for flying with WordPress.com <http://wordpress.com>
--
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"PoliticalForum" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
