Hi Parker and other Hollins Sisters,

Thanks for writing your article to bring attention to this issue. However, I must respectfully disagree with your position — Hollins is a very precious commodity — a Women’s College. It is its mission and mantra to remain so. Thus, as a women only space (unless you are a graduate student) then I support its admission of any and all undergraduate women, regardless of whether you are a woman-born woman, a transgender woman or one in transition. I do believe that if you are a woman in transition that your admission should be considered as long as accommodations can be made for your comfort as well as that of your fellow students. For instance, it could be disturbing to some students to meet you in the shower if you have not completed your gender reassignment surgery. This comment makes no assumptions that you or your fellow students would be nude, but it is a bathroom and nudity typically occurs there. I make these statements as a life-long bisexual woman who had a very public coming out at Hollins and was quite well known as gay while a student. It was a fairly devastating time for me being that Roanoke is my hometown and my family was very prominent there and were scandalized by my coming out. While I agree that our beloved school is, as you say, a “tiny magical unicorn ,” it can also gore you with its horn! My class was one that experienced multiple traumas (including two suicides) around gender issues and some of those wounds have still not fully healed. I also recognize the nearly impossible situation in which a female to male transgendered person finds her/himself as they discover or acknowledge or engage in their reassignment. And as you mention, age is a factor that also places them in an impossible situation. I do still believe that despite this difficulty, Hollins at the undergradute level, should remain a women’s college, even if that tends to discriminate against people like you and your peers. I don’t have a solution other than to ask you and your peers to decide which you actually believe in more — the efficacy and preservation of women’s single-sex education or the rights of transgendered people engaged in transitioning. Most of the time, I support your rights, but when it comes to involvement in single-sex institutions which are the purview of the gender from which you are transitioning, I think you have to reasonably pay that price and give up those rights. There just aren’t many places where you can “have your cake and eat it too” — this I know from really catching hell over the years for being bisexual. I wish you peace and blessings in your new and hopefully more comfortable life.