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Dear friends,
Regardless of what you do or do not celebrate, I hope you were able to find joy, comfort, and companionship this past December. As we settle into a new year, I want to reach out to our supporters, our siblings old and new, and especially to anyone impacted in any way by the current events happening at Saint Mary’s College.
When I read about the reversal regarding the policy that would allow trans women applicants to SMC, my first, instinctual reaction was anger due to feelings of hurt. This letter went through many drafts while I tried to temper my initial thoughts with the awareness that passion without purpose, direction, or results is ultimately useless for establishing change.
I will say this. You are allowed to feel hurt, feel betrayed, angry, and upset. It can be disheartening to see progress impeded by outside influence, especially when you know that said progress will ultimately prove to be the moral and right route toward a better tomorrow. You are allowed your feelings, but we must not let this divide us.
Times like these remind me that the steady beat of forward progress has never been steady. As with all change, social shifts and their related movements ebb and flow as every side reacts to the others’ determined currents. The fact that we’ve come this far, even since my time on campus, is nothing short of astounding when you fully recognize where exactly this change is happening: a Catholic college in the Midwest of the United States.
Be hurt, you are allowed, but do not forget to celebrate the wins. The creation of an LGBTQ Center on campus, the DEI initiatives, and the fact that this group, Pride SMC, is officially recognized by the college - all of these are wins and all of these are due to the work of you and all of our SMC and queer siblings - past, present, and future. Because we work together, we instigate change. It is slow, and frustrating sometimes, but still, we will advance.
We may never be able to change everything or the minds of those who most directly oppose our existence. But we can support each other. We can provide guidance to those considered under-informed rather than intentionally malicious. We must weather the resistance and never forget to love each other, be kind to each other, and kind to ourselves.
I once had a teacher in high school ask my class to define what it means to be a Christian. We answered with obvious traits, which he then countered by saying not all Christians believe that or some non-Christian faiths also have that. His point was to show the complexity inherent within the single word, Christian. Those who identify as Christian may not fully align with another’s definition of it – yet how can I tell someone that their lived experience is inferior to mine or is not valid simply because I don’t live that way?
Who am I to judge?
For anyone, confining your understanding, empathy, and acknowledgement of something solely to your own lived experience limits your ability to grow, change, and exist. We are all such small specks in this grand universe, to believe we know everything and that things cannot change is an arrogant view of our own importance and understanding. If the only way you define a chair includes a cushioned seat, it makes me wonder what you sat on in school.
For anyone who’s studied biology beyond the very basic elementary curriculum, you know that biological sex is not a binary. Humans all begin with the potential to be male, female, or intersex. There is no set, biological formula for sex - as there will always be an exception.
If biological sex can be varied - then why not gender? Gender is beyond sex, how you define gender is unique to yourself. Everyone has specific ideas, aesthetics, and attitudes that empower how they feel about their own gender; just as we all have things that make us self-consciously aware of gender. Some of us are uncomfortable with long hair, others - short. Whether you enjoy wearing a flowing dress and heels or find that unbearable, if you always wear makeup or cannot stand even concealer - all of this impacts how you view your own gender.
Gender can be broadly defined as a multidimensional construct that encompasses gender identity and expression, as well as social and cultural expectations about status, characteristics, and behavior as they are associated with certain sex traits. Understandings of gender vary throughout historical and cultural contexts. A person’s gender identity (e.g., woman, man, trans man, gender-diverse, nonbinary) is self-identified, may change throughout their life, and may or may not correspond to a society’s cultural expectations based on their biological sex traits.
(“Sex & Gender.” National Institutes of Health. Accessed December 28, 2023. https://orwh.od.nih.gov/sex-gender.)
Women still face numerous challenges in life; there is no denying that true equality is still something that must be fought for on all levels. But we mustn’t forget that defining women by biological traits is not only harmful but is inaccurate. Should the definition of women be reduced to whether or not an individual can give birth? What then of those who could never or can no longer get pregnant? Of the women and people who have all the “right” parts but still can’t or won’t conceive? Of our elders who never had children? What of the people who are fully capable of childbirth, but have medical complications that prevent a full-term pregnancy?
If our idea of woman cannot be limited by biological aspects, lest we omit someone who, through birth or circumstance, does not fully “qualify,” then we must turn to what is left – gender.
As someone who does not identify with the gender binary, and who went to school with others who felt the same way, having my identity as a Saint Mary’s College alum be reduced by some to “biological sex” is personally degrading and overlooks both the purpose of all-women’s colleges and what exactly it means to be a student and alum of one.
Women’s colleges were originally formed because higher education, by and large, barred entry to women.
But talent, intelligence, and ambition aren’t limited by biological sex, just as they aren’t limited by race, gender, class, or country of origin. Anyone can change the world, so everyone should have the opportunity to access education, success, and a future.
To this day, I still receive somewhat baffled looks when I say I attended an all-women’s college. Not always, but enough that I have a stock argument lined up alongside my justification for my majors. Having to constantly explain why I preferred a Saint Mary's College experience sometimes makes me question, half-serious, what the point of an all-women’s college even is – or at least, I'll get asked that by strangers and friends alike.
If women’s colleges were originally created to provide opportunity to women who were prevented from reaching their full potential due to sexist ideas surrounding higher education– then someone, undoubtedly, will ask, "why do they still exist?"
Women aren’t barred from Ivy League schools anymore, they aren’t restricted to degrees or programs that help with housekeeping or nurturing the future through children. Women enrolled in degree programs have outnumbered men since 1979.
I didn’t choose Saint Mary’s because I am a “woman” nor because it was an “all-women’s college,” but because it placed such an emphasis on the self and discovering my potential, outside of society’s rigid ideas about my “womanhood.”
My best articulation of the continued existence of women’s colleges is that it provides a space where minority genders can flourish without most of the social expectations that come with constant interactions on a co-ed level. I’ve taken classes at both Saint Mary’s and at co-ed institutions. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a bit of a know-it-all and that I love to discuss topics of interest in depth. Even then, while in a classroom where all genders gather to learn, the discussion space would be dominated by (cis, white) men, regardless of the ratio.
Due to social mores, self-consciousness, or insecurity, so many of my friends were reluctant to speak up. To know the right answer would make you a show off. To be wrong would prove that you just aren’t intelligent. To disagree with someone makes you too opinionated and cantankerous. None of these are true of course, but recall back to your late teens, when you were an early adult trying to find your footing in the world and define yourself. Those so-called faults would seem like the ultimate social taboo to be avoided at all costs.
The stark difference between who speaks up, who speaks over others, and whose opinion is listened to is something you don’t notice until suddenly, you have room to grow, debate, ask questions, and learn. There’s an almost indescribable sense of worth that you get when at Saint Mary’s. The identity and self you cultivate at SMC is one that grows and endures throughout your life.
The culture created on campus is not solely dependent on the “all-women’s” descriptor. It’s the culmination of decades of students, alum, faculty, and staff defining what it means to be a part of Saint Mary’s College. This definition is the ultimate, well-loved hand-me-down from our SMC siblings and one that we will give to future generations, with our own uniqueness woven in. Who we are is influenced by everyone who steps foot on campus to be educated and to educate. Saint Mary’s, as with every women’s college, began as a seed where the core ideal was educating women. This seemingly small fact characterized the lens in which we as a college viewed education and the priorities and values to instill in our students. It shaped our approach to gender, learning, and ourselves.
To me, expanding the definition of who exactly is a Saint Mary’s College student or alum will only ever enrich the collective culture found there. Change will always come. Meeting it with open arms, understanding, and love is the best way to move forward toward a better future.
What makes Saint Mary’s College unique and such a special place isn’t the gender or biological sex of the students, but the relationships forged, lessons learned, and milestones experienced. Sister Madeleva’s often quoted line of “we promise you discovery: the discovery of yourselves, the discovery of the universe and your place in it” encapsulates this notion that we are forever growing, learning, discovering, and reevaluating ourselves. Why limit this growth, this discovery?
It is freeing and human when you wholeheartedly embrace the unknown, unabashedly love your neighbor because you are different, and proudly say that you “don’t know every answer and that’s actually okay.”
“When you stop learning you stop living in any vital and meaningful sense.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
In closing, I hope you found some comfort, motivation, or inspiration as one year closed and another began - either through this letter or through your own strengths and friendships.
May your year be gentle, full of wonder, and a happy one.
Thank you for your support, for continuing to grow, for being kind, and for being you.
Sincerely,
Adrienne Whisman
President, Pride SMC
She/They
Class of 2017
BA History & Humanistic Studies
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