Source: The New York Blade News, March 6, 1998. "Rutgers University enacts protections for transgenders" by Christine Dinsmore.

A March 6 article by Christine Dinsmore in the New York Blade News reports that New Jersey's Rutgers University has extended its anti-discrimination policy to include transgenders. In a memo written by Academic Vice President Joseph Seneca, Rutgers' policy will now include "people who have changed or are in the process of changing their sex." According to the article, campus activists hope that the narrowly written directive (referring only to those who have, or will have, a sex-change) will also protect "gender-variant non-transsexuals."

The university's policy change came after a similar resolution was recently passed by the university senate, an advisory group of students, faculty, and administrators. According to Ruth Scott, director of news for Rutgers, "This had been debated for a while. The senate had discussed expanding the university's policy on equal opportunity and affirmative action to provide full protection for transgenders and transsexual students, faculty, and staff."

Some Rutgers activists are less than satisfied with the administration's new policy. Ben Singer, a graduate student and transgender activist, proposed wording that would have recognized the "inherent fluidity of gender." He feels the current policy does not protect "men who look feminine or women who look masculine." He finds that "The need to frame the protection in a framework of a medicalization of transsexuality is evidence of the conservative nature of the administration."

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