Media.www.DailyNorthwestern.com – Sara Peck
Transgender students and faculty fight for equal rights and equal protection. Will a new university president make this a reality for the last unprotected minority on campus?
Joe Ellison sometimes receives a somewhat annoying monthly retirement booklet addressed to ‘Ms. Ellison.’ “Once you get on a mailing list somewhere, it’s impossible to get off,” he says with a smile and a small shake of his head, upon which a purple and gold yarmulke sits. A bristly brown-and-gray beard circles his jaw, and thin-framed glasses are perched on the bridge of his nose. Ellison, who has worked at Northwestern for 17 years in the Transportation Library, was once the daughter of a feminist mother in New York City and later a student at Reed College. In the mid-80s, Ellison fully transitioned to becoming anatomically male, and learned how difficult the change would be both on paper and in person.