Transcending the Issue of Sexuality

ColumbiaSpectator.com – By Laura Torre

As students begin to settle in a routine at Columbia – finding their place in campus activities, learning the bureaucracy of the system, and slowly becoming caffeine addicts – a small group of students begins to question where it belongs.

Transgender people, those who choose to identify with the gender opposite to their sex, have a history of not fitting in. Defying their sex, transgender people break away from the gender and sexual binaries, so they fit in as neither women nor men, neither gay nor straight. Rather, they are a combination, a mix-and-match of characteristics that are difficult to define at first glance. For this reason, many find that students at Columbia, as well as the University’s general policies, do not know how to deal with transgender students.