Sports

Oberlin College Considers Policy That Would Mandate Transgender Sensitivity Training For Athletes

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Oberlin College in Ohio may make transgender sensitivity training mandatory for all of the staff and coaches in its athletics department in an effort to make it more "inclusive," Campus Reform reported.

The new requirement included in the latest draft of the school's "Guidelines for Inclusion and Respectful Treatment of Intercollegiate Transgender Student Athletes," developed by the student organization Transgender Participation Advisory Committee and released at the end of April.

"It is basically intended to sort of be a 101," Emily Clarke, a junior and member of the committee, told Campus Reform. "We also talk about choice, privilege and agency in presentation of gender and pronouns and ends with trans-allyship dos and don'ts."

Clarke added that the training session is "basically like, don't question people about their transitioning processes, respect pronouns and names, don't use 'ladies' or 'gentlemen' when addressing a group of people."

Clarke is a former member of the Oberlin Rhinos, Oberlin College's women and trans-inclusive rugby team.

The new policy would also require that athletic department documents replace FTM (female-to-male) and "MTF (male-to-female) with "a transgender student-athlete who was designated a female at birth and is/is not taking medically prescribed hormone replacement therapy related to gender transition" and "a transgender student-athlete who was designated a male at birth and is/is not taking medically prescribed hormone replacement therapy related to gender transition," Campus Reform reported.

The guidelines will also ask the department to replace "he/him/his/she/her/hers" pronouns with "they/them/theirs."

Clarke told Campus Reform that in previous years, athletic department staff has attended the training, but the new guidelines would make it mandatory.

The new guidelines are likely to be implemented as soon as fall 2015, the Oberlin Review, the school's official newspaper. But Clarke told Campus Reform that the school has not yet discussed enforcement of the policy, and the committee is still seeking feedback on the draft.

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