Non-binary and transgender students: navigating the cisgendered and heteronormative landscape at Hamilton
By Tori Lieberman ’26, Investigative Reporter
Many transgender and non-binary students at Hamilton face a unique set of challenges, from gender affirming care, to housing, to on-campus social life that Hamilton is often not prepared to handle.
The Spectator spoke to many students who expressed that access to gender affirming care proved difficult at Hamilton. These procedures included top surgery and hormone replacement therapy. Jae Thomes ’25 (he/him) explained the difficulties of arranging top therapy with a class schedule: “the only time that I can get the surgery that will leave me enough time to recover and be back in time for spring semester is during finals week…It really has to happen then or it won’t happen for years. That’s really frightening and really stressful.” He has been emailing back and forth with professors to navigate this process. So far, two of his professors have agreed. However, he added, “I have actively left out the part about it being attached to gender transition because I don’t know if that will further warp accessibility to [getting time off].”
Other students find themselves also having trouble getting the medical care that they need. The firsts of three anonymous students interviewed, a trans student ’26 (they/them), has been unable to get a letter to get top surgery from their Hamilton therapist.
Not only do Hamilton students who are transitioning face medical and academic obstacles, but the Hamilton mental health services often fail to offer adequate support. “I’m trying to get top surgery, and it’s so difficult because [my therapist can’t] provide confirmation of gender dysphoria diagnosis,” explained the student.
“They have to write a specific letter, and he’s like, I don’t have enough experience. And then I’m worried about the possibility of you detransitioning and regretting it. That’s not going to happen…but this is something that’s traumatizing for me, and I really need this to the point where it’s detrimental for my health and my function. But, sure, let’s worry about detransitioning” the student said.
The Counseling Center is another resource for Hamilton students. However, the knowledge surrounding how to help trans students can be limited. Henry Gooding ’24 (they/he) explained in their experience with the Counseling Center, “I was transitioning and I was saying that that was a large part of the struggles that I was having…and there definitely wasn’t [a] holistic treatment [from the Counseling center] of my entire identity and being. It was definitely cast aside, and I was still treated like a cis person.”
Dani Bernstein ’24 (they/he) explains that the area surrounding Hamilton does not have many resources for gender-affirming care, so without the support of Hamilton, the weight is put on students to find their own medical care. They explained, “I had to go find the doctor who does my testosterone on my own, had to find a psychiatrist on my own, had to find consults for top surgery on my own. The school has zero resources for finding queer things in the area, which is really problematic because this area is really not queer friendly.”
However, in some instances Hamilton has the resources to support students through their transition. Izabo Ramos ’25 (they/he) is the first person to go on hormone replacement therapy with Hamilton insurance. They have found their experiences with the Health Center to be very validating. They said, “The nurses and workers and doctors…have been so gender affirming to the entirety of my medical transition.”
Ramos continued, “That’s honestly because of the work of Dr. Bailey in the health center…I’m actually 99% sure he is the reason why Hamilton insurance started covering HRT and top surgery for trans students.”
Dr. David Walden (he/him), the Director of the Counseling Center, explained what resources they can provide for students. “What we offer is a sensitivity to the experience and we have a commitment to be aware of all of the different challenges that can come with that space and the landscape of that space,” he said. “Then we also offer straight up structural support like writing letters for HRT or top surgery or being aware of medical resources in the community and pointing students towards those resources if they need it.”
Hamilton’s housing policies can also overlook the needs of trans and nonbinary students. A second anonymous student ’27 (he/him) said that, “I’ve had some issues with the housing process and the resources provided were definitely aimed more at your more traditional roommate conflict: The, ‘we wake up at different times, or he plays loud music and I don’t like that,’, less so the ‘he does things that directly attack my entire existence,’ and I’m not really [comfortable] with that.”
He continued that when he reached out to try and prevent students from having the same problems in the future, he faced an apathetic response. He said, “it kind of was just, yeah, we’ll work on it. Or, we’ll get back to you. And, no one really got back to me.”
Bernstein has also had to advocate for feeling safe in their own room. “I’ve had to argue
tooth and nail to have housing over breaks when my home was not a safe space for me
to be through my transition.”
Another issue that students run into is access to safe bathrooms. Many gender-neutral bathrooms used to be men’s bathrooms and were later converted into gender-neutral bathrooms. They still have urinals, and often only one stall. Bernstein felt strongly about what these bathrooms symbolize to students.
He said, “That is not a space that’s accessible. No trans person wants to go into a bathroom that’s full of urinals. That’s not a gender inclusive space.” To Bernstein, it is clear that trans and nonbinary students were not really considered in the reassignment of these bathrooms. He said, “That is ostracizing students in a way that is making students feel different, making students feel alone.”
Thomes emphasized how unsafe this can make a space feel. He said, “I’ve been in [the KJ gender-neutral] bathroom many times. I have almost exclusively seen men in that bathroom, and there is fear around entering men’s spaces.”
Thomes added, “As a trans man I know when I was early in my transition I felt terrified to go into men’s spaces because of fear of physical violence.” Keeping these bathrooms “coded as a male space” keeps students, especially trans students from feeling safe.
Gooding has also noticed this and said, “I’ve been working on making a log of all the gender-neutral bathrooms on campus, saying if they’re up to standard or not.” This standard includes gender-neutral bathrooms having a lock and not having urinals, something that Gooding said are hard to find.
The school is working on making more bath rooms gender neutral. Maria Genao-Homs (she/her), Assistant Dean of Students for Diversity and Inclusion, noted that bathrooms in the athletics facilities and Bundy East and West have been renovated to be gender-neutral.
Aside from physical spaces on campus, the administration also creates obstacles for students with the name change form. The third anonymous interviewee (they/she) ’24, described their experience with changing their name in Hamilton’s databases. They said, “I still got emails from the Career Center, with my dead name on them.” They were surprised by this because their dead name is “not even my legal name at this point. So I feel like that should be changed.”
The second anonymous student had a similar experience. “When I started school, they got my email wrong. They put the wrong name there,” he explained. “They were like, it’s gonna take a few months…So there’s still one that doesn’t work and has like the first letter of my old name.”
According to Gooding, Hamilton is falling behind other NESCACs when it comes to this issue. “I’ve done research on other NESCACs and what their policies are around name change,” said Gooding. “It’s much easier to do. You can do it right on the directory website, and you can also add pronouns. Hamilton doesn’t have anything like that.”
“I had to go find the doctor who does my testosterone on my own, had to find a psychiatrist on my own, had to find consults for top surgery on my own. The school has zero resources for finding queer things in the area, which is really problematic because this area is really not queer friendly.” Dani Bernstein ’24 (they/he)
That being said, Hamilton is planning on implementing more resources. Genao-Homs explained that “a resource will roll out next fall that will provide students with the opportunity to update their names, as well as other social identifiers, as needed. This is an effort to give students more control over their identifiers while on campus.”
Hamilton is making efforts to improve how they interact with trans students in certain areas of the school, but many students noted the need for improvement in academic spaces. Gooding describes a negative experience they had while in a women and gender studies class. He said the teacher didn’t ask for pronouns, didn’t share any articles about queerness and taught the class from a cis[gendered] white perspective. Gooding explained that, “she would make jabs at me specifically, because I was the most vocal and critical of her. So, it definitely felt like my opinion wasn’t as welcome and I wasn’t as valued as a person because of my transness and how vocal I was about it.”
Other students also reported incidents of bias in their classes. Bernstein described how, “basically my whole class got in a fight with the professor because he was teaching from a really biased, white, masculine art historical point of view.” Bernstein said they, “got yelled at during class and had to submit a bias incident report and it’s gotten better since then, but there’s just no support within even a queer theory class for queer study, much less within other curriculums.”
Gooding explained that often professors don’t ask for pronouns or will read deadnames from the roster. This process can make students very uncomfortable. Mad Bartlett ’25 (they/them) has experienced this as well.
Bartlett said, “I’ll have a professor or a faculty member misgender me or use what I consider my dead name or, I’ll have to explain to somebody what they/them pronouns are.” They reflected, “It’s just [a] shock where it’s like, okay, there are people who exist like this.”
However, some teachers are very aware of asking for pronouns and making students feel comfortable. Anna Accettola (she/her), Professor of Classics Studies, has students fill out a first day information sheet with questions, including a student’s preferred name, preferred pronouns and if they are comfortable with her using these pronouns in public. If they are not, she gives them the option to list other pronouns the student would like them to use. She explains that the handout is useful for students because, “not everyone is ready to come out or to deal with these things publicly. I want to be attentive to that. I also don’t press the issue if students don’t share.”
Gooding appreciated this method in class: “It was nice in the sense that there wasn’t that pressure [that] you need to share your pronouns if that’s something that someone’s uncomfortable with.”
Not all professors share Accettola’s acceptance and support for trans and non-binary students. Bernstein also described how “there’s a small subset of really old white professors who have made inappropriate comments, have refused to gender me correctly, have told me that they’re going to continue gendering me the way that they had before, have told me that they don’t care, have told me that they loved me, asked me to move in with them, all sorts of just really, really inappropriate comments slightly related to my transition.”
After these experiences, Bernstein went to Title IX and “was basically told that I would have to derail my entire life to report the person who did this, and that they would know that I had reported them [and because I] wasn’t willing to give all of my energy to [go] through a Title IX process, there was nothing that I could do.”
Other professors have class policies that ostracize transgender and nonbinary students.
“I had heard that [one professor] had a pronoun jar…If he made a mistake with somebody’s pronouns, he would put [money] in a jar…It would fund at the end a celebration for every time he messed up somebody’s pronouns.”
- Jae Thomes ’25 (he/him)
Thomes explained, “I had heard that [one professor] had a pronoun jar… If he made a mistake with somebody’s pronouns, he would put [money] in a jar…It would fund at the end a celebration for every time he messed up somebody’s pronouns.”
After hearing this, Thomes said, “When I went into his class, I very much made an active effort to portray cis heteronormativity…Since then, I’ve just generally avoided voicing my trans identity or making it obvious in classroom settings.”
These teacher’s actions can partially stem from a lack of understanding surrounding how to treat trans students. For example, Accettola explained that she learned her method of asking pronouns from her graduate program and adapted it from there because, “Some universities do have a Teaching and Learning Center or some other group that supports new teachers in learning how to teach more effectively. Hamilton, unfortunately, does not.”
In addition to the classroom, it can be difficult to navigate finding safe spaces on campus for trans students. The Days-Massolo Center (DMC) and Gender and Sexuality Union (GSU) are resources for trans students. However, not all students feel comfortable in these spaces. Bernstein explained, “The GSU has a spotted history with racial issues, issues related to assault and power dynamics, and so it’s not necessarily a space that all students feel comfortable going to.” He continued, “It’s not a space that I’ve attended and that’s the school’s one space for queer students.”
The second anonymous interviewee similarly felt a lack of safe spaces on campus. He said, “I have to actively seek out trans communities on campus, which I think is kind of harder to find than I had initially anticipated.”
Many students told The Spectator that many parts of campus were unwelcoming to them. For example, the third anonymous student recounted a time a diner employee misgendered them and their friends: “He referred to us with girls, and then guys, and then he switched back to girls. And then he was like, I don’t know, I’m not even gonna try.”
In terms of parts of Hamilton’s social scene, the third anonymous student said, “I’m not generally a party person, but even if I was, parties and hookup culture and all of that is just very hard to participate in.”
They felt that many Hamilton people have the “sort of underlying vibes of ‘I don’t know what’s going on with this person. I don’t know how to interact with them.’”
Harper Youngwood ’26 (they/them) agreed with this sentiment. “There’s an entire side of campus that has felt inaccessible to me because of my gender identity. As a non-binary person, I don’t feel comfortable existing in spaces that are inherently gendered such as greek life and sports teams,” they explained. “Though some frats/sororities and some teams such as frisbee claim to be gender inclusive and open to non-binary people, I think it’s still hard to feel like there’s truly a space for me there.”
Youngwood said that joining some of these groups on campus, “would force me to pick a group that’s either associated with men or with women which feels like it diminishes and to a point disrespects my identity.”
Ava Alexander ’26 (she/they) talked about the experience of being misgendered. “Being trans is not something that I hide, but I feel like because I don’t present in a feminine manner that some people who I’m out as a trans woman [to], have a difficult time using my correct pronouns/other gendered language,” she explained. “It’s as if they see me presenting in a masculine way that they forget I’m a trans woman even though they know about my identity.”
Ramos echoed the sentiment that not all students are willing to respect other students’ pronouns. “[I was introduced] using they/them pronouns, and some guys just literally do not know how to do it. So it’s like, that’s why I always give people the option to also use he/him pronouns, because I use [him] in Spanish, because Spanish is a very gendered language,” they explained. “It’s like, if I give you the easier option, you’re not going to fuck it up. But I know you’re not going to try to use they/them pronouns, because you don’t know how to.”
That being said, students have also found that turning to other trans students, or embracing their trans identity, can help them to find community on campus. The second anonymous student reflected, “Originally when I started college, there was a few weeks or a month where I was like, I’m not going to tell anybody I’m trans, I don’t want to have to deal with this part of my life anymore.” After some time at Hamilton he said, “I pretty quickly realized that not revealing this huge portion of my identity would close me off to potentially really deep friendships.”
Bernstein has found safe spaces and friendships within student-led communities on campus including Green Apple and the mindfulness community. They explained that, “other students have provided me with spaces where I feel comfortable exploring my gender identity… [These are spaces] that I found support, but I would say that primarily those spaces are facilitated by other students and Hamilton is struggling to even keep them alive.”
Thomes expressed finding support within the DMC. Bartlett has found acceptance from people they did not expect. They said, “I think there are some preconceived notions that I have that have been proven wrong where it’s like, I’m scared if I go to a person who’s Catholic or of certain religions, that they’re not going to respect me.”
“There’s an entire side of campus that has felt inaccessible to me because of my gender identity. As a non-binary person, I don’t feel comfortable existing in spaces that are inherently gendered such as greek life and sports teams”
- Harper Youngwood ’26 (they/them)
Gooding has also found support within other students at Hamilton. He said, “they’ve been very good at, like, listening [and] asking questions. They’ve very infrequently messed up my name and pronouns, which has been nice.” He added: “A lot of them will correct people or go out of their way to be proactive. Like he changed his name…Which has been good, so I don’t have to navigate dealing with that.”
Students can find supportive communities in different areas of the school. For Bartlett, they have found support within Gamma Xi, one of Hamilton’s sororities that allows people to rush if they don’t identify as a man. Generally, Bartlett feels like Gamma is a welcoming space for them. “I’ve had so many conversations with so many different girls in the sorority who have asked me about my pronouns and [asked me], ‘can I use words like girl, dude, whatever with you?’ Or they’ll say ‘gals’ and then they’ll be like, ‘oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.’ And they’ll apologize for it. And they just do a great job at just recognizing it.”
However, this space can still feel gendered in its language. Bartlett said, “sometimes [they] talk as if we are all girls…and that bugs me a little bit, but I know that they’re not doing it out of malintent because I know they’re just doing it because they would have to be like, we’re all girls and there’s Mad.”
They added, “those generalizations don’t super [annoy] me because I know it’s just out of [convenience]. I know that if I was in a one-on-one conversation with them, they wouldn’t call me a girl because they know I’m not.”
Athletic teams however aren’t always built for trans students. “When I started undergoing transition, I was basically kicked off of my team for transitioning,” explained Bernstein. “I went to the athletic director about that and [they] basically told me to suck it up, so then I went to the diversity equity inclusion person, and they were more supportive and were able to recognize that what had happened to me was wrong.”
That being said, Bernstein observed that there is not “any concrete evidence that anything has changed” for transitioning athletes. When Bernstein spoke to the athletic director about how “the education and the response that was going on wasn’t adequate, she told me not to tell her how to do her job.”
Bernstein called for a different system than the one that they were put through: “Having procedures and support in place within athletics and within academics [to support trans students] is really important.”
The first anonymous student interviewed also had a hard time finding community within their team. They recounted an experience they had speaking with a graduated senior on their team. “I was really excited about having someone queer on the team. I was talking to her about how I feel more comfortable in queer spaces and how I feel sometimes the team is not really a very queer affirming place. And she basically was, like ‘yeah, you just can’t make being gay your whole identity.’”
This anonymous student explained why the team is not a very queer affirming space: “We’ve never on the team introduced ourselves with pronouns. Not when I first got on the team, not in, like, the two years since. My coach doesn’t know, and I don’t know how to tell her.”
However, not every athlete has this experience. Jay Pratt ’25 (they/them) is a coxswain for the Men’s Rowing Team and found a lot of support from that group. They explained how “[The team] suggested testing the pronouns [over spring break] which I don’t think I would have done if they hadn’t suggested it…That was really sweet of them. And they completely followed through on it.”
This supportive community can be seen in many trans spaces. Bernstein said, “I’ve really found a family here and a really wonderful group of people who support each other and show up for each other.” Bernstein continued, “and so I love the fluidity and overall acceptance, but also the community formed within queer spaces I think is really important for the space that we’re in in the world.”
Alexander has also been able to find community at Hamilton as well. She said, “feeling comfortable as a trans student here is not always easy but I’ve found people that support me and see me as who I am.” They added, “I’m very fortunate to have become a member of spaces that are not gender-exclusive and are composed of very accepting people…I’ve also become relatively involved with HOC and outing club associated groups that have all been very accepting of me.”
However, there are still levels of privilege within a trans identity, including in spaces at Hamilton. Bernstein explains that, “I have an incredible male privilege now that I have the option of passing as a man, which is something that I engage in primarily for safety.” Bernstein said, “But when I was in a transient space, or when I see my transfeminine friends, I recognize that my feeling of safety and comfort is a privilege.”
Thomes also feels like his binary trans identity allows him to feel a lot safer on campus. He feels more comfortable wearing more feminine clothing now. He said that “since I’ve come out, I feel less tied to my gender expression as being reflective of my gender. So, I wear more feminine clothing sometimes, mostly out partying, stuff like that.”
Ramos specifically highlighted one friendship with a trans BIPOC friend of theirs. They talked about how important it is to have a friend who they can relate to across the intersectional aspects of identity. For Ramos they said it is very gender affirming to share, “the transness, but also like having that overlap with BIPOCness, even like Latinx culture, specifically, because she’s Mexican, and I’m Ecuadorian.” This friendship highlights the need not just for Hamilton to provide spaces for trans students, but also BIPOC trans students, and students with intersecting identities.
Despite the many hardships that trans people face, there was a theme of pride and joy throughout many of the interviews when it came to a student’s trans identity. The second anonymous interviewee explained, “I think it gives you a really unique perspective on life…it forces you to be really, really in tune with who you are.”
Gooding emphasized this: “I kind of just live authentically, and that’s been really freeing for myself, and I don’t feel afraid to express myself however I want to, and it feels good when I know that I’m safe.” He explained, “I like that it’s given me the ability to show who I really am, because it comes through in my personality, too, because before I transitioned, I was so socially anxious, and a lot of that started going away when I transitioned.”
However, Hamilton still needs to provide more support according to Bernstein. He said, “Hamilton’s historical population [is] geared towards white protestant men…the school isn’t always capable of meeting those needs and [supporting] students who come from disenfranchised backgrounds or who are students of color or who identify as queer or who navigate transitions while they’re at Hamilton.”
Youngwood wants more spaces specifically for trans individuals. “I think there’s a common thought among a lot of people on this campus that opening up spaces to gender non-conforming people is enough. However, I think to be truly inclusive they have to be completely recreated so they aren’t gendered in any way,” they explained. “For me, a lot of my gender identity is about escaping the binary and not associating myself with any gender.”
