In the spring of 2003, in an effort to protect the transgender community from discrimination and unfair treatment, Penn's University Council amended the University's Nondiscrimination policy to include a gender identity clause.
More than a year later, some proponents of the policy, many of whom are members of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender community, are suggesting that, despite the official inclusion of the gender identity clause, few tangible changes have come about.
This concern was brought to the forefront in April of this year -- more than a year after the policy change. Erin Cross, the associate director of the LGBT Center, discovered that the gender identity clause was absent from her employment benefit package.
The situation was swiftly resolved through a printed apology followed by a note sent out from The Office of the General Counsel to remind everyone to make the appropriate changes.
Besides making sure that all University forms carry the updated version of the policy, LGBT community leaders have pointed to at least three other areas of implementation that need to be addressed -- formulating a coherent policy regarding undergraduate housing for transgender students, providing adequate bathroom facilities and working towards eliminating the simple male/female dichotomy that appears on many forms that ask for gender identification.
"Personally, I believe addressing some of these issues, because of the conflict in different peoples' needs, is going to require a community-wide discussion and conversation before any implementation moves forward," said Mitchell Marcus, an LGBT advisory committee member.
"The University seemed well-intentioned when the problem with the forms was brought to the its attention. They moved very effectively to finally deal with the issue. It seems to me, [the issue as a whole] has simply fallen off their radar screen to the fault of no one in particular," he added.
University officials admit that for an institution Penn's size, the implementation is an inevitably slow process.
"This is a relatively new question, not only for Penn, but for universities in general," newly selected interim Provost Peter Conn said.
"It needs to involve not only the president, but all the other stakeholders, including ... the students, the faculty, the alumni. It is consequential. It is significant. And it demands a thoughtful University-wide discussion. And that is what we plan to provide."
He added that this issue is on University President Amy Gutmann's agenda, and should come up for discussion during the upcoming fall semester.
"The implementation of this policy has been ongoing," Jeanne Arnold-Mann, the executive director for the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Programs said. "This is just an additional category of individuals who are now protected by it."
She added that the University stands firmly behind the policy, but some of the logistics have proved to be difficult in implementation stages.
Still, Marcus and Cross, among others, are calling for the University to be more proactive and sensitive to the needs of the transgender community, though neither claims that the lack of implementation is purposefully discriminatory.
"It is very hard to balance the needs of all the members of our communities simultaneously," Marcus said, "especially when it comes to issues like use of bathroom where the people's perceived needs tend to conflict each other."
To date, the University has taken a reactive policy that treats most situations that arise on a case-by-case basis. Advocates of the policy admit that there is no easily accessible framework that can be followed, as Penn is one of the few universities that has begun to wrestle with this issue.
Implementing the policy "slowly and correctly, I think, is a very good way to go about it. I just hope it doesn't take prodding from folks to continue moving, even at this slow pace," Cross said, adding that the University's policy should make it so it is not incumbent on the transgender individual to go and ask for help, but so the policies and centers are already in place, publicized and available.
As originally proposed in early 2003 by the Pluralism Committee, which advises the University on diversity issues, the inclusion of gender identity was intended to mirror city law. According to Marcus, by following the city, the University decided on a narrow interpretation of the scope of the policy, focusing primarily on the "rights," but not the "needs," of the transgender community.
"One issue that ... complicates addressing these needs is perceived concerns and perhaps real concerns about objections from older, more conservative alumni," Marcus said.
The most difficult concern to resolve has proven to be the issue of housing. Discussion among college house administration, the Office of Affirmative Action and the LGBT Center has been held to evaluate the available options that would make undergraduate housing adequate and suitable for all those who would like to utilize it.
The problem of housing is complex because it cannot be resolved with a top-down, unilateral action from the University.
"Quite a few constituencies will have to come together to decide on any possible changes," Arnold-Mann said.
The University deals with arising housing issues on a case-by-case basis. And, with each case, numerous difficult-to-resolve questions arise: Should transgender students live in singles? If they live with a roommate, should transgender students live with a roommate of his or her biological gender or the gender with which he identifies? How should the roommate be consulted and should the Housing search for a roommate who consents to live with a transgender student?
Last winter, the Undergraduate Assembly passed a proposal that supported coeducational housing, but the administration has not altered the current policy.
"We want [the housing policy] to continue to provide a sensitive response to individual students who bring their particular concerns and needs to the housing system," Conn said. "To the best of my knowledge, it has proven to be a satisfactory way of operating the housing system over the past several years."
Penn is not the only University that has grappled with this issue and, in fact, some others have implemented policies to adapt to a more diversified campus environment.
Several years ago, Swarthmore College introduced a number of co-ed rooms that do not take into account sexual orientation or gender identity. University of Illinois at Chicago uses the gender with which the student currently identifies for the purposes of assigning housing.
The adequacy of bathroom facilities is another facet that is currently being resolved on a situational basis. Many LGBT activists are currently pushing for more gender-neutral and single-occupancy bathrooms.
Many of the forms utilized throughout the University that ask for gender currently allow an either/or choice of male or female. Several alternatives have been suggested that would allow people to identify themselves as 'other' on the forms, or simply to leave the question for people to fill in as they wish without any explicit choice.
"It is another massive change," Arnold-Mann said. "We will have to think of how the process will have to take place in such a decentralized University .... We stand behind the values, but these are some of the logistics that still have to be worked out."
But it is more than policy change that will make for gender identity non-discrimination to be felt on a University-wide scale; awareness on the issue of gender identity needs to be raised across the whole community, according to both the University and LGBT leaders.
"A lot of it isn't policy change. A lot of it must be attitude change within the students," said College junior and LGBT activist Phil Cochetti. "I would like to see people change their attitude, so they realize there are people who are undergoing challenges on the issues of gender identity."
To this end, the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Programs publishes and distributes information related its policies. It is also in the process of hiring an associate director of training to be more pro-active in its educational process, according to Arnold-Mann. Similarly, the LGBT center has a task force that advocates and educates people about gender identity issues.
