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So, I finally wrote a letter to the president of my university about issues transpeople on campus face. I'd be really grateful for any feedback!


Dear President ,
Hi, my name is Alexandria , and I have been meaning to write this letter for quite a while. Over the past year and a half, I’ve been faced with a number of difficulties in my day-to-day life on
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So, I finally wrote a letter to the president of my university about issues transpeople on campus face. I'd be really grateful for any feedback!

<lj-cut text="Dear President,">
Dear President <name>,
Hi, my name is Alexandria <lastname>, and I have been meaning to write this letter for quite a while. Over the past year and a half, I’ve been faced with a number of difficulties in my day-to-day life on <college's> campus. I’m one of a number of transsexual students on campus, and while I cannot speak for their concerns, I can speak for mine.
I’m a Male-to-Female transsexual who is currently in her third year at <college>. I started the process of physically transitioning in November of 2007. I’ve been on Hormone Replacement Therapy for a year, legally changed my name on September 3rd, and have been living full-time as a woman since mid-July.
While most of the area has been accommodating to my needs as a transwoman, I’ve encountered a number of issues at <college>. While most of these issues are trivial, they impact my daily life in a huge way. If I may, I’d like to tell you about a few of those issues.
While I feel confident using the women’s bathroom now, when I was still not consistently presenting as a woman, I was presented with the issue of which bathroom to use. When I was still male-appearing, I had no problem using the men’s room, but that changed once I started on Hormone Replacement Therapy. My face and body began to take on a more feminine appearance as fat shifted around, my breasts began to show through my shirts, and I began to develop the beginnings of womanly curves. By February I was getting funny looks in the men’s room, and by March I was getting told flatly that I was in the wrong bathroom. After a few incidents when I unintentionally confused some people enough that they started becoming confrontational, I realized that I couldn’t just duck into the men’s room to conduct my business while there were men in there. I still didn’t feel confident in my appearance to use the girls room, so this led to me having to resort to using out of the way bathrooms between classes, so that I could feel safe while doing my business. For instance, there are bathrooms on the bottom floor of the Computer Center, past the Help Desk, and towards the teachers area. There were instances when I would have a class in <science building>, and would go to the bathroom in the Computer Center to avoid getting hassled. Even then, I would wear multiple layers of heavy clothing to hide my rapidly feminizing figure. Needless to say, in the May heat, this was not comfortable. One of the reasons why I was so twitchy about using the girl’s room was that my ID was still in a male name, which leads to my next issue.
From April to May I would present more femininely, in jeans, sneakers, a fitted t-shirt, and a button-down overshirt. But I still felt uncomfortable being in areas where ID was required, or where I could be asked to prove my identity, because my ID had my old name on it. So if, for instance, someone had questioned why I was in the girls room, I couldn’t prove that I belonged there. The only thing I could do was show my ID, and hope that they would be understanding of my situation. I inquired about the possibility of getting my real name (my name as a girl) on my ID to replace my old male name, but was told flatly that I needed a court order. While I can understand the need for paperwork and a papertrail of any changes made, I was a bit confused about this. The campus directory had had my preferred name on it, and when I used computers in the Computer Center, it welcomed me as “Alexandria <lastname>”. All my associates and friends addressed me as “Allie”. When I pointed this out to the university, they told me again that I would need a court order. When I finally DID get my court date, I was assigned the first day of school, Sept. 3rd, as my date. I informed the Registrars office, and was told again that they would need a signed court order. I’d gotten the message, but I still felt incredibly unsafe presenting as female but showing a male ID card.
I would love to meet with you to further discuss these and several other issues, and hope that we can reach some solutions for these important issues. Thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely,
My name</lj-cut>
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