Yale students can now select from THREE gender options

Students can identify as male, female, or non-binary.

Yale University will not allow students to select from three gender options.

Students at Yale University can now change their registered gender status to “non-binary” through the school’s Student Information System.

Yale University announced through an email that students can now register to identify their gender as “non-binary,” as a result of policy changes for the school regarding transgender individuals on campus, according to the Yale Daily News. Students can log on to the school’s Student Information System and choose from three gender choices: “M” for male, “F” for female, or “N” for nonbinary.

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The new policy is in response to petition, launched in November, from Yale’s LGBT community to President Peter Salovey. The petition called on the university to offer more rights for transgender students at Yale. The petition came in the wake of the Department of Health and Human Services’ plans to change the rules of Title IX to refer to gender as an unchangeable trait. 

Including the nonbinary gender option, according to Dean of Yale College Marvin Chun, is being utilized for Yale and the technology at the school “catch up with current understanding and practice of gender,” according to the Yale Daily News. But some  students voiced concerns about not removing any reference to the gender binary. 

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“If Yale cared to support [gender nonbinary]/[gender nonconforming] students, they might consider materially divesting from the gender binary, rather than providing an additional category to an already essentialized construction,” student Casey Odesser told the Yale Daily News.

Campus Reform reached out to Yale University for additional comment regarding the new policy, as well as the Yale College Republicans, for their take on the new policy, but did not receive responses in time for publication.

Follow the author of this article: Jesse Stiller