UPenn hosts freshman ‘gender equity’ orientation open to students ‘of all gender identities’
The orientation focused on providing ‘a safe space for first year students of marginalized genders and their allies to share their experiences and continue to grow.’
The orientation description stated that ‘transgender and cisgender women, transgender men, non-binary individuals, and their allies’ were supposedly ‘historically marginalized genders.’
The University of Pennsylvania’s Women’s Center and the Penn Association for Gender Equity (PAGE) hosted a freshman pre-orientation program to create “a safe space for first year students of marginalized genders and their allies to share their experiences and continue to grow.”
The description for the event, which ran from Aug. 17 to Aug. 20, announced that “PennGenEq is a pre-orientation program offered to incoming first-year undergraduate students interested in the topics of gender equity and social justice,” and added that “[s]tudents of all gender identities who would like to learn about gender equity and social justice are invited to apply.”
“Historically marginalized genders” include “transgender and cisgender women, transgender men, non-binary individuals, and their allies,” according to the description.
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Freshmen students discussed multiple topics related to gender and intersectionality, including “intersectionality and identity politics, binaries and labels, privilege and personal reflection, and presentations from campus resources and academic departments.”
PAGE, which helped the Women’s Center host the event, is a “student group at Penn that promotes gender and social justice and serves as an umbrella group for a diverse range of constituent groups.” The group “advocates for gender equity on behalf of constituents and the Penn community to Penn administration.”
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Many colleges and universities use freshman orientations as chances to teach students certain principles that are widely seen as divisive and political.
The University of Chicago, for example, is organizing identity-based pre-orientation events for minority students and those who identify as LGBTQ for September. The University of Virginia is offering four identity-based receptions for new students.
A 2022 report showed that the majority of college and university orientation materials examined focused strongly on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Campus Reform contacted the Women’s Center and the Penn Association for Gender Equity for comment. This story will be updated accordingly.
