Education

Nation’s Only All-Male Historically Black College To Start Accepting Transgender Men

Martin_Luther_King_Jr | Circa November 1964 | New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photographer: DeMarsico, Dick, photographer via Wikimedia Commons

The nation’s only all-male historically black college announced a new transgender policy after its board of trustees approved it on Saturday.

Morehouse College in Atlanta will begin accepting transgender men next year, college leaders told The Associated Press.

“I think Morehouse having the courage to speak to issues of masculinity in today’s environment is important,” Morehouse College President David Thomas told The AP. “For 152 years, the world has, in some way, seen Morehouse as the West Point of black male development.”

Transgender men, meaning they have transitioned from female to male, can enroll at the college starting in 2020, but students who were born male and now identify as female will not be allowed to. Morehouse “will continue to use masculine pronouns” and “the language of brotherhood” according to the new policy as cited by The AP.

The college will not guarantee a degree to students who transition from male to female while enrolled, however.

Morehouse alumni include Martin Luther King Jr., film director Spike Lee and former Atlanta Democratic Mayor Maynard Jackson, reported The AP. The college now joins more than 1,000 other U.S. colleges and universities that have approved a transgender policy.

Morehouse is in a very distinct, small club of U.S. all-male colleges. The only other all-male colleges are Hampden-Sydney College in Prince Edward County, Virginia, and Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

Announcement of the policy comes just days after two House Republicans joined nearly every House Democrat in sponsoring a bill that would allow male athletes who identify as transgender to compete in women’s athletics.

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