Three weeks ago, the University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents approved a little-noticed change in the University’s Diversity, Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action policy, to explicitly include gender identity and gender expression in the list of categories protected from discrimination. Advocates for the trans community at the University are hailing the move as an important first step in both combating hate crimes against trans people, and more broadly building recognition of the needs of the trans community.

“It’s a fundamental and essential statement that everyone here has the right to their own gender and self-expression, that we should have the ability to use the symbols to express our identity that feel appropriate to each one of us,” said Ross Neely, the Coordinator of the Transgender Commission at the University.

The inclusion of gender expression was very important,” said MJ Gilbert, a teaching specialist at the University’s School of Social Work and Co-Chair of the Transgender Commission. “It protects the men’s basketball team, the women’s basketball team, it protects you, and it protects [University President] Bob Bruininks,” because it protects how each person chooses to express their gender, she said.

The Commission is an official body of the University, made up of students, staff, and faculty, and has been the driving force behind the policy change.

Members of the Transgender Commission said it was only recently that the change was possible, due to the new make-up of the board of regents. Although members wouldn’t name specific regents opposed to the measure, Neely said “in previous years, got messages through various channels that particular regents would have stalled, resisted, or pushed back through various channels.”

The most crucial changes, though, were perhaps the most banal — an administrative restructuring that put the Transgender Commission under one Vice President, charged with overseeing diversity and equity issues, that gave the Commission a high-powered advocate. “This is a large bureaucratic institution that turns slowly,” said Gilbert.

Vice President Nancy “Rusty” Barceló “really stood up,” Gilbert said. “There were a number of changes in the equity and diversity statements happening at the same time – [Barceló’s office] could have hidden this…instead, a lengthy presentation was made to the regents” about what gender identity and expression mean, and why they’re important to protect, and consider alongside race or sexuality.

Gilbert said that the changes to the anti-discrimination policies laid the groundwork for future efforts to advance respect for trans rights at the University.

According to Anne Phibbs, Director of the University’s GLBT Programs Office, there are “definitely places where we need more education, but there aren’t places we can point to and say there’s overt discrimination. At the same time, there are definitely people and places [at the University] that are transphobic, homophobic, biphobic.”

At the same time, she said, “there’s a lot of activism” for the rights of gender non-conforming people.

“Have we seen really awful hate crimes? No,” Said Neely. “But do we think it would be safe, or easy, or affirming to transition while in the dorms? No.”

Photo: Members of the University of Minnesota’s Transgender Commission. Left to Right: Ross Neely, Anne Phibbs, and MJ Gilbert.