True Brotherly Love
Chi Phi, a fraternity founded at Princeton University in 1824, recently changed its membership policy to be more inclusive. The fraternity has voted to allow transgender men with legal documentation to pledge, stating that “one change is never a stopping point” and that it hopes “this opens the door to further discussion about inclusivity.”
Is Chi Phi the first Greek organization to be more inclusive? To Hayden’s List relief, no. The trend over the last year is towards inclusivity and in surprising areas of the country. In March of 2015, Gamma Rho Lambda at the University of Texas became the first LGBTQ inclusive sorority. During the summer last year, the national fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon stated it would consider transgender men as pledges. And last fall, Missouri State University’s Xi Omicron Iota sorority chose to accept anyone who “identifies as a girl.”
ThinkProgress.org spoke to trans students last year for their article, “Greek Organizations Are Slowly Becoming More Trans Inclusive” who stated they were attracted to being a part of a Greek organization because of the closeness of its members compared to other student organizations. Fraternity and sorority members know that they can find each other in every geographical area which can be reassuring to a trans individual.
Tags: College, College Campus, Fraternity, Greek Life, inclusivity, LGBT, sorority, Trans, University