While reading the Daily Jolt and talking to members of the community during the past few days, it has become very apparent that there are significant and legitimate questions that students wish for me to answer regarding my candidacy for SGA president. I would like to state first and foremost that I support and see the need for Smith’s existence as a women’s college, and throughout my life I plan to protect the right for women’s exclusive spaces to exist. For many years now I have strongly identified as a feminist, and have worked with issues of women’s rights and empowerment that have been personally and politically meaningful for me. Because of this background, the decision to run for SGA president was not a simple one. For the past 2 years I have struggled to determine what I think the place for transgendered people is at Smith, and in this effort it has become apparent that there are enormous complexities to this issue. While I do not have a comprehensive “solution” for the resolution of these issues, I hope to share with you all why I feel that it is appropriate for me to run for this position.

      Before I go any further, it is important for me to say that I do not speak for all trans students at Smith, and the personal details of my experience are not universal to all transpeople. It is my hope that this candidacy will not become a referendum on trans issues at Smith college. By stating my personal motivations and thoughts around running for this position, I seek to clarify for the community some of the specific issues around my decision to run.

      It is important for the community to know that I do not identify as a man, nor do I have and specific intent to identify as a man in the future. I identify as a genderqueer who chooses to use masculine pronouns. I applied and entered into the Smith community identifying as a woman, and for a variety of personal, political and biological reasons I no longer identify strongly with either gender. I see the obvious problem with a man running for a position that leads a community of predominantly women, and if I were to identify as male I would not be running. Similarly, if I personally identified as male I would not be seeking out an exclusive place like Smith. Like many of you, I came to Smith to experience an environment dedicated to combating gender-based oppression. Smith has provided a unique space for me to question the bounds of gender identification and seek out a gender identity that feels most comfortable to me. Many of my feminist ideologies, such as ideas around choice and self-determination, have empowered me and been useful for me in thinking about my identity as a gender variant person.

      I believe that I must be responsible and deliberate in my choices here, in an women’s space, as someone who uses masculine pronouns. In my current leadership role, there are specific challenges that I have faced and dealt with around negotiating this identity, and certainly serving as President would make these negotiations more complex. I am dedicated to doing so responsibly and with attention to Smith’s historical role as an women’s college. I am not running for SGA President to further my own agenda or a “trans agenda.” I am running because I want to serve this community. I do not believe that I disrupt this space in the way that a man would, especially because I do not receive traditional forms of male privilege.

      I have heard a lot of assumptions lately in regard to the relationships I would have with administrators, trustees and alums. During the past two years I have maintained a direct communication with both the administration and the trustees as part of my duties as a cabinet member, and in this time I have cultivated strong relationships with many of them. I find it to be very problematic that anyone would assume that I could not conduct myself in a professional matter because of my gender identity. In my experience with these communities they have been more than willing to be accepting and even supportive of my transgendered identity. I am dedicated to working toward a space of mutual respect with alums, trustees, administrators, staff, and students, and I have found this endeavor to be both possible and successful. Furthermore, before I began my campaign, I took the issue of my candidacy with respect to my gender identity to many members of the administration, and asked their thoughts on whether my election would cause any long term damage to the college. They unequivocally responded that as far as they could foresee, it would not. These conversations played an important role in my decision to run.

      This conversation has been very difficult for me because so many misconceptions have emerged and clouded other issues in this campaign. This year I identified as Shawn Basta, SGA Vice-President, not Shawn Basta, transgendered SGA Vice-President. My gender identity had no affect on my ability to do my job, as was clearly shown in my intentionally non-biased moderation of the debates surrounding the amendment to the SGA constitution. If I were to be elected president the same would be true. Every SGA president brings different identities to the table, yet it does not mean that they are not capable of representing the student body. After having worked in the SGA for so long, I know that my gender identity will not hinder me from being able to fulfill the duties of SGA President.

      I am a candidate for this position because I want to use the knowledge and experience I have gained to serve students. I have built experience, taken on leadership roles, developed a platform, and worked extremely hard to be positioned to provide leadership for this community and I ask you to consider this before simply writing off this campaign due to issues of gender identity. The concern about a man leading a woman’s college is a very valid one, and one I have often wondered about myself. I am proud to go to a school where this concern is so passionately raised and students and community members are engaging with questions of how to articulate and enact feminist and respectful responses to these questions. I ask you to recognize the intricate, complicated details of my situation to understand that I too have engaged with these questions and believe myself to be qualified for this position.

      I would love to discuss this further with anyone who is interested. I understand that these issues are incredibly complex and I still have a lot to learn, and I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on this matter. Thank you for taking the time to read this and educating yourself with this campaign. The support of this institution and community in helping me explore my leadership abilities and my gender identity has been immeasurable, and I do not believe that they conflict with one another.