Column: Sam Malley on transgender inclusion at FPU

by Tyler Comeau

(Photo: Samuel Malley)

At 11 a.m. on a Saturday morning, Samuel Malley got up like most college students. He woke up late, made himself a breakfast of English muffins, and walked down to the library. He came wearing a hoodie, blue jeans, and a gray beanie. Malley joked and told stories about his roommates and friends, sharing videos of their antics and explaining their inside jokes. Two years after he came out as a transgender man, Sam has found that Franklin Pierce has been very accepting and supportive of him.

Since he came out, Sam has started taking testosterone as part of his transition. He has been taking testosterone for about seven months and described hormone replacement therapy as experiencing puberty a second time. “You’re going through puberty at 21 and it’s just like, you know, ‘Huh, this is what my body did the last time, but more. Cool!’”

He’s received a lot of support from administration during his transition. Sam has been in close contact with the Registrar and Residential Life for the past two years and was crucial in helping create the ‘preferred name policy’ at Franklin Pierce.

“I literally sent an email, being like ‘Hey, is there any way I can change my email, because my professors keep thinking that it’s somebody else’s email,’” said Malley.“They were like ‘Yeah, we want to do this email thing, but also we were thinking of doing this other thing’, so they had more ideas than I had and they really wanted to work with me and figure out how we could make a policy to allow people to use their preferred names without having to legally change them, because it’s a whole process.”

Malley started to meet regularly with Residential Life and the Registrar, offering suggestions on how the university could improve supports for transgender students. The preferred name policy allowed trans students to be able to change their name as it appeared on their student IDs as well as in the school’s network. This is to avoid referring to trans students by their ‘deadname’, or legal name. “I was really sick of professors looking at my email address and being like ‘Hey, is this you? Am I sending this to the right person?,’” said Malley, “I was sick of that, or like, getting my deadname called out at the pub. That was the worst. That one was absolutely the worst.”

As Sam approaches his last semester before graduating, he has said that overall he has felt very supported by the community at FPU. Both students and faculty have shown respect to him during his transition and were willing to make any accommodations necessary.

“The community of Franklin Pierce has been extremely accepting,” Malley said, “and anyone who I’ve told of my experience has been nothing but supportive and respectful…Franklin Pierce has the potential to lead the way in inclusivity, and I can’t wait to come back and see how they continue to pave the way.”