Letters to the Editor 3/23

To the Editor,

Compassion is a virtue. The procedure definition regarding transgender use of… To the Editor,

Compassion is a virtue. The procedure definition regarding transgender use of sexed facilities shows a lack of compassion toward the LGBT community. The portion of the administration responsible for this needs to reach out to transpeople for understanding. This policy unjustly defines a transperson and denies transgendered students and staff safety.

For transpeople, gender doesn’t match genitals. But most transgendered people undergo hormone therapy. This changes their secondary sex characteristics to those of the opposing sex. Most transpeople stop here. Sexual reassignment surgery is a last-ditch effort to make someone happy with their body. The University’s implicit definition of the transperson says that only people who have gone under the knife are transgender. This excludes most transpeople from University antidiscrimination protections. If the University would like to pay for the $20,000 to $40,000 intense surgery, then its definition isn’t discriminatory — unfortunately that isn’t the case. It is telling people like Alice Haas that she isn’t a transgender person; moreover, that she isn’t a woman. This is in conflict with the definition used by the county and city of Pittsburgh and agreed upon by thousands of doctors, therapists, psychologists and LGBTs around the world. This is medieval.

This administration’s treatment of transgender people and the LGBT community in general makes me ashamed to be a Pitt student. On a positive note, I would like to thank The Pitt News for its excellent coverage of this and empathy toward the LGBT community.

Nicholas Stewart

School of Arts & Sciences

To the Editor,

Concerning The Pitt News’ March 19 editorial commentary on privatization, two points bear clarification.

The University of Pittsburgh, since becoming state-related in 1966, has consistently established tuition increases in direct correlation with levels of appropriation support. Thus, the greater the appropriation, the lower the required tuition increase.

With respect to financial disclosures, the University already discloses substantial amounts of financial information. Among these disclosures are the annual operating budget, the capital budget, audited financial statements, the Federal Form 990 tax return and the annual audit of the Pitt appropriation from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Pitt advocates for an end to the cuts in state funding so that the University is able to remain public and continue to offer first-rate education at one-half to one-third the tuition charged by comparable private universities.

Yours truly,

Robert Hill

Vice Chancellor, Office of Public Affairs