Gender-Inclusive Practices in Campus Women’s and Gender Centers: Benefits, Challenges, and Future Prospects

Women’s and gender centers have provided a home for feminist activism, education, and empowerment on the college campus since the 1970s. Recently, some women’s and gender centers have undertaken practices of gender inclusion—expanding their missions and programming to include cisgender men and trans* people of all genders. This exploratory study sought to document these practices and to give voice to the challenges and benefits that centers derive from including those who do not identify as women in their work. Twenty professional staff at campus-based women’s and gender centers were interviewed for this study. Participants described how they are enacting gender inclusivity and named the benefits of bringing people of all genders into the work of advancing gender equity on campus, such as increased numbers of students actively participating in the center’s work and broadening the dialogue on women’s issues. Challenges included an ongoing need to protect women’s space for empowerment and the stress of an increased workload due to expanded programming. Overall, participants were positively inclined toward gender inclusion and felt it represented new and exciting possibilities for coalitional awareness and change on campus.