Photo by Max Paster '25
Lily Rood '27 gives a speech at Convocation
By Jesse Hausknecht-Brown ’25
Managing Editor of Layout | Features Editor
Pom-poms in hand and gowns zipped up, the graduating class of 2025 marched down the steps of Gettell Amphitheater while the Five College West African Music Ensemble played energetic music. This processional marked the beginning of the 2024 Convocation ceremony held on Sept. 3, this time at 10 a.m. instead of the usual 12 p.m.
Members of the crowd cheered and chanted, many wearing their class colors and some carrying signs to show class pride.
Sally Durdan ’81, who is beginning her first year as the chair of the Board of Trustees, spoke first, beginning with a land acknowledgment and then thanking the staff members who made Convocation possible. She spoke about the loss of the copper beech tree outside of Dwight Hall, which stood for over a century before it was struck down by lightning. Then, she turned her attention towards the class of 2025, explaining that she is also a Green Griffin.
“Hello to my fellow Griffins, the class of 2025,” Durdan said before being met with loud applause.
Durdan introduced President Danielle R. Holley, who began by recognizing each class year. “Mount Holyoke, we are a community that is bold, unique, curious and unstoppable, so are we ready to do the official roll call?” Holley asked. She acknowledged each class year — the first-year Blue Lions, sophomore Yellow Sphinxes, junior Red Pegasi, senior Green Griffins, Frances Perkins scholar Purple Phoenixes and graduate student Teal Owls — who each responded with loud applause.
The focal point of the ceremony was the official announcement of TGNC10: Commemorating TGNC Inclusion at MHC. The student-led project commemorates the 10-year anniversary of the College’s trans and gender-nonconforming inclusive admissions policy.
“In 1837, Mount Holyoke opened the gate to a rigorous education regardless of gender. In 2014, we cracked that gate wider and we had more students we needed to serve, more students whose diverse perspectives would enhance our academic excellence and more students who would thrive in our inclusive community,” Holley said. “Mount Holyoke’s admissions policy is a 21st century expression of our core mission. The community we’ve built as a result of that policy is and will always be too bold for boundaries.”
She explained how, at the 2014 Convocation ceremony, then-president Lynn Pasquerella announced that Mount Holyoke would officially admit transgender women, transgender men and nonbinary people, regardless of their sex assigned at birth. The College became the first of what were then called the Seven Sisters to initiate a trans-inclusive admissions policy.
“We’ll be celebrating this anniversary all year guided by the student-led work, called ‘TGNC10: Commemorating TGNC Inclusion at Mount Holyoke College’,” Holley said. Some audience members stood up and cheered while many waved pom-poms and signs with the TGNC10 logo.
Holley asked for the members of the TGNC10 advisory committee — which is comprised of students, faculty and professors — to stand up and be recognized, which was followed by more enthusiastic cheering. Holley then explained that TGNC10 is part of a task force she is creating for the 2024-2025 academic school year called the Presidential Task Force for the Trans and Gender Nonconforming Community.
“This group will help me to ensure Mount Holyoke strengthens its commitment to inclusivity and enhancing resources and support for TGNC community members,” Holley said.
“Before I close, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that we have a lot of work cut out for us,” Holley said. “We are living in a world that needs so much of our attention; we are navigating a contentious election, an ongoing heartbreaking political and humanitarian crisis, the alarming effects of climate change and a world in which too many people are struggling to move forward from the losses of the pandemic.”
Student Government Association President Julia Keane ’26 was the next to address the crowd. She discussed her role as SGA President and explained that, throughout her academic journey at Mount Holyoke, she has been in three out of the four main class colors: all but Yellow Sphinx.
Keane then introduced the three student members of the TGNC10 advisory committee: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Fellows Raven Joseph ’25 and Emma Quirk ’26 as well as TGNC10 Project Coordinator and Founder Lily Rood ’27.
Describing the committee’s work, Joseph explained that they are “building on the legacy of trans women of color activists such as foremothers whose names we call forth: Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson … who sought full equality for all members of the LGTBQ community.”
Quirk explained upon Joseph’s sentiments by highlighting two student activist organizations whose members were advocating on campus in the years leading up to the 2014 policy announcement. “Today, I am proud to call forth the names of student activists and organizations called Femmepowered and Open Gates,” Quirk said. “In 2014, they said what we proudly affirm today: trans women belong at Mount Holyoke.”
Open Gates, as described on their Tumblr page, was “a student led community organization dedicated to the full inclusion of trans women at Mount Holyoke College.” Femmepowered was a campus organization dedicated to fighting misogyny on campus by creating space for femme-identified queer people. The “About” page of their Tumblr highlights Femmepowered’s belief that “the full inclusion of trans women on campus, both in admissions policies and campus cultural attitudes, is a vital part of addressing misogyny on campus.”
While Joseph and Quirk’s remarks reflected on past trans advocacy, they then turned it over to Rood to speak to the present moment through a poem called “Taking the Stage at Last.”
Rood explained that her poem was participatory and would ask questions; she invited audience members to engage with it however they saw fit, whether that be waving a pom-pom or answering aloud.
“When we are faced with a moment in history, we must ask the critical question: what do we stand for?” Rood began. “For too long, when my sisters in transition sought to be here, without fear, on the stage, the crowd was asked: ‘Do you stand with us?’ and the call rang out unanswered. Today however, I am here, without fear, on the stage. I am loud, proud, a trans woman leader speaking to a crowd.”
Students, staff, faculty and community members in the audience embraced Rood’s words, many standing up and applauding loudly. She continued by asking a series of questions, pausing after each one as the crowd cheered.
“And I need not ask, should I not choose, for at last, I know: Mount Holyoke stands with me,” Rood said. “So for all to see, what I know in my heart, I will ask with no fear but rather with expectation: do you stand with us? Do you stand for gender affirming care? Do you stand for intersectional trans equity and racial justice? Do you stand for a world in which trans women and people of every gender-expansive identity are here, without fear, on the stage?”
Speaking in an interview with Mount Holyoke News, Rood explained that she had spent a lot of time envisioning what a “community-wide embrace of TGNC folks might look and feel like,” and that after Convocation, “that dream has begun to be realized.”
She closed out her remarks by addressing that there is more work to be done within the Mount Holyoke community to support TGNC people, but that the College has come a long way. “Today we stand united,” Rood said. “We will stand up and fight until every last trans sibling of ours is embraced and supported and loved and handed this microphone here, without fear, on the stage.”
When Rood found out in August that she would have the opportunity to speak at convocation, she wanted to honor the TGNC people, especially trans women, who haven’t had the same or similar opportunities in the past.
“I wanted to lean into an idea that I think and talk about frequently within my DEI work, which is honoring past, present and future stories all at once,” Rood said. “So, I was inspired by visions of future trans leaders at Mount Holyoke, too. By seeking to honor those who came before me and those who will come after me, I was able to show up as myself in the present moment in a way that felt right.”
Zoë Crabtree ’15, a Technical Support & Content Specialist who spoke on behalf of the staff, built upon Rood’s address by speaking about their experience at the Convocation ceremony in 2014.
“[2014] was my senior year, I was sitting right back up there, at the top of the amphitheater, next to a Green Griffin I’d recently met. Now, he and I are married,” Crabtree said, drawing applause from the crowd. “In the last 10 years, I’ve seen the college’s continued commitment to our trans and nonbinary community members.”
They highlighted a number of programs that the College has added in the past 10 years including the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; BOOM, an annual DEI learning symposium; and the Affirming Practices for Trans and Gender Nonconforming People Working Group, which they’ve served on during their time as a staff member.
“I wish we didn’t have to push so hard to be recognized and accepted on top of everything else going on in our lives, but as you can, keep pushing,” Crabtree said. “And when you need rest, lean on each other and on the MHC staff that are here to support you.”
Assistant Professor of psychology and education Jackson Matos spoke next, referencing his own marriage to a Green Griffin Mount Holyoke alum, and current staff member, Natasha Matos, Laboratory Instructor in psychology and education.
“I am a spouse in an interracial marriage, but it’s just not any marriage. I had the good sense to marry a Mount Holyoke alum,” Matos began. “I identify as first-generation, low-income, a person with disabilities, Puerto Rican, Catholic and I am a proud trans man.” As he listed his different social identities, members of the audience interrupted after each one to cheer.
Matos continued by prompting the crowd to think about why Mount Holyoke was the first institution of its kind to put a trans-inclusive admissions policy into place. His answer traces back to Mary Lyon’s challenge to Mount Holyoke students back in 1837, “to go where no one else will go” and “do what no one else will do.”
Matos explained that, in the 21st century context at Mount Holyoke, this means doing the right thing “not in the service of what’s trendy right now, but in the service of what’s right, always.”
This sentiment, Matos said, should be applied to and taken out of the Mount Holyoke community: it looks like caring for neighbors and Community Based Learning partners, using people’s correct pronouns and being in solidarity with, not trying to save, marginalized communities.
“The system of oppression prescribed us a gender binary, but we are called to imagine a different world,” Matos said. “As adrienne maree brown says, ‘all social justice work is science fiction. We are imagining a world free of injustice, a world that doesn’t yet exist.’ At Mount Holyoke we work to turn the science fiction of social justice into the reality of liberation.”
After Holley gave brief closing remarks, the Mount Holyoke Convocation Choir, who sang “Vuelie” by Christophe Beck and Frode Fjellheim earlier in the ceremony, performed the alma mater before the recessional began, accompanied by the Five College West African Music Ensemble.
“I would describe the [Convocation] atmosphere as an amazing community experience with so much evidence of the incredible solidarity that Mount Holyoke students demonstrate every day,” Kijua Sanders-McMurtry, Vice President for Equity and Inclusion and a member of the TGNC10 advisory committee, said in an interview with Mount Holyoke News. “I’m grateful for the ways I continue to witness MHC students and how deeply they invested in one another.”
Sanders-McMurtry felt inspired by all of the speeches and is excited to continue work on the TGNC10 project. “Every speech evoked feelings of joy and hope but the most deeply moving part for me was seeing Raven Joseph, Emma Quirk and Lily E. Rood on the stage together,” they said. “It felt like such an important moment for all of us but especially significant to have a program centering the voices of TGNC students, alum, staff and faculty.”
As the school year progresses, TGNC10-affiliated events have started up. The Policy in Practice: Availability for Community Support tabling sponsored by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion occurred on Sept. 10 and 12. The opening reception for the archival exhibit titled “‘We have to show the world who we are’: Trans and Gender Nonconforming (TGNC) history at Mount Holyoke,” curated by Rood, will take place in the Reading Room of the Williston Library on Sept. 18 at 4:30 p.m.
“I’m so excited to see how our community works together to shape TGNC10,” Rood said. “This project is led by TGNC students for TGNC students, and I hope that we can collaboratively create a year full of meaningful programming.”
Kamlyn Yosick ’25 contributed fact-checking.
UPDATE 9/16/24: Emma Quirk ’26 is a member of Mount Holyoke News.