Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that I attend a women's college. The environment is empowering, full of love, and feels safer than any co-ed campus I have ever stepped foot on. But if I have to hear that Mount Holyoke is an "all-girls" school one more time, I think my head might implode.

Mount Holyoke College was one of the first women's colleges to create a policy which allows "any qualified student who is female or identifies as a woman" to be admitted, as of September 2014. This relatively new policy allows transgender, genderqueer, and non-binary students to apply and attend Mount Holyoke although they may not have always identified as a woman. It also takes care to state that the only gender-based criterion which will disallow a student from being accepted is if they were "biologically born male" and identify as a man.

But this does not mean that Mount Holyoke did not accept trans students before; in fact, trans men have been on the campuses of women's colleges for quite some time now.

Many people wonder what this means for the definition of a women's college. If transgender men are allowed to attend, then is the school truly a women's college?

It is widely understood that the original purpose of women's colleges was to support and educate women at a time when they were not allowed to attend universities that excluded them solely based on their gender. For women, these colleges were a safe, understanding place where they could receive the education they craved.

So why can't it be the same for other gender minorities? Many transgender men choose women's colleges for those reasons exactly. Although they are not excluded from co-ed colleges and universities, a women's college can offer them a place that feels safe; both physically and psychologically — than a co-ed school might.

However, it is also important to understand that some people enter a women's college identifying as a cisgender woman and leave identifying on another part of the gender spectrum. The fact that their understanding of their own identities may change at a women's college should not —and does not —invalidate them or their places at the school. If through their transitions they decide that a women's college is still the place they belong to, they have every right to be there.

Although Mount Holyoke is one of the 42 remaining women's colleges, we are not an all-girls school. We are a socially aware, inclusive, and understanding community composed of students who are men, women, genderqueer, non-binary, and more. So please, don't refer to us as "girls" or "ladies"; although some of us are, a lot more of us are not.