Transitioning in Greek life

Ace Hillard found an unlikely support system — in his sorority

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Ace Hillard fishes for his iPhone as soon as he steps out of his therapist’s office into the June heat. He taps out a message about the good news: Hillard, a transgender man, finally got approval to begin hormone therapy — something he’s been working toward for more than a year.

He is overcome with relief and joy at finally being able to start the next phase of his transition.

He is also anxious, wondering how his body will react to changing hormones. But he doesn’t have to worry how his closest friends will respond.

The first people he tells that day, through a GroupMe chat, are his sorority sisters at Sigma Lambda Gamma.

He received a flood of congratulations and positive vibes, he recalls a little more than a year later. Amanda Woodington, a sorority sister who has been friends with Hillard for more than six years, got the message when she was bartending at the Capitol Chophouse.

She says she was so excited that she broke workplace rules and slyly pulled out her cell phone. Woodington sent a message congratulating Hillard, telling him how happy she was that he could continue his journey.

The news wasn’t a bombshell for his sorority sisters; he’d been open and honest about his gender for years. They were supportive in return. And they’ve stuck by his side since he began his transition.

Hillard says his closest support system on campus has always been his sorority, but he acknowledges that his situation — being transgender, transitioning and finding support in Greek life — might be an exception instead of the rule.

“[The support] was something that I really appreciated because I felt like that’s something that may not be universal — especially in the Greek world,” Hillard says. “So to have that support from a group that I look up to so much — that I’ve had the opportunity to lead for a few years — to accept me on my journey and to offer assistance, was absolutely phenomenal.”

Greek life isn’t generally seen as accommodating or accepting of transgender or gender nonconforming people. Fraternities are for men and promote a culture of hypermasculinity, while sororities are for women and uphold traditional stereotypes of femininity. But now, many Greek organizations across the country are quietly starting to reexamine how people outside the gender binary fit into a system with membership policies that often date back to the 1800s.

Hillard doesn’t have many fond memories of living in dorms. Instead, he remembers white students getting drunk and touching his hair, some saying they had never seen a black person before. He remembers a white student saying the N-word in a classroom. And he remembers wanting to leave.

“I was just sick of it,” Hillard says. “Why am I going to pay all of this money to live in a place when I don’t feel safe?”

A difficult first year in Smith Residence Hall led Hillard to look to Greek life for a community. Though he came to UW-Madison as a member of a student group that takes classes together, and as part of the Posse Program, a national, full-tuition scholarship program, Hillard says he still struggled to feel like he belonged.

Coming from Chicago, Hillard was stunned by the dearth of people of color. Even classes with as many as 200 students included only a few non-white faces.

Race wasn’t the only aspect of Hillard’s identity that shaped his experience on campus, though. Hillard used feminine pronouns during his first two years on campus, but says he’s always questioned his gender. He wondered whether he might be transgender, but he didn’t always have the language to describe it.

Going to the bathroom always felt like an impossible choice. The university’s lack of inclusive bathroom options was a “huge problem” in the dorms. He was often stared at or harassed. In one instance, campus security made him leave a women’s bathroom because a person complained.

(UW-Madison plans to add more gender-neutral bathrooms during each major campus building project, according to university spokesperson Meredith McGlone.)

At the end of his first year, Hillard says he was struggling both in and out of the classroom.

Hoping to find a community, he looked into joining Greek life. He specifically looked at sororities because of the social aspect and the camaraderie — the oft-repeated ideals of sisterhood.

Because of his intersecting identities, Hillard knew his options were limited.

Before joining Sigma Lambda Gamma, Hillard asked current members if he would have to “live up to certain expectations of what it means to be a woman.”

“They said, ‘No, be who you are. We love you for who you are,’” Hillard recalls.

Hillard only considered sororities — because he believed them to be more progressive and knew he couldn’t yet pass as a man — when he was looking at organizations in 2010, his sophomore year. But he knew the binary nature of Greek life complicated things.

“[My gender] is something that became an issue when I looked at other sororities on campus,” Hillard says. “[Sigma Lambda Gamma] is the one that fit me the most when it comes to progressiveness, social justice, as well as being comfortable in who I am.”

Sigma Lambda Gamma, which doesn’t have a house on campus, has roughly 15 active undergraduate members at any given time and is one of 10 organizations in the Multicultural Greek Council at UW-Madison. It is a relatively new sorority; the national organization was founded in 1990 and the UW-Madison chapter in 2006. Some of the first Greek organizations at UW-Madison date back to the 1800s.

Since its creation, Sigma Lambda Gamma has been celebrated for its progressiveness. A transgender man, Ian Matthew Lopez, belongs to the sorority’s chapter at Illinois State University, according to Latina magazine.

With more than 100 undergraduate chapters, the sorority works to teach a diverse group of women leadership skills. It focuses on five main principles: academics, community service, cultural awareness, social interaction, and morals and ethics.

Nationally, it promotes awareness about breast cancer and heart disease, and encourages young people of color to vote.

Each chapter meets weekly to plan events and work on initiatives. The UW-Madison chapter is a close social group that regularly goes to bars and events together. With no official house, however, Sigma Lambda Gamma doesn’t host the wild parties typically associated with Greek life.

Hillard’s decision to join was a watershed moment. “I think that was my biggest turning point in my undergraduate career because then I didn’t have a sense of shame, a feeling of loneliness,” he says. “We’re a pretty big chapter in relation to multicultural Greeks. So, I feel like I have sisters everywhere on campus whenever I need anything.”

His sisters have supported his transition with both words and actions. Hillard’s shift from feminine pronouns to gender-neutral pronouns in his third year at UW-Madison started within his sorority, and was embraced by his sisters. He calls his sorority sisters “active allies” who would call out people when they misgendered him.

Sigma Lambda Gamma also changed the title of “chairwoman” to “chairperson” when Hillard filled the position in his last two undergraduate years. UW-Madison’s Center for Leadership and Involvement gave the chapter an inclusivity award for the change.

At UW-Madison, there are roughly 60 different Greek organizations on campus to choose from, many of which have houses on Langdon Street.

Greek life is separated into four groups: the Interfraternity Council (mostly white fraternities), Panhellenic Association (mostly white sororities), National Pan-Hellenic Council (historically black Greek letter organizations) and Multicultural Greek Council (Greek letter organizations founded by different cultural groups). Just under half of all Greek organizations on campus are in the Interfraternity Council.

It’s generally a rigid, binary system — men are in fraternities and women are in sororities. And many fraternities and sororities are explicitly single-gender organizations, meaning they discriminate based on gender.

This standard has been the norm since many of these organizations were founded and are now legally protected by a Title IX exemption, meaning these groups don’t have to comply with a law prohibiting exclusion from federally funded educational activities based on gender.

While this may not harm most people interested in Greek organizations, it poses problems for transgender, nonbinary people or anyone questioning their gender. Ayden Prehara, a transgender man, never saw a place for himself in UW’s Greek system.

Prehara started hormone therapy to transition in his home state of Georgia when he was 14. He has been involved in advocacy groups and student organizations in both high school and at UW-Madison. But he sees the Greek system as a hostile place for transgender people.

“For me, a sorority is just not an option, it feels not affirming in the way I identify. The fraternities just feel gross to me,” Prehara says. “Especially as someone who not only identifies as trans but gay as well, it’s just two identities that I feel like will never be accepted — in at least what Langdon fraternities are. It doesn’t feel worth putting my mental health and body at risk.”

Hillard doesn’t think the binary structure of Greek life necessarily needs to be abolished — but he says organizations need to update their policies to be more inclusive of people who may not just identify as a man or a woman.

Many Greek organizations have non-discrimination policies that still allow exclusion based on gender. For example, the Delta Delta Delta policy states any individual sorority chapter cannot discriminate “on any basis other than gender.”

Tri Delta CEO Karen Hughes White says individual chapters can make membership decisions involving transgender students “based on the best interests of the individual and the chapter.” It’s not immediately clear whether these policies could lead to the exclusion of transgender students, especially those who are transitioning.

Kiki Arthur, president of UW-Madison’s National Pan-Hellenic Council, is one of the many who wonder if non-discrimination policies like this — which give local chapters discretion to interpret national policies — leave the door open for discrimination against transgender and nonbinary students trying to go Greek.

“I’m assuming it means males cannot join female sororities, but you never know,” Arthur says. “Somebody could interpret that as a different meaning to suit themselves.”

UW-Madison’s assistant director of Greek Life, Maggie Hayes, says these policies have important historical roots.

“If you look at the history of our organizations, some of them were founded not too long ago, but some of our organizations were founded before UW-Madison was. And they were founded for very specific reasons, like providing space for women when they weren’t allowed to be on a college campus,” Hayes says. “The idea of having a group of women come together is empowering in a lot of ways.”

She says it’s a balancing act between keeping the positive historical elements while still welcoming people who are different. She says Greek organizatons need to figure out how to merge the past with the current reality.

“[Transgender awareness] is just kind of blooming nationally,” Hayes says. “And unfortunately, sometimes the Greek world is a little behind the times nationally.”

That change will come from national offices, Hayes says, because local chapters cannot change membership policies.

North-American Interfraternity Conference, a national organization overseeing IFCs, established a “transgender inclusion working group” in August 2016. Heather Kirk, chief communication officer for the NIC, says the organization is talking to a “broad spectrum of experts” to learn about legal implications of different policies.

The working group will “not recommend a specific policy or set an industry-wide standard” for membership because the fraternities in NIC are sovereign organizations that have their own membership guidelines, says Kirk. “Our goal is to provide information to allow fraternities to make decisions and have resources they can turn to when assessing the path they choose to take.”

UW-Madison’s IFC President Michael Foy says many fraternities have policies inclusive of transgender men.

In July 2016, the national Delta Upsilon fraternity updated its constitution to be inclusive of transgender students, meaning any transgender man could join chapters of the fraternity, according to Justin Kirk, executive director of Delta Upsilon International Fraternity.

But Kirk says that a member who transitions and later identifies as a woman would no longer be an active member. They would be given “alumnus member status.”

Two months after starting hormone therapy, Hillard started seeing chin hairs sprout. That didn’t go unnoticed by his sisters.

“We always say, ‘Do it for the chin hair.’ His chin hairs have grown so much,” Woodington remarks, laughing. “Every time I see him, I feel like he has more and more chin hairs. He gets really excited about it.”

It wasn’t until Hillard’s last undergraduate year that he considered medically transitioning. The response from his sorority was — again — what he says allowed him to continue his journey.

“Everybody was on board with it; everybody was very supportive,” Hillard says. “They let me know that I’ll always be a member.”

Hillard started hormone therapy June 26, 2016, and he has to continue it for at least three years. That means giving himself a testosterone injection every other week. In the summer of 2019, he can switch to another form of hormone (such as a cream) to maintain his testosterone level.

The needle he uses now is large — and painful, Hillard says — so a friend or his partner helps inject him.

But it’s worth it, says Hillard, who calls the results “remarkable.”

He heard an immediate deepening of his voice and menstruation stopped within a month. In addition to the facial hair he adores, Hillard’s arm and leg hair thickened.

“I never had sideburns; it’s something I always wanted. I don’t know why, I just do. I’m waiting for them to grow in,” Hillard says. “Where I come from, [sideburns are] a form of crisp-lined masculinity. A clean-cut black person.”

For now, Hillard is not pursuing legal changes to his identity. He hasn’t tried to change the “sex” category on his birth certificate or state ID, and though he uses his preferred first name, Ace, he doesn’t want to change his legal name.

But he’s continuing to work to help shift the Greek culture, working as an advisor to the Multicultural Greek Council. He’s the first openly transgender man to fill that position.

Hillard is now working on a master’s degree at UW-Madison, focusing on educational leadership and policy analysis. He’s working on educational materials for the Multicultural Greek Council to use in the 2017-18 school year to promote diversity and inclusion.

Meanwhile, Madison’s Greek community is taking steps to be more welcoming to transgender and nonbinary people. For the first time ever, UW-Madison’s LGBT Campus Center partnered with Greek life leaders last spring to host a Greek Ally Training to educate the Greek community about LGBT issues. The training discussed the differences between sex assigned at birth, gender identity and gender expression, and included case studies of people who are transitioning.

LGBT Center director Gabe Javier, who was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha as an undergrad, facilitated the training, which drew around a dozen students. Javier says this formal partnership helped the center reach a population they “don’t necessarily have a lot of traction with.”

Next year, the partnership will continue, with the training being offered more frequently, though specifics are still being planned. The education, as of now, isn’t required.

One year of hormone therapy behind him, Hillard has already experienced many changes, both physical and emotional. And the hope he felt when he stepped out of his therapist’s office that summer day remains today: “I’m finally starting my journey.”