Transgender applicant

[nova9]

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone here has any experience being transgender and applying to vet school. I was only able to find one previous thread on the subject; I don't expect this to be a very common experience here but I wanted to see if I could get some thoughts on this.

I've already transitioned and legally changed my name, but my old legal name appears on several of my academic transcripts, so I figure it will be obvious to any schools I apply to that I'm trans. I was wondering if this might negatively affect my chances of acceptance? Is it likely to come up in interviews? Even if no one on this forum is trans, maybe someone knows of trans classmates in vet school?

There's so much else to stress about in the application process, so I hope that this isn't something I'll have to be too worried about. Thanks to anyone who has any thoughts/advice.

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[CoffeeQuestionMark]

@silverrains do you have any advice?

 

[genny]

I don’t think it will negatively affect your chances of acceptance. You might have to include an explanation statement with your VMCAS application to state why the names don’t match just so there’s no confusion about who received the grades. Unless your schools will allow you to petition to change your transcripts? Like write a letter to the registrar about how you don’t want to be dead named, and see if they’ll update their records.

Probably won’t come up in interviews unless you bring it up. They’re trying to make sure you can handle school and have the qualities it takes to be a doctor, and gender isn’t a disqualification.

 

[JaynaAli]

When I was a resident I had a trans student. I obviously can’t speak for him about his experience at that school but someone’s gender has no bearing on how I educate them. From my perspective, he was treated the same as anyone, by both his classmates and the few other educators I saw interactions with on my service. He was open about the fact that he was transgender despite being in the deep south. I think Genny is right that you could write a very brief explanation statement explaining that you had a name change, but if you didn’t want to bring it up you could just wait to see if they even notice your dead name is on some paperwork and ask for clarification.

 

[nova9]

There is a space to input alternate names on VMCAS, I'd planned to just enter my old legal name there and hope it was enough, unless maybe it would be better to explicitly explain it? I did have it changed with my undergrad registrar, but the official transcript has both my current and old names on it for some reason.

 

[JaynaAli]

If there’s a spot for alternate names then I’d go with that. If you wanted to put it in an explanation statement you could but I don’t feel like you’d have to in that case.

 

[Collagendoc]

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone here has any experience being transgender and applying to vet school. I was only able to find one previous thread on the subject; I don't expect this to be a very common experience here but I wanted to see if I could get some thoughts on this.

I've already transitioned and legally changed my name, but my old legal name appears on several of my academic transcripts, so I figure it will be obvious to any schools I apply to that I'm trans. I was wondering if this might negatively affect my chances of acceptance? Is it likely to come up in interviews? Even if no one on this forum is trans, maybe someone knows of trans classmates in vet school?

There's so much else to stress about in the application process, so I hope that this isn't something I'll have to be too worried about. Thanks to anyone who has any thoughts/advice.

Hi! Shoot us an email at [email protected] (PrideVMC.org | PrideVMC.orgwebsite). Happy to help!

 

[LetItSnow]

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone here has any experience being transgender and applying to vet school. I was only able to find one previous thread on the subject; I don't expect this to be a very common experience here but I wanted to see if I could get some thoughts on this.

I've already transitioned and legally changed my name, but my old legal name appears on several of my academic transcripts, so I figure it will be obvious to any schools I apply to that I'm trans. I was wondering if this might negatively affect my chances of acceptance? Is it likely to come up in interviews? Even if no one on this forum is trans, maybe someone knows of trans classmates in vet school?

There's so much else to stress about in the application process, so I hope that this isn't something I'll have to be too worried about. Thanks to anyone who has any thoughts/advice.

It shouldn't come up in an interview unless you bring it up. Asking questions about someone's gender and/or sexuality is off-limits. On the other hand, if you were to bring it up in response to some question, that's a different deal.

Will it impact your chances? It <shouldn't>. But will it? Maybe. Who knows. Implicit bias is real (I love that UMN talks about it extensively in their new-interviewer training.), and just like anyone who is in a minority or lesser-understood segment of the population, you might suffer unfairly for it. It sucks. It's unfair. You don't deserve it. But it's real. Flip side, you might be evaluated by people who couldn't care less or who are thoughtful about recognizing their own biases and setting them aside. Or maybe it even helps you because you can bring diversity to the table.

My advice would be: You can't do anything about other people's reactions, so chin up, charge forward, and do your best like everyone else.

 

[cinders]

Hi there!

I'm a nonbinary applicant from the 2020-2021 cycle and I went through the same worries of whether or not my gender identity was going to negatively impact my chances of getting into vet school. I deliberated for a while as to whether or not I should have just filled out my application information and approached any personal questions as if I still identified with my assigned gender at birth, but I chose not to in the end. I indicated explicitly on VMCAS that I did not identify with either given gender and some of my applications even asked what pronouns I preferred. One school I applied to had a supplementary statement question regarding diversity and I discussed my identity there, but in all three interviews I've gone through it hasn't come up. If you brought it up it could open up the floor to possibly discussing it with whoever is interviewing you but they have never made the first move on talking about it as part of my application.

As for whether it actually impacts your chances, I think LetItSnow is right in saying that maybe there's implicit bias and it really, really sucks. Knowing that was a possibility and that there was nothing I could do about it added to my anxiety about applying on top of all the other stressors. I found solace in telling myself that if I was an applicant they wanted in their program but rejected me solely on my identity and not what I brought to the table as an aspiring veterinarian, then I don't think that would've been a program I could have felt comfortable in anyways. Maybe not the most sound logic to some but it got me through those anxieties in the end when it came to finally hitting that submit button.

So far I've been given interviews with four schools and have been accepted to two of them, so I'd like to think that it definitely didn't negatively impact my application. Do your best and good luck!