Becoming a More Inclusive Campus for Transgender and Nonbinary Bruins

Campus PolicyCampus Update

Chancellor Block, Interim EVCP Levine and Vice Chancellors Gorden and Spain Bradley sent the following message to the UCLA Bruin Community.

Dear Bruin Community:

UCLA strives to be an inclusive institution where we respect the dignity and well-being of all members of our diverse community, including people of every gender. We were therefore pleased when the California legislature passed and Governor Newsom signed the Gender Recognition Act, which created a nonbinary gender category on California birth certificates, drivers’ licenses, identity cards and gender-change court orders.

After the new law went into effect in 2019, UCLA appointed a task force to identify the steps necessary to update UCLA policies, data systems, facilities and practices to account for the changes at the state level. The UCLA Gender Recognition Act Task Force met from 2019 to 2020 and developed a report to guide UCLA (PDF) as we align our campus with both the new law and UC’s 2020 Gender Recognition and Lived Name Policy (PDF).

We have now appointed an implementation committee — charged by Interim Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Michael Levine and under the direction of Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Anna Spain Bradley and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Monroe Gorden — to bring these changes to life on our campus.

The UCLA Gender Recognition Task Force Implementation Committee is co-chaired by Director of the LGBTQ Campus Resource Center (CRC) Andy Cofino and Assistant Vice Chancellor of Facilities Management Kelly Schmader. Joining them on the committee and bringing expertise from across campus are:

• Anand Bodapati, associate professor, marketing and Academic Senate representative
• Jade Elyssa Cariaga, chair, UCLA Committee on LGBTQ Affairs and co-director, UCLA Lambda Alumni Association
• Anne Dela Cruz, director, human resources and payroll operations center, Campus Human Resources
• Audrey Farrell, graduate student in physics and astronomy and LGBTQ CRC student representative
• Eric Greene, associate director, diversity and campus climate, UCLA Strategic Communications
• Tam Guy, graduate student in urban planning and Graduate Student Association representative
• Michael Hill, vice chair, UCLA Committee on LGBTQ Affairs and professor, mathematics
• Lillie Hsu, director, educational initiatives, UCLA Office of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
• Susi Takeuchi, chief human resources officer, UCLA Health
• Michael Van Norman, chief technology officer, UCLA IT Services
• Breeze Velazquez, president, Undergraduate Students Association Council and undergraduate student representative
• Frank Wada, university registrar

Prior to the passage of the Gender Recognition Act, UCLA had already included nonbinary individuals as a protected class under its harassment and discrimination polices. However, this new law and policy will offer transgender, intersex and nonbinary Bruins even greater recognition and inclusion on our campus.

More information and updates about the implementation committee’s work can be found on the Gender Recognition and Lived Name Policy page of the EDI website. We are grateful to the committee for its service and committed to advancing measures to ensure a more inclusive experience for all at UCLA.

Sincerely,