Yesterday, Mills College in Oakland, California, became the first all-women's college in the U.S. to openly welcome transgender and gender nonconforming students

Yesterday, Mills College in Oakland, California, became the first all-women's college in the U.S. to openly welcome transgender and gender nonconforming students, reports Think Progress.

Last December, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill providing unprecedented protections for transgender students in the state.

Mills College is one of 119 single-sex universities across the U.S., 48 of which are women's colleges.

According to Brian O'Rourke, vice president of enrollment and admissions, about three to five of the college's 1,000 undergraduates identify as transgender or gender non-conforming every year.

The new policy allows for numerous ways to accommodate transgender students while still maintaining an identity as a women's college:

The college welcome any student who self-identifies as a woman, regardless of what sex she was assigned at birth.
Applicants “who do not fit into the gender binary” are welcome provided they were assigned “female” at birth.
Female students who enroll but later identify as a man may stay and graduate.
The policy does not apply to undergraduate students who were assigned “female” at birth but who already legally identify as a man.

Last month we reported that George Fox University in Oregon and The California Baptist University continue to legally discriminate against transgender students. Under exemptions, George Fox University can legally discriminate against a transgender student who identifies as a man and was refused permission to reside in housing for male students. In The California Baptist University case, a scholarship student was expelled by the university on the basis of “fraud” after she appeared on a reality television program to discuss her transgender identity.