A 21-year-old transgender man says Welch College, a private religious school in Tennessee, kicked him out after he got breast-reduction surgery, the Associated Press has reported.
Yanna AwtreyYanna Awtrey says he was outed to school officials, who ordered him to conceal his gender identity and attend Christian therapy.
Awtrey said he started transitioning in the spring and thought everything would be okay if he kept the surgery secret.
But student services vice president Jon Forlines emailed him the day of the surgery, saying he couldn’t return to student housing, Awtrey said.
The school, located in Gallatin, paid for a week in a hotel, then brought Awtrey before a disciplinary committee that cited a “sexual perversion” rule for the decision, he said.
Awtrey told the Tennessean newspaper that his Baptist missionary parents wanted him to attend Welch College, previously known as the Free Will Baptist Bible College until the name change in 2012.
