WELLESLEY, Mass. (AP) - A growing number of women's colleges are welcoming transgender women on campus after refusing to admit them for years.

Two trans women attending Wellesley College this fall are believed to be the first at the school since it decided to start allowing trans women in 2015.

Student Ninotska Love said being accepted to Wellesley is "a big validation of the person that I have become."

Wellesley joins at least eight women's colleges that have adopted policies allowing trans women since 2015. Several declined to say if they had admitted students under the new policies, citing privacy concerns.

Some critics have said the change undermines the colleges' mission to empower women, but some schools counter that they were founded to help anyone who would be denied education because of their gender.

More From WBSM-AM/AM 1420