Niko Powell was thrilled to learn the four-year university he’ll attend this fall offers gender-inclusive housing.
As a transgender man attending a school 40 minutes away from his New Jersey home, the housing option promised a safe space for him to begin his second year of college. Excitement turned into anxiousness, though, when the 19-year-old student learned that finding a dorm isn’t as easy as the school advertised.
The dedicated gender-inclusive housing building costs $2,000 more a semester than other options, which Powell said was far out of his price range. His alternative was to find three other students to fill a gender-neutral suite, as single and double bedrooms are not options for a reason isn’t sure. If he failed to do that, he would be placed with a female roommate, live on an all-women floor and use all female shower facilities, which he said would feel uncomfortable for everyone.
“They pride themselves on being gender-inclusive but when we run into problems like this it’s like, ‘Are you really gender-inclusive? Or do you just say that so that you can have people come and feel safe until they’re already in the system,'” Powell said.
Gender-inclusive housing is meant to offer a multi-gender living option that makes students feel safe regardless of their gender identity and gender expression. But for queer students like Powell, faults within these programs could cause students to feel appalled, anxious and excluded.
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Gender-inclusive housing has limitations
While nearly 500 colleges and universities offer these programs, according to LGBTQ+ advocacy group Campus Pride, some of these housing programs are cost-prohibitive or limited in accessibility.
Shane Windmeyer, executive director of Campus Pride, said he’s appreciated seeing the evolution of queer resources, like gender-inclusive housing, since his college years in the ’90s. However, the programs like Powell’s are not as inclusive as many colleges claim them to be.
“Gender inclusivity has to go alongside accessibility and affordability, which is still a problem not only with gender-inclusive housing, but with just higher education in general,” Windmeyer shared.
‘They’re not in touch with what’s going on’
When Powell addressed his situation with the university, the school recommended he use an app to find fellow queer students. He was able to find three other queer men to live with and was placed in a building. For the time being, his worries of living on a female floor were resolved. Nonetheless, Powell is still frustrated he was placed in the situation in the first place and had to undergo that unsettling uncertainty.
“They’re not in touch with what’s going on. They think that they know but they really don’t,” Powell shared. “Having that queer floor is great. It’s a great opportunity and I’m sure all the people there are going to be very safe but why is it not accessible to lower-income students?”
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Nonbinary student excluded from honors program building
Non-binary students like Frankie Perrin also said their school’s gender-inclusive housing program is not as inclusive as they initially thought.
Frankie Perrin, an 18-year-old incoming freshman at a four-year liberal arts college in Massachusetts, said they felt lucky that the gender-inclusive buildings were one of the cheaper options. However, Perrin was admitted under the school’s honors program and they wanted to live in the honors housing that supposedly came with admittance.
Perrin would later learn through a phone call with a university representative that including their nonbinary identity in their housing application would prevent them from living in the honors building as there weren’t gender-inclusive options there. Perrin said they felt “othered” and hurt that they missed out on the chance to live with other honors students at one of the better locations because of their identity.
“They advertise how queer-friendly they are and 10% of the people there are queer,” Perrin shared. “I just didn’t want to have to lie to get into the dorm that I wanted to get into. I didn’t even think that it was going to be an issue in the first place because they didn’t advertise that when I was initially applying for housing.”
Perrin said they understand the school can’t simply build gender-neutral bathrooms in the honors housing, but would appreciate it if their websites specified that earlier. They said they also hope the school works toward building more gender-inclusive dorms in better locations.
Universities must go beyond gender-neutral dorms to support LGBTQ+ students
Although Windmeyer said colleges often find ways to support individual queer students with a specific problem they’re facing, he argues that students shouldn’t have to go out of their way to ask for an accommodation in the first place. Instead, schools should constantly work to improve their program so they’re readily available for students to opt into accordingly.
Windmeyer said that in order for these housing options to be gender-inclusive, they need to be financially equitable for LGBTQ+ students. He elaborated that this means if a gender-inclusive housing option costs more than a similar living type, then the cost should be subsidized for individuals who are transgender or nonbinary who seek that accommodation.
Simply having a gender neutral dorm is not enough. Windmeyer said it’s crucial for schools to have an educated and nuanced approach to the day-to day-problems a trans or nonbinary student will face.
“We are beyond the question of does your campus discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or do you have an LGBTQ+ student group? We have now moved on to really, what is it like to live and breathe on the campus,” Windmeyer said. “You can’t expect a student to get good grades, if they have to be fearful when they go to the residence hall (and) where they live and sleep at night,” Windmeyer said.
