Gender Neutral Housing Essay

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Gender-neutral housing is an option for college students that allows them to room with each other regardless of their gender and sexual orientation ("Gender-inclusive housing at MIT", 2015). Some schools have recently pushed for gender-neutral housing on their campuses in order allow “transgender, gay, and lesbian students feel more comfortable with their living situations” (Koma, 2014). As those schools promote gender equality, some students and faculty members might believe that the idea of gender-neutral housing to have more “negative implications” than positive implications (Alec, 2013). However, some students feel uncomfortable with the current state of traditional housing. Traditional housing limits LGBTQ students to rooming with cisgender …show more content…

Schools across the nation face problems related to their students who gay, lesbian, or transgender feeling uncomfortable with the traditional cisgender housing plan. Some problems include students being afraid of others judging them because of their sexual preference and LGBTQ suicides that have occurred on several campuses (Lockhart, 2010). In response to those problems, gender-neutral housing provides students who are feeling uncomfortable due to how they identity themselves around others with a “necessity of comfort for all students in their college living situations” (Lockhart, 2010). Students with access to gender-neutral housing might become aware of how their peers identify themselves. More specifically, transgender students might feel more comfortable when living with a roommate who would not judge them based their preferred identity ("Gender-inclusive housing at MIT", 2015). Therefore, schools provide gender-neutral housing on their campuses in order to promote gender equality and awareness of LGBTQ people in the nation. However, with the current state of gender-neutral housing, LGBTQ students might find themselves isolated from other students on …show more content…

Some schools, such as Harvard University and Washington University in St. Louis, provide gender-neutral housing under special conditions such as location and a student’s class year (Koma, 2014). This decision isolates LGBTQ students from the rest of their peers based on gender identity. Furthermore, several colleges are beginning to discuss about gender-neutral housing because people who favor the idea stressed that it was not about allowing couples to room with each other (Koma, 2014). As a result of these problems, most schools refrain from providing gender-neutral housing mainly because of religious and other public affiliations. Therefore, students and faculty members should promote gender-neutral housing in a positive sense through committees and active discussions about the topic of gender

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