In my technical writing class, we were required for our final project to find something about the school or community that we felt could be improved in some way. I chose to write my report on gender inclusive housing. This is the final version of the report as it was turned in for class credit.

Abstract

In the past several years, colleges and universities across the country have been implementing a new housing policy, commonly referred to as gender-neutral or gender-inclusive. The policy is one in which housing is offered not based on gender. Commonly this is thought of as a male and a female being allowed to room together if they so choose, be they friends, relatives, or partners. Because the housing is gender-inclusive, it would include all genders - male, female, transgendered, and others.

This report will recommend that Penn State implement a similar type of housing policy. I will address possible concerns that the school may have, point out the past success of other schools, and make suggestions specific to Penn State.

Glossary

Cisgendered: an adjective used in the context of gender issues and counselling to refer to a type of gender identity formed by a match between an individual's biological sex and the behavior or role considered appropriate for one's sex. Cisgender exists in contrast to transgender on the gender spectrum. (Wikipedia 2008)

Gender: the classification of the sex of a person roughly corresponding to masculine, feminine, ambivalent or neuter according to the demonstration of the continuum from maleness to femaleness. (EUBIOS 2005)

Gender Expression: characteristicds and behaviors such as appearance, dress, mannerisms, speech patterns, and social interactions that are perceived as masculine or feminine. (OSU 2008)

Gender Identity: internal, deeply-felt sense of being either male, female, something other, or in between. (OSU 2008)

Gender-Inclusive: including people of every gender, gender identity, and gender expression.

Gender-Neutral: see "Gender-Inclusive"

Sexual Orientation: a person's emotional and sexual attraction to other people based on the gender of the other person (e.g. heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, queer, etc.) (OSU 2008)

Transgendered: umbrella term used to describe people whose gender expression is nonconforming and/or whose gender identity is different from their birth assigned gender (OSU 2008)

back to top

Executive Summary

In the 1960's and 70's, America saw a revolution in the dorm rooms of college campuses. For the first time ever, co-ed dorms existed. Men and women were allowed to live in the same building - sometimes separated by wing, or floor, or simply by room. This was a radical idea at the time but a necessary step for society. The students demanded the change take place, and it did. The nay-sayers probably expected anarchy and chaos, and now the majority of college campuses offer this kind of housing as standard.

Now students across the United States are continuing the revolution. The next logical step is to introduce housing where students can live with whomever they choose, regardless of gender. This housing is commonly called gender-neutral, or gender-inclusive. We live in a society where gender does not mean as much as it once did; people are expressing themselves in new and creative ways. Not only th at, but cross-gender friendships are more common among young people than ever before. A 2002 survey by American Demographics and Synovate found that 18-to-24-year-olds are almost four times as likely as those age 55 and over to have a best friend of the opposite sex (Arnoldy 2006).

Several schools are beginning to offer gender-inclusive housing, and more schools are forced to consider the possibility as more students become aware of the option and demand it for themselves. There are many concerns that parents and administration have when considering the implementation of such housing. The three most common concerns are social concerns, financial cost, and methods of implementation. Such concerns that are addressed in this report.

My recommendation is that Penn State should implement gender-inclusive housing. It is both necessary and feasible.

back to top

Discussion

Social Concerns

The idea of gender-inclusive housing is not a new one. For years, the LGBTA (Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Transgendered, and Allies) community has been conscious of this issue, particularly because of transgendered students. It has traditionally been difficult for schools to know where to place transgendered students, as they do not fit into the mainstream gender binary. Many schools, including Penn State, make special accommodations for transgendered students. Because of the relatively small number of transgendered students present, this has been an acceptable solution thus far. The number of students requesting a more gender-inclusive dorm has been relatively small.

However, in the past few years, more schools across the nation have been calling for a more gender-inclusive housing policy. It is no longer the small minority of transgendered students who are demanding this. In fact, most of the students who benefit from such new rooming options are heterosxual, cisgendered individuals. They are not even couples, but simply platonic friends who wish to room with one another.

Several social concerns come to mind when contempating gender-inclusive housing. These concerns include public reaction, sexual abuse, and a general increased amount of chaos that may be present when students of different genders are living in such close proximity. While these fears are understandable, they are unfounded.

According to three articles on the subject, students who opt for gender-inclusive housing typically room with friends whom they already know and are close with. This fact is supported by the email interviews I conducted with six schools. Some people fear that couples will room together and that because relationships in the college age range are often not permanent, that such an arrangement could cause issues with having to change roommates. I emailed six schools across the United States that have gender-inclusive housing and asked them if they found an increase in roommate problems and none of them reported any increase due to this new configuration. Also, when asked if there was an increase in sexual assult, no schools reported any increase. There is no evidence to support the hypothesis that sexual assult would increase in a situation where students of different gender are in closer physical proximity.

When a school makes any drastic change to policy, public outcry is a valid concern. While the articles reported that there was very little, if any real public outcry, that may have been attributed to a more liberal climate than is present at this university. However, Penn State is already sympathetic to the needs of transgendered students as well as many other minority students. Not only that, but is typically on the leading edge of new ideas - such as the new green policy on campus. In the dorms alone, changes are constantly taking place. This year a new housing option will be available for students who do not wish to go home for the holidays. With such a large campus Penn State can get away with trying something new without the majority of students even noticing, yet still attract a large enough number of students to validate offering the option. There would likely not be a public outcry because so many options would still be available that all students could find somewhere that suited their personal needs.

back to top

Financial Cost

As with any change to the University, financial cost is a concern. According to the six schools which I interviewed, only one of them reported any significant costs associated with implementing gender-inclusive housing. Many of the schools used already existing apartment style dorms as test dorms for this housing option. Stanford University reported encountering costs associated with renovating bathrooms.

Penn State is currently renovating McElwain's bathrooms with the prospect of converting McElwain into a similar test-dorm in the future. These costs aside, there are still several apartment style dorms on campus that could be used as trial dorms with very little to no costs involved. A downside to such an arrangement is that the apartment style housing typically costs significantly more than other dorms, and this higher cost may cause less students to opt for the housing. This is an issue that transgendered students on campus already face.

back to top

Methods of Implementation

Once a school decides that it would like to implement gender-inclusive housing, several steps need to take place. There must be meetings held to discuss the plans with everyone involved in the decision making process. The details of the language involved in the new policy can take a long time to work out, especially in such a large school. The school must decide on topics such as how to handle a roommate switch request. Such a request would be more difficult than usual since a smaller number of students would be willing to room with the opposite gender. Such decisions regarding policy can be made easier by opening dialog with universities that have already put their own policies in place. Groups such as the National Student Genderblind Campaign also work to aid schools in this transition.

Once the actual policies are put in place, the next course of action that schools typically take is to choose a series of trial dorms. These dorms will be filled with the few students who initially opt for this type of housing. The first year is the time for the school to decide what sort of policies work, and what changes need to be made. Also, as time goes on schools typically report the number of interested students as increasing, so the school has a chance to then expand the number of dorms set aside for this type of housing. Perhaps the school will continue to offer different types of dorms, apartments, and suites as time goes on, observing which configurations are most popular and work best.

back to top

Recommendations

Penn State is already interested in attempting gender-inclusive housing in the future, and is taking steps to accomplish this goal, such as converting McElwain's bathrooms. Residence Life has already started looking at the wording of the policies that may be put in place, but since it is such a large school things move slowly. It would be beneficial for Penn State to contact several schools which have already implemented this type of housing and to discuss what kinds of policies and room configurations other universities have used. The National Student Genderblind Campaign would also be a valuable resource.

Trial dorms need to be chosen as soon as possible to get this project on its feet. McElwain is a good prospect, as construction has already begun. However, existing dorms should not be overlooked and may prove good enough for a temporary trial area, with McElwain's dorms being made available further in the future. It may also be useful to do some sort of student poll to find out how many students would potentially be interested in such housing, to get a better idea of the number of dorms which would need to be set aside.

There is no significant reason for Penn State to hesitate in making these changes. Other schools have reported great success with gender-neutral housing and it will most likely be the standard of the future.

back to top

Appendices

Appendix 1: Sample Email Interview
This email was sent to a total of fifteen different schools that currently offer gender-inclusive housing.

June 10, 2008

[ADDRESS]

Attention: [NAME]

Subject: Questions Regarding Gender-Neutral Housing

[NAME]:

I am a senior at The Pennsylvania State University and I am currently writing a recommendation report to the school suggesting that they provide gender-neutral housing to the students. On [DATE] there was an article in [NEWS SOURCE] which indicated your campus offered such housing : where a male and a female were allowed to live in the same room. It would be very beneficial to my research if you or one of your staff could answer a few questions for me.

1. What methods were used in determining the feasibility of converting some or all of the on-campus housing to gender-inclusive housing? (i.e. cost estimates, estimating number of potentially interested students, etc.)

2. Were there any significant financial costs associated with switching to a gender-inclusive housing policy?

3. Since having implemented gender-inclusive housing, are there any significant relational problems between students choosing to room together? (i.e. increase in number of students requesting a new roommate due to disputes, increase in sexual abuse, etc.)

4. Since having implemented gender-inclusive housing, would you say that the number of students requesting such housing accommodations has increased, decreased, or remained the same with time?

I would appreciate your responses and look forward to hearing from you. Please indicate if it is not ok for me to quote any responses. Feel free to email me at aes5140@psu.edu or call anytime at 717-576-1009.

Sincerely,

Amber Schorr
623 West College Avenue R3
State College, PA 16801
phone: 717-576-1009
email: aes5140@psu.edu

back to top

Appendix 2: Summary of Responses to Email Interview

1. What methods were used in determining the feasibility of converting some or all of the on-campus housing to gender-inclusive housing? (i.e. cost estimates, estimating number of potentially interested students, etc.)

Table 1:

Oregon State University	-draft and approve proposal -select trial rooms -make needed changes in following years
University of Southern Maine	-hold a meeting (students, staff, faculty) -select trial rooms
Wesleyan University (CT)	did not know the answer to this question
Dartmouth University (NH)	-select trial rooms
Ithaca College (NY)	-select trial rooms -could not obtain enough interested students -forced to abandon project but intend to try again in fall 2009
Stanford University (CA)	-hold a meeting -collect info. from Universities with gender-neutral housing -survey residents -meet with legal counsel to determine what laws govern the use of the space

2. Were there any significant financial costs associated with switching to a gender-inclusive housing policy?

Oregon State University	none
University of Southern Maine	none
Wesleyan University (CT)	none
Dartmouth University (NH)	none
Ithaca College (NY)	could not answer this question
Stanford University (CA)	-costs associated with creating private bathrooms

3. Since having implemented gender-inclusive housing, are there any significant relational problems between students choosing to room together? (i.e. increase in number of students requesting a new roommate due to disputes, increase in sexual abuse, etc.)

Oregon State University	no problems
University of Southern Maine	no problems
Wesleyan University (CT)	no problems
Dartmouth University (NH)	no problems
Ithaca College (NY)	could not answer this question
Stanford University (CA)	could not answer this question

4. Since having implemented gender-inclusive housing, would you say that the number of students requesting such housing accommodations has increased, decreased, or remained the same with time?

Oregon State University	increase
University of Southern Maine	increase
Wesleyan University (CT)	does not know the answer to this question
Dartmouth University (NH)	remained the same
Ithaca College (NY)	could not answer this question
Stanford University (CA)	could not answer this question

back to top

Appendix 3: Email Interview with Penn State LGBTA Student Resource Center

1. Is it ok if I record this meeting? Is it ok if I quote you in my writings?

Yes, you are welcome to quote me for the paper, but I would prefer that this just be used for your class project.

2. What has the LGBTA community tried in the past, as far as creating housing options on campus? (and why have these efforts possibly failed).

Mark can certainly chime in here when you meet with him. There has been a variety of things in the past, the MLK House that was Social Justice themed was the largest. It was active on and off for many year, it is not currently a part of the housing options mostly because of numbers of students to fill the spaces. I am not sure what the minimum number would be for each housing area that could house themed housing, but there needs to be a critical mass each year to keep them going. Also, for trans students, res life/housing has always provided a variety of housing options (typically single rooms with restrooms) for students identifying as trans or gender variant in some way. We might work toward making sure all housing information starting next year has options for students to mark gender identity so we can work with those students from the beginning.

3. Do you think it is feasible for the school to designate one dorm or even a smaller number of rooms for a trial run?

Mark would be best to talk with you about this, as mentioned above, I believe it comes down to numbers when we are already short of housing at times, we just need to make sure the rooms have people in them if they are held and that has not always been easy to fill. . .this is not a PSU problem exclusively, many/most schools around the country have a hard time filling theme housing in specialized areas like this..there is def. interest but not the critical mass that wants to live on campus each year.

4. Do you think students (both within the LGBTA community and outside of it) would react well to this sort of housing option?

Probably so, but perhaps we could ask a question on the PULSE survey about this if we do one this next year that is focused on LGBTA.

5. Do you have any recommendations as to how interested students should proceed with this sort of proposal?

Talk/work with Res life, our office to start the conversation and we can go from there.

back to top

Appendix 4: Transcript of Interview with Mark Rameker:PSU Residence Life

AMBER SCHORR: The subject of my presentation is on the possibility of Penn State having gender inclusive housing which would allow basically any gender to room together. The first question would be: does Penn State currently offer special living options for transgendered students or any other students who might not be comfortable with living with a person of the same gender?

MARK RAMEKER: Yes and no. There is a request process that we work closely with Allison, and if they identify with Allison she lets us know and encourages them to contact the assignments office... and then we work individually with each student based on their needs. So we don't have a special living option necessarily. We're looking at having a social justice special living option in the future, but we don't have a set form that we use.

AMBER SCHORR: Do you know where those students would normally end up? Do they have to be in a single or...

MARK RAMEKER: Depends. It depends on what they want. It depends on what they have open. Right now we have, for instance, East View Terrace has singles with bath if that's an interest. There are suites that are in North Halls that are an option depending on what a student wants. We're also having... as of January we're supposed to be opening... you know in McElwain where the dining hall is?

AMBER SCHORR: I don't know a lot of the dorms.

MARK RAMEKER: They're transforming one of the dining facilities into residence hall space - about 70 spaces. There are some singles and doubles there and we have a different plan for the bathroom where it would be. The last one I saw, at least, showed that the showers are individually closed off. Individual doors locking, everything ... and on the other side of the hallway is a toilet and sink in a closed off room as well. So it's not the community bathrooms we currently have in a lot of first year apartments. So there are some options that we have, depending on the needs of the student.

AMBER SCHORR: Do you have any dorms where just any male and female could live together, or do they have to be transgendered?

MARK RAMEKER: At this point we work specifically with transgendered students. We don't have a specific option for male and female friends to live together.

AMBER SCHORR: Has Penn state ever tried in the past to have some sort of gender neutral housing?

MARK RAMEKER: I think so. I'm not positive. We tried to get a group together this last year with housing from here and the other campuses to talk about gender neutral housing -- what it would entail, what kind of road we would go down, how we would do that. That didn't happen but we have all the changes and wording and different things that we're working on. For example, our wording probably isn't the most inclusive and we're looking at that to see what would be most inclusive, and what would let the students know that if you have a request to contact us. 'Cause right now it's kind of with Allison or somebody in her office. Somebody identifies with her and then she works with us. It's kind of up to the students at this point.

AMBER SCHORR: What would be some reasons Penn state would be hesitant to offer gender neutral housing?

MARK RAMEKER: There's some logistics to it. Just like if any roommate issue arises it would be more difficult to place somebody in that space that would have either wanted to live with those individuals or would be open to living with someone of a different gender. That right there is one of the hurdles I think we have to deal with: What is going to be our policy and how are we going to deal with any roommate conflicts that arise from that? Politically, I think Pennsylvania is kind of conservative so I think it will be interesting ... with the board of trustees, the parents sending their students here.... Those kind of things would also be something we need to talk about to figure out how we would address all those.

AMBER SCHORR: If you did choose to implement this in the future, would you need any certain research or have to get numbers of students? What would you definitely need to make that decision?

MARK RAMEKER: I think we're moving in that direction. I don't think we'd need any specific numbers. I mean, we know there are students out there that would take us up on that option. What we might do is pilot something and see how many students are interested in that option. For instance, we are piloting now a 9 month contract for specifically kind of our international students and students that don't want to go home every break. We didn't market it but we just kind of put it on as an option that people could check as they were figuring out their housing contract and we have - I want to say 70 students - that have taken us up on that option. We knew there were a bunch of students out there that would be interested in that option; we just didn't know the specific numbers. We would probably do something similar to that. We wouldn't necessarily advertise but we would put it as an option and students could identify that's what they wanted as an option... and then figure it out from there, talking about what exactly that means.

AMBER SCHORR: Since you guys are looking into this, are you aware of any other research that has been done? Do you communicate with other schools about it?

MARK RAMEKER: We do. We talked to other big 10s and off the top of my head - i can't think - there might be one school in the big 10 that does... We've also gotten a spreadsheet Allison actually gave us that talks about the different universities around the country that have their different options, policies how they actually run it... 'cause there are a lot of different things, from a specifically transgender option to completely gender neutral. And it would be interesting... at some point we're probably going to talk about how they dealt with roommate conflicts. That comes to an issue, too, where some schools have more space than we do to house students. If there is a conflict, they can just move the person out and they have plenty of space to do that. Unfortunately, with the number of students that have increased over the years, we are limited in that option. It seems like this year we're going to have another influx of freshman so we might be more limited in those options, so we're going to have to figure out what works here. It's a good thing students want to come back to the halls, but how do we make sure that we could move people - that we could make adjustments as needed?

AMBER SCHORR: Is it usually a big problem to move people? Do a lot of people want to switch rooms generally?

MARK RAMEKER: We have a direct room switch board. So, say you are in East Halls and you don't like your roommate. You want to get out but there's nothing really that we can see will be a huge problem for you guys living together... you just don't get along, your schedules are different and what-not, or you just want to be in a different area, you want to be in Pollock and not in East: you can go up to the room switch board and say where you want to be look for other individuals that are maybe in the area you want to be in. So students can kind of take that on themselves. Specifically, issues when we're full ... it's hard -- we don't have open spaces. First semester is always tough 'cause we have so many people that have a requirement and then it's hard to move individuals. We don't put sophomores with freshman usually unless a freshman requests an upperclassman or we give that as an option because that's the only option and then they are OK with it and they make the move. But as a policy we don't, so that kind of cuts down on some of our moves we make, especially with freshman students.

AMBER SCHORR: Who is ultimately in charge of this decision: residence life, or what department?

MARK RAMEKER: Well, the ultimate decision would be the President and the Board of Trustees. There are things I think we can do, and we can make some changes and do some things, but if at some point it becomes really public and is a huge issue, they would be the ones that would be making that decision. We do have an assistant vice president for housing and food services and residence life, so he, along with the associate vice president of auxiliary business services, would be kind of the first level of people that need to OK whatever we want to proceed with. But it ultimately comes down to the President.

AMBER SCHORR: Do you think Penn State would be willing to continue dialog with students that might have research information?

MARK RAMEKER: That's what we're looking for. This discussion I was talking about ... there were two students Allison had suggested last year to come in and share with us information and then have an open dialog. So we're definitely interested in figuring it out. There are no easy answers. There is always something that's going to play into it that we're going to have to try to figure out.

AMBER SCHORR: I know Speakout is planning on looking into this issue the upcoming year so maybe Speakout would have some things to say. I'm a member of Speakout as well, and I've also been researching this for my class. I've talked to a couple other schools who have this, so I have some documents they've sent me on how they do it.

MARK RAMEKER: Sure, and that would be useful. Unfortunately, we're a big institution so everything works really slowly and a lot of our halls in the past havn't necessarily provided themselves the opportunity for switches like this ... changes. We're getting there now with the students in North this past couple years, for this new place in McElwain, and East View, but unfortunately East View and North are expensive so that's a concern for me... that if we have a transgendered student that is coming in and they want one of those opportunities, they have to pay more just because they're transgendered. So right, there that's an issue. So hopefully McElwain - it'll be a little bit more because of the different environment, and that it's newer, but it's not going to be significantly more like East View.

AMBER SCHORR: I know there there's an organization... Genderblind Campaign, and they specifically work with schools, as I understand it ... so that might be interesting to talk to with them.

MARK RAMEKER: So that's a national group?

AMBER SCHORR: I think so. It started off at Clark University that a kid got his school to transition and then he started a campaign and there's a website and everything. They supposedly work with schools. I haven't talked to him or anything... genderblind.org and the guy's name is Jeffrey Chang.

MARK RAMEKER: Like I said, it's something that we're talking about. We need to make some changes, but how and where that's going to exactly happen, we don't know.

AMBER SCHORR: That's about all my questions.

back to top

References

Arnoldy, Ben. "In dorms, men and women now room together." 2006. The Christian Science Monitor. 10 June 2008 <http://tiny.cc/uOfvG>.

Schworm, Peter. "Just roommates." 2008. The Boston Globe. 10 June 2008 <http://tiny.cc/Q3DK9>.

Smith, Michelle. "One boy, one girl - one dorm room." 2008. CNN. 10 June 2008 <http://tiny.cc/pCZMu/>.

Rameker, Mike. Personal Interview. 13 June 2008.

Subasic, Allison. Email Interview. 12 June 2008.

Empey, Cindy. Email Interview. 10 June 2008.

Nelson, Denise. Email Interview. 10 June 2008.

Koerting, Frances. Email Interview. 10 June 2008.

Class-Giguere, Rachael. Email Interview. 10 June 2008.

Prunty, Bonnie. Email Interview. 10 June 2008.

Hinds, Imogen. Email Interview. 10 June 2008.

OSU Housing and Dining Services. "Gender Inclusive Housing @ OSU." Powerpoint Presentation. Ohio State University. 2008.

Wikipedia. "Cisgender." Wikipedia. 2008. 18 June 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender>.

Pollard, Irina. UNESCO/IUBS/EUBIOS Bioethics Dictionary. Bangkok: RUSHSAP, UNESCO Bangkok, 2005.

Chang, Jeffrey and Norton, David. National Student Genderblind Campaign. 2008. The Genderblind Campaign.19 June 2008. <http://www.genderblind.org>.

back to top