Coed bathrooms may have disappeared from campus a few decades ago, but gender-neutral housing may be in PSU’s future.
Gender-neutral housing would allow male and female students to live together in the same room.
Ashley Phillips, the Blair Hall Residence Director, recently put forth a proposal to introduce gender neutral housing on campus. PSU would be joining the ranks of schools across the country that allows gender neutral rooms on campus.
“I have done research on the matter and spoken with a few people from institutions that have some form of gender neutral program or system in place,” Phillips said. According to a USA Today article, “At least two dozen schools, including Brown University, The University of Pennsylvania, Oberlin College, Clark University and The California Institute of Technology allow some or all students to share a room with anyone they choose-including someone of the opposite sex.”
Phillips first proposed gender neutral rooms to the department of Residential Life earlier this year, ” I submitted a proposal to Residential Life last Jan. about having a gender neutral wing in Blair, however it is still open on the table an no direct decisions have been made yet,” Phillips said.
There is currently discussion as to whether or not gender neutral rooms would be accepted by the general campus population, “I do believe there currently is student interest and I strongly believe that once gender neutral housing is offered, more and more student interested in gender neutral living will be attracted to PSU because of this option and we will gain a slightly more diverse student population,” Phillips said.
“Gender neutral housing could be open to anyone but ideally it’s for people who believe they’d feel more comfortable with the option to choose the gender they live with because of their own gender or sexual identity,” Phillips said.
Those involved in non-platonic relationships will not be excluded from gender neutral housing, but they will be discouraged, “Many couples choose not to live together for various reasons and those that do understand that if things don’t work out and they want to move, there may not be space for them to move to, as is currently the case in most residence halls,” Phillips said.
Since there are some concerns regarding the possibility of relationships going sour, Phillips proposed that gender neutral roommates take part in a program that will document the experience, “In my original proposal I proposed that students who wanted to live in the gender neutral wing would have to request to live there and, for the first year at least, students living in the gender neutral wing would participate in a learning community in which they participate in an in-hall course focused on issues of gender and identity that included a community service component,” Phillips added, which would be, “designed to educate and spread awareness about gender and sexual identity.”
Phillips cautioned that this option may only be made available to students who are genuinely interested in the ideas gender neutral housing promotes, “I proposed this [the community project] so that we as a department could gauge how successful a gender neutral wing would be but also to dissuade those people who are not actually serious or committed to the ideas that the community would stand for,” Phillips said.
But PSU first year Jay Hunter is already living in a coed dorm room, and he met little apprehension when he suggested a female roommate earlier this semester, “I simply sent an email to my RD Chris Slater saying I was just wondering if there was any possible way to have a female roommate,” Hunter said.
Within a few days, Hunter was granted permission to live with a female, “About a week and a half later I received an email saying he wanted to meet with both myself and the girl I was looking to room with,” Hunter said.
Both Phillips and Hunter believe that gender neutral rooms can work on campus, “I do believe gender neutral housing could work, like any new initiative it will have its challenges and it will take time to become successful but it has worked at other institutions and it can very well work here,” Philips said.
So far, Hunter has not come across any issues when it comes to his female roommate, “Everything has been working out great, we get along really well, and there really haven’t been any awkward moments that one might think could occur when living with the opposite sex,” Hunter said.
Phillips’ proposal is still under deliberation from the office of Residential Life, but it is clear that if there is a need, provisions may be available if a student requests to be placed with a student of the opposite sex. With proper initiatives, more PSU students may soon be able to room with whomever they want, regardless of sex.