Residential Life examines inclusive housing

Transgender students can mark an 'accommodation box' on ROAR.

By Jessica Silverman

Published April 16, 2010

Although students and administrators have for years discussed a gender-neutral housing policy, two campus directors said it's not something being considered right now.

Ryan Black, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Resource Center, said the center is not considering it, and Residential Life Director Frankie Minor said the same.

"I'd say at this stage, it is not something we're actively considering," Director of Residential Life Frankie Minor said. "I'd say we're examining how our housing can be as inclusive as possible."

Minor said Residential Life is concerned about accommodating people who are transgender.

Transgender students may mark a special accommodation box on Residents' Online Access to Rooms to indicate their gender identity and expression. They are later contacted by Residential Life staff and worked with to accommodate their needs, Minor said.

The special accommodation box is located below the American Disability Association box, but Minor made sure to acknowledge this isn't a disability.

"We haven't had many students utilize this," Minor said. "We have had some. We are very careful that we don't indicate this is a disability."

Minor said transgender students usually request a single room in suite style because of issues encountered around the bathroom.

"Right now, we get most of our demographic information from the university," Minor said. "Our process doesn't allow for a third category, like transgender. That's why we work with each individual student."

Minor said Residential Life gets its information from the university's database. If a student is indicated to be male or female in MU's database, he or she is indicated as such in the Residential Life database.

"Our housing is classified as male or female rooms," Minor said. "Our system is tied up in that same kind of binary situation."

Minor said gender-neutral housing is not strictly for transgender students.

"We may have a female student whose best friend is male and they want to live together," Minor said. "We don't have that option right now. It's a relatively new phenomenon."

Minor said to be more accommodating to students who are transgender, Residential Life is focusing on education.

"Oftentimes, transgender individuals are lumped with lesbian, gay and bisexual," Minor said. "They're a different group, with different issues and different needs. We educate our own staff and students on the issues."

Residence Halls Association President Rachael Feuerborn said a speaker came and spoke to RHA about transgender issues.

"We're training the staff about gender identity," Feuerborn said. "A lot of student staff wouldn't know how to approach a situation. We already incorporated a non-discrimination clause in RHA."

Feuerborn said they're working to allow students to choose halls based on identity instead of sex, as well as more secluded bathrooms.

Feuerborn said RHA attempted to make the men's restroom in Eva J's gender-neutral, but a law requiring each sex to have at least one bathroom prohibited it.

"It's a complicated issue and we're taking steps," Feuerborn said, adding that Minor spoke to other schools about their policies.

Feuerborn said RHA is trying to get different ideas and figure out all the kinks.

"My role is to educate the staff and student staff about the definition of gender identity," Feuerborn said.

Minor said if the UM system were to adopt gender identity and expression in its non-discrimination policy, as the IncludeMe MU campaign has been hoping to do, Residential Life would look to make sure it's fully accommodating students.

"One of the challenges might be that there's no place to indicate whether you're male or female," Minor said. "We're dependent upon information that the university provides. There's no way to identify self-identity."

Minor said Residential Life has been educating itself for a couple of years. Gender-neutral rooms are one step.

"It's a situation where we're very concerned about being accommodating to those who are transgender," Minor said. "We give individual attention to the housing assignment, and make sure the students and staff are sensitive to that issue."