Queercommie Girl
23rd October 2011, 23:43
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20111023/LIFE/310230045/Grinnell-College-dorms-Where-gender-doesn-t-matter?fb_ref=artrectop&fb_source=profile_oneline
Male, female, transgender, no gender, gay, lesbian, straight. Labels don’t matter at Grinnell College. Students can share a dormitory room, bathroom, shower room or locker room with any of the above, if they choose.
This fall, the progressive private liberal arts college on the Iowa prairie added a gender-neutral locker room to its mix of gender-neutral dormitory options.
The locker room in the athletic complex is for those using the recreational facilities, physical education students, varsity athletes or spectators of athletic events.
It’s the next step for Grinnell College, which became Iowa’s only college three years ago to offer an option for males, females or others to share the same dorm room, part of a growing trend nationwide. The University of Iowa and Cornell College are among Iowa colleges also considering the option in coming years, while more than 50 mostly private colleges across the country have been joined recently by a few public universities with gender-neutral housing.
“It’s about an ethos. It’s about creating a safe and welcoming space. It’s not about being able to room with your significant other,” said Lily Cross, a senior who helped persuade Grinnell officials to offer gender-neutral housing.
The idea was driven by transgender students, those who don’t identify themselves as either male or female, and students transitioning from one gender to the other. Gender-neutral grew from one percent of the school’s on-campus housing in 2008-09 to 18 percent this fall, and officials discontinued asking students to divulge gender or orientation. The rooms include straight males and females living together, although those who self-identify as transgender are given priority, which includes five this fall.
“Sometimes people get in romantic relationships but we discourage that,” said Andrea Conner, director of residence life and orientation. “Living in a 12-by-12 room with a significant other is tough at any age.”
Colleges are several generations removed from the days when different genders often didn’t attend the same colleges. As a more gender-diverse population evolved, separate dormitories were built. Grinnell’s gender-neutral floors today are housed inside residence halls built in 1915-16. Back then they were exclusively male or female — and at opposite ends of the campus. Then mixed-gender residence halls with alternating male-female floors evolved. It was such a big deal when Oberlin College added co-ed halls in the 1970s it made the cover of Life Magazine. Then mixed-gender floors became common.
“I think the changes are a reflection of changing times,” said James Baumann, director of communications for the Association of College & University Housing Officers — International.
Creating a “shack up” community hasn’t happened, college officials say. Putting a man and woman together in a dorm room doesn’t mean they will have sex. Nor does it mean that two men or two women together won’t, students have told the National Gender Blind Campaign, a group of student activists working for gender equality.
“A couple decades ago, colleges were expected to behave as parents,” Conner said. “Today we are treating students like adults and letting them make their own decisions.”
When Cross, 22, moved from Los Angeles to Grinnell she wanted to live on a residence hall floor where students were comfortable with her transition from male to female.
“Especially in college, that’s tough to go through,” she said. “It’s important to still get this experience of having a roommate while getting to be themselves.”
Some students are not comfortable with the “binary of the sexes” and are analyzing their identity on a gender spectrum that can vary widely.
“This is a comfortable option for those that have trouble deciding whether to go to the bathroom — with the skirt or the pants on the sign,” Conner said.
Canadian Austin McKenney, 18, chose Grinnell College even though “I didn’t believe Iowa existed; like it was made up.” But when he visited, he found an atmosphere of acceptance among the 1,550 students.
He chose to room with a female. ‘Tep Blount of Washington, D.C., a straight female, felt more comfortable with males and figured rooming with them would be less stressful. She wasn’t at all taken aback when she met Austin, with short-cropped hair and slight figure. She asked him right away, “Are you transgender?”
McKenney was relieved. He is female-to-male transgender and found it refreshing that people at Grinnell were comfortably up-front and actually asked him what pronoun he preferred.
Parents can sometimes be a hurdle. Blount’s conservative parents “weren’t too happy about it,” she said. “But I just told them I’m comfortable with it and I wasn’t going to make any changes.”
Her parents haven’t met Austin yet, but the two get along just fine.
McKenney had faced numerous problems in the past. He has been tossed out of bathrooms or asked for identification. (“We share bathroom stories like trading cards,” he said.)
At Grinnell, the floor’s common bathrooms are for everyone, if all residents vote that they should be gender neutral.
Toilets have stalls and showers have doors so that anyone can use the facilities at the same time.
Grinnell officials and students said there have been no problems on gender-neutral floors.
“In my first floor meetings, I cover the co-ed notion of female and males being strictly defined. But in gender neutral, that binary is destroyed. There is a spectrum of gender,” said Camila Barrios Camacho, a student adviser of gender-neutral housing.
“Ideally, we would live in a gender-neutral world where your sex wouldn’t define you. We wouldn’t be defined by our physical bodies.
“It would value the essence of a person rather than the physical makeup.”
A growing number of students are expressing new ways to look at gender.
“More students today don’t identify with the binary. That is a more recent shift,” said Astrid Henry, associate professor of gender, women’s and sexuality studies at Grinnell.
Some students don’t want to be referred to in male or female pronouns because they carry societal labels, preferring the pronoun “ze” (for she) or “hir” (for he), Henry said. “Even in class as the chair of gender studies I get told, ‘I don’t want to be called she,’ ze said.”
For some, it may be easy to ridicule as ivory-tower babble, but an entire new field — transgender studies — has emerged, and television personalities such as Chaz Bono are bringing the often confusing topic to light.
Grinnell doesn’t have any current varsity athletes who have identified themselves as transgender, but assistant athletic director Heather Benning said that with the school’s embrace of diversity, it was important to be a leader. The NCAA recently issued a “best practices” memo which includes providing gender-neutral locker rooms.
It’s also important, she said, to have the same access to programs and sports as housing so students can have the full college experience.
“I’ve already had people tell me they used to swim a lot before they came to college but didn’t want to navigate that situation in the locker room,” she said. “Now they can.”
Parents who visit their children on gender-neutral floors now will encounter these signs: “Queer Safe Space” and “Be an ally to gay and lesbians.”
So far, McKenney has found plenty of allies.
“I feel comfortable here. It’s a welcome breath of fresh air after high school,” he said. “People here even say to you, ‘Sorry, I gendered you.’ ”
Male, female, transgender, no gender, gay, lesbian, straight. Labels don’t matter at Grinnell College. Students can share a dormitory room, bathroom, shower room or locker room with any of the above, if they choose.
This fall, the progressive private liberal arts college on the Iowa prairie added a gender-neutral locker room to its mix of gender-neutral dormitory options.
The locker room in the athletic complex is for those using the recreational facilities, physical education students, varsity athletes or spectators of athletic events.
It’s the next step for Grinnell College, which became Iowa’s only college three years ago to offer an option for males, females or others to share the same dorm room, part of a growing trend nationwide. The University of Iowa and Cornell College are among Iowa colleges also considering the option in coming years, while more than 50 mostly private colleges across the country have been joined recently by a few public universities with gender-neutral housing.
“It’s about an ethos. It’s about creating a safe and welcoming space. It’s not about being able to room with your significant other,” said Lily Cross, a senior who helped persuade Grinnell officials to offer gender-neutral housing.
The idea was driven by transgender students, those who don’t identify themselves as either male or female, and students transitioning from one gender to the other. Gender-neutral grew from one percent of the school’s on-campus housing in 2008-09 to 18 percent this fall, and officials discontinued asking students to divulge gender or orientation. The rooms include straight males and females living together, although those who self-identify as transgender are given priority, which includes five this fall.
“Sometimes people get in romantic relationships but we discourage that,” said Andrea Conner, director of residence life and orientation. “Living in a 12-by-12 room with a significant other is tough at any age.”
Colleges are several generations removed from the days when different genders often didn’t attend the same colleges. As a more gender-diverse population evolved, separate dormitories were built. Grinnell’s gender-neutral floors today are housed inside residence halls built in 1915-16. Back then they were exclusively male or female — and at opposite ends of the campus. Then mixed-gender residence halls with alternating male-female floors evolved. It was such a big deal when Oberlin College added co-ed halls in the 1970s it made the cover of Life Magazine. Then mixed-gender floors became common.
“I think the changes are a reflection of changing times,” said James Baumann, director of communications for the Association of College & University Housing Officers — International.
Creating a “shack up” community hasn’t happened, college officials say. Putting a man and woman together in a dorm room doesn’t mean they will have sex. Nor does it mean that two men or two women together won’t, students have told the National Gender Blind Campaign, a group of student activists working for gender equality.
“A couple decades ago, colleges were expected to behave as parents,” Conner said. “Today we are treating students like adults and letting them make their own decisions.”
When Cross, 22, moved from Los Angeles to Grinnell she wanted to live on a residence hall floor where students were comfortable with her transition from male to female.
“Especially in college, that’s tough to go through,” she said. “It’s important to still get this experience of having a roommate while getting to be themselves.”
Some students are not comfortable with the “binary of the sexes” and are analyzing their identity on a gender spectrum that can vary widely.
“This is a comfortable option for those that have trouble deciding whether to go to the bathroom — with the skirt or the pants on the sign,” Conner said.
Canadian Austin McKenney, 18, chose Grinnell College even though “I didn’t believe Iowa existed; like it was made up.” But when he visited, he found an atmosphere of acceptance among the 1,550 students.
He chose to room with a female. ‘Tep Blount of Washington, D.C., a straight female, felt more comfortable with males and figured rooming with them would be less stressful. She wasn’t at all taken aback when she met Austin, with short-cropped hair and slight figure. She asked him right away, “Are you transgender?”
McKenney was relieved. He is female-to-male transgender and found it refreshing that people at Grinnell were comfortably up-front and actually asked him what pronoun he preferred.
Parents can sometimes be a hurdle. Blount’s conservative parents “weren’t too happy about it,” she said. “But I just told them I’m comfortable with it and I wasn’t going to make any changes.”
Her parents haven’t met Austin yet, but the two get along just fine.
McKenney had faced numerous problems in the past. He has been tossed out of bathrooms or asked for identification. (“We share bathroom stories like trading cards,” he said.)
At Grinnell, the floor’s common bathrooms are for everyone, if all residents vote that they should be gender neutral.
Toilets have stalls and showers have doors so that anyone can use the facilities at the same time.
Grinnell officials and students said there have been no problems on gender-neutral floors.
“In my first floor meetings, I cover the co-ed notion of female and males being strictly defined. But in gender neutral, that binary is destroyed. There is a spectrum of gender,” said Camila Barrios Camacho, a student adviser of gender-neutral housing.
“Ideally, we would live in a gender-neutral world where your sex wouldn’t define you. We wouldn’t be defined by our physical bodies.
“It would value the essence of a person rather than the physical makeup.”
A growing number of students are expressing new ways to look at gender.
“More students today don’t identify with the binary. That is a more recent shift,” said Astrid Henry, associate professor of gender, women’s and sexuality studies at Grinnell.
Some students don’t want to be referred to in male or female pronouns because they carry societal labels, preferring the pronoun “ze” (for she) or “hir” (for he), Henry said. “Even in class as the chair of gender studies I get told, ‘I don’t want to be called she,’ ze said.”
For some, it may be easy to ridicule as ivory-tower babble, but an entire new field — transgender studies — has emerged, and television personalities such as Chaz Bono are bringing the often confusing topic to light.
Grinnell doesn’t have any current varsity athletes who have identified themselves as transgender, but assistant athletic director Heather Benning said that with the school’s embrace of diversity, it was important to be a leader. The NCAA recently issued a “best practices” memo which includes providing gender-neutral locker rooms.
It’s also important, she said, to have the same access to programs and sports as housing so students can have the full college experience.
“I’ve already had people tell me they used to swim a lot before they came to college but didn’t want to navigate that situation in the locker room,” she said. “Now they can.”
Parents who visit their children on gender-neutral floors now will encounter these signs: “Queer Safe Space” and “Be an ally to gay and lesbians.”
So far, McKenney has found plenty of allies.
“I feel comfortable here. It’s a welcome breath of fresh air after high school,” he said. “People here even say to you, ‘Sorry, I gendered you.’ ”