The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 2 - 66

Carrie A. Kortegast

other residents] kind of figure it out when you
rode the elevator everyday.
Taylor goes on to explain that there are not
many housing options for trans* and non-binary students on campus. He explained, "it's
very hard to get into Stevens. You have to interview. If you get accepted, people have to like
you, people have to know you." Taylor continued by saying that most of the single rooms:
Available on campus [are in the] all-male
dorm and an all-female dorm. I didn't feel
comfortable living in either one. It was just a
weird situation. I [now] live in Smith in an RA
[resident assistant] efficiency suite by myself.
And the floors on Smith are coed. You can
only live with same gender sex in the room,
but the floors are coed. But on the floors there
is no questioning of why I am on whatever
floor. So that worked out for me, but I know
other people who requested the same thing
and got denied or are in the all-female dorm.
So I think this campus has a long way to go in
terms of housing.

RA to acknowledge this or at least check to
see if he was okay. Alex shared that soon afterwards, his roommate moved out and the
RA never told him. Alex said, "he should have
talked to me before everybody [on the floor]
found out."
As transgender and genderqueer students,
Camden, Adler, and Taylor began discussing
that you need to know the "right" person in

I know ... RAs that would not be
comfortable [discussing LGBTQ
topics] and would not know
what to say, and so they just
pawn it off on someone else.

Chase, who is an RA, followed up by saying:
I think most of the people at the top of
residence life or everyone [is at least] very
open about [LGBTQ issues], at least on the
student aspect side of it. It's hard to find
someone that's like against gay students.
I mean off the top of my head I think of
four people in the administrative aspect of
residence life that are gay as well and openly
gay and out.
Chase continued, "I know ... RAs that would
not be comfortable [discussing LGBTQ topics]
and would not know what to say, and so they
just pawn it off on someone else. I think that
that needs to be part of a training program."
Alex agreed and discussed that when he came
out to his floor on Facebook, he expected his

housing in order to request an accommodation.
Taylor shared that there are some accommodations for trans* students, but housing "expects
everyone to live alone." Adler mentioned the
common accommodation, an RA efficiency,
was "very isolated and it's usually, you know,
stuck in the corner." Camden added, "I feel
like they aren't as enthusiastic about making
things as gender inclusive as they could be."
Taylor followed up with:
They [residence life] have this policy that
you have to be the same gender to live in the
same room and what does that even mean for
me? But I'm living off campus next year. Most
non-binary students live off campus by their
third or fourth year.

THE JOURNAL OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY STUDENT HOUSING

The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 2

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