Living In the Gender Neutral Hall

Posted by Charli Renken in Campus

If you enter St. Michael’s B dormitory and walk up the stairs, you’ll find yourself in a very different set up than the rest of the dormitories on campus. The bathroom doors have multiple different signs on them, people’s room tags often have their preferred pronouns scrawled across them, and students of all genders live together. St. Michael’s B200 is the Gender Neutral hall. Students who live here identify on every part of the gender and sexuality spectrum from cisgender male and female to transgender to non-binary.

New to campus this year, the Gender Neutral hall is a space where approximately 25 students of all genders live (including the author of this article.) Instead of students rooming with the same sex as them, residents of the Gender Neutral hall have the freedom of rooming with whatever gender they like and bathrooms in the hall aren’t gendered either. In the Gender Neutral hall, what you have between your legs hardly matters when it comes to which bathroom you enter or who you room with. In this hall there are two identical bathrooms but instead of the “Male” and “Female” signs seen in co-ed dorms, they have signs such as  “Male,” “Female,” “Everything in Between,” “Spikey Van Dykey,” and “Divine,” all on one door. Whether you stand or sit down to pee, you’re welcome to do your business wherever you please.

The hall was put into place this Fall through the work of COLORS, the Gay Straight Alliance on SFUAD’s campus.“ I believe the idea of gender segregation is an outdated, vestigial concept within our society,” says COLORS President Colin McIntire.  “Furthermore, it goes down to our primary needs: food, water and shelter. For a transgendered individual to be placed in a gendered hallway with gendered bathrooms undermines the basic need of shelter, a safe place to live. We at SFUAD pride ourselves at being incredibly progressive, so we must provide a safe living space for all students, regardless of their gender identity or lack thereof. Everyone deserves to feel safe and secure in their living space. Everyone deserves the same rights.” Recognizing this, Mouton was extremely supportive of the push for a Gender Neutral hall and had the hall up and running within a year, an impressively short amount of time compared to the decade it took the University of Vermont. With help from key administrative faculty members, COLORS was able to take the Gender Neutral hall from an on-paper proposal to an on-campus reality.

Students living the Gender Neutral hall are grateful for COLORS efforts. “We’re like a family here,” says Dee Rose, a freshman Creative Writing major. “And I think that for people who aren’t accepted by their family at home, that’s really important.” It’s true that most of the hall residents feel very close to each other, hanging out in each other’s rooms and coming up with hall events outside of their RA’s prompting. “Going off of what I’ve heard about other halls, we’re very tight knit,” says Brenda Lemieux, a freshman Digital Illustration major. “We’re really fun and energetic here.”

Because residents chose to live here, they understand the struggles of gay and transgender students. “Everyone here is either trans, non binary or an ally,” says Shelby Criswell, a sophomore Studio Arts major. “We’re fun as hell and kind of all believe in the same thing [when it comes to trans issues]” Living here, no one has to worry about being judged for their gender or sexuality. Everyone understands the sensitivity around the subject.

Other residents are simply grateful to be able to pee in peace in their own home. “I can pee here,” Morgan Czeropski, a sophomore Digital Illustration major said when asked what he liked about living in the hall. “It sounds weird, but I don’t have to worry about where to pee or who I’ll bump into [in the restroom.]” Czeropski lived in LaSalle last year and felt anxious about being put into a hall with all females when he identifies as male. “[Living in La Salle,] I’d still have to choose a bathroom and might end up finding someone who would want to beat me up in the boys room.” For students like Czeropski, living in the Gender Neutral hall is a sigh of relief.

The noise you’ll hear most in St. Mikes B200 is laughter. “Compared to what I’ve heard about other halls, we’re much closer. I’ve heard residents of other halls hardly see their neighbors. It’s the total opposite here,” says Lemieux.