The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2 - 87

Implementation of Gender-Neutral Housing

the academic year. . . . Why were these
residences chosen? These residences were
chosen because: 1. Each residence has rooms
available which allow each roommate to have
a separate private sleeping space. 2. These
houses offer additional privacy in bathroom
and shower areas.
Suites and apartments were most frequently
identiﬁed as having been designated for gender-neutral housing. A few policies identify
the speciﬁc buildings by name. Less common
were statements that GNH options were available in all upper-division student housing.
Role of parents. Some policies speciﬁcally
addressed the issue of parents and the idea
that they might not approve of their student
electing gender-neutral housing. When policies do address this concern, they typically
encourage students to discuss their housing
choice with their parents while also making
the point that "Students over the age of 18
are legally able to make decisions about their
housing contracts."
An uncommon policy statement about
parents was, "The application process also
requires that a student's parent/guardian
submit their endorsement of the arrangement
or that the student complete an interview with
housing staff." Another policy noted that students under 18 would need to provide parental consent.
Roommate departure. The most thorough
and fully developed GNH policies addressed
the issue of roommate departure from the
designated GNH space. One policy statement speciﬁed the time that the remaining
roommate(s) would be given to ﬁll the space;
if the roommate(s) failed to ﬁll the space in
the allotted time, the room(s) would revert to

a single-sex designation and would be ﬁlled
by housing and residence life. Other additions to a statement related to roommates included, "If no student is available to ﬁll the
space, the remaining students will be billed
for the vacant space in the current suite or
apartment, the prorated cost to be divided
evenly among the remaining residents" and
"The Residential Life Ofﬁce reserves the right
to place another student who has requested
gender-neutral housing in the open bed."
Using the policy to educate. A few of the
policy statements went beyond delineation of
policy to provide education. Educational statements addressed the history of the development of gender-neutral housing on campus,
reasons for offering this housing option, and/
or discussions of gender as a social construct.
The following is an excerpt of an example
explaining educational reasons for offering
GNH to students on campus.
Gender-Neutral Housing allows for the
assignment of residents to on-campus housing
spaces regardless of the sex of the student.
In order to assist in the development of
residential students through the vectors of
managing emotions, establishing identity, and
developing purpose . . . the Ofﬁce of Housing
and Residence Life and the Division of Student
Affairs recognize the need for Gender-Neutral
Housing (GNH).

DISCUSSION
This study represents the ﬁrst attempt at a
comprehensive examination of the implementation of gender-neutral housing in higher
education. Overall, the ﬁndings indicate that
GNH is an evolving topic of interest, which
can be seen most clearly in the ﬁndings about
the extent of GNH and in the examination of

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2

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