To the Editors:
Boundaries are different for everyone. For a morning person, an early bed time is a boundary. For a transgendered student, the issue of sexuality, identity and tolerance may be a boundary.
Gender-neutral housing would allow a transgendered student, a 'tomgirl,' or a 'divo' to room with a different sex in the same room—like a Chamberlain double. Already enacted at sister schools, gender-neutral housing is becoming commonplace at American colleges.
Why should you have to room with someone of the same sex if you happen to have close friends of the opposite sex?
For myself, the question of different sexes arose after my first year, when my friends, (two girls, two guys) wanted to room together. We hoped to get a quad, but ended up splitting into doubles. But of course it was split by sex; the two girls in one double, the boys in the other.
But if it had been just me and one of the girls, my friend and I would end up in singles based on the fact that we are different sexes; in short, we cannot room together. Residential Life and the administration should make gender-neutral housing fully accessible to students through a change in policy.
Sincerely,
Kris Klein '12