The concept of gender inclusive housing is gaining traction on Temple’s main campus. University President Neil Theobold and his administrative staff have considered instituting gender neutral residential halls in response to the student body’s interest.
Residential Life held the first focus groups last week in the Student Center to evaluate the level of interest and to receive feedback from students on how they would feel if gender inclusive housing were to be instituted on the main campus.
“I think that having gender neutral housing on campus would combat a lot of the gender and sexual identity issues that happen amongst college students,” said JeCara Phillips, junior. “[Gender neutral housing] gives people some privacy that they may need. Especially so that they’re not forced to be constricted to categorize themselves.”
However, not all students are on-board with the decision to disregard gender when selecting housing.
“Would I consider it? No, not really simply because, nothing against women, but if there’s a lot of estrogen…going on in an apartment sometimes you know us guys can’t deal with it,” said senior, Mathos Sokolo.
Gender neutrality is not a new concept on campus. Unisex bathrooms are located in many of Temple’s public facilities. The University is entertaining the idea of instituting gender neutral residence halls in light of the increase in the number of students choosing not to identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.
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