Four and half years after their first date at an ice rink, Meaghan Weatherby and her boyfriend, Marcin Szot, are still a couple.

They both decided to attend Syracuse University, where the New Britain, Conn., natives spend many of their days and nights together. Weatherby, a sophomore women’s studies and English and textual studies major, and Szot, a sophomore information management and technology major, plan to live together next fall off campus.

Since SU’s housing policies prohibit men and women from living together in the 15 North Campus residence halls and the South Campus apartments, the couple never had this option on campus.

Within a few years, however, students of both genders may be able to live together on campus within the same room or apartment, becoming part of a recent trend within colleges and universities throughout the country. Some members of the university community worry that the option could result in more room transfer requests, upset parents and awkward situations, while others believe it reflects real-world living situations and student independence.

‘I should be able to live with whoever I want,’ said Brian Stout, a freshman broadcast journalism major. ‘What would be the big deal if I lived with a girl on the other side of my split double?’

The University Senate Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns has discussed the possibility of creating a bill that, if passed by the Senate and chancellor, would create a ‘gender-blind’ hallway or floor within a particular residence hall, said Margaret Himley, chairperson of the committee.

The bill could also be written to permit students to live in co-ed housing within suites or South Campus apartments.

The idea stems from the need to accommodate transgender students, or those who do not identify with their birth-assigned gender. Within a gender-blind area, residents could room with other students regardless of gender.

‘It would certainly be something we’d consider as long as it has support from the Senate and students,’ said David Kohr, director of the Housing, Meal Plan and ID Card Office.

The argument reflects the debate surrounding co-ed housing by floor and room that happened 30 to 35 years ago, when women and men lived in separate dorms and could not visit each other’s rooms, Kohr said.

‘But that all changed during the late 1960s and early ’70s,’ Kohr said. ‘It was a societal norm, but it changed, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if this changed.’

Several universities have established gender-blind hallways, floors or residence halls, including Yale University, University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.

Wesleyan offers upperclassmen a choice of a gender-blind roommate assignment, said Maureen Isleib, associate director of the Office of Residence Life at Wesleyan. This choice accommodates students who identify as transgender but do not want to miss out on the roommate experience.

The university will apply the option to first-year housing areas this fall, Isleib added.

Wesleyan has received no parental complaints about gender-blind housing, but those parents most likely realize that the campus is very liberal and the option seems natural, Isleib said.

SU parents, however, may be uncomfortable with gender-blind housing, making the university more hesitant to introduce it, Himley said. Parents imagine their children as innocent and asexual and worry that gender-blind rooms would scandalize them.

‘Co-ed rooms: it’s a cultural panic,’ Himley added.

When a university divides students by gender because of worries that they will act immaturely or sexually, they contradict the notion of student responsibility and control of their own behavior, Himley said.

‘They treat you simultaneously as children and adults,’ Himley said.

Parents may also assume that a man and a woman are bound to have sex when they live in a room together, said James Kaechele, a sophomore environmental and forest biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Not all co-ed roommates, however, would become sexually involved, and not all heterosexual students would choose to live with boyfriends or girlfriends, he said.

‘We shouldn’t make the assumption that, because they’re boyfriend and girlfriend, people of opposite sex would want to live together,’ said Adrea Jaehnig, director of the LGBT Resource Center.

When male and female students choose to live together at Wesleyan, most often they are just friends, Isleib said. But of the few couples, an even smaller number break up and request a room change.

Some argue, however, that within gender-blind housing more boyfriends and girlfriends would live together, break up and flood the housing office with room transfer requests.

‘If you’re in a close relationship, sometimes it’s easier to keep it separate,’ said Justin Welch, a junior public relations major. ‘It would be impossible to work that out case by case; there are so many people in the dorms.’

But ‘break-ups’ occur between friends who live together, and within couples living together off-campus and beyond college, said Katia Gil, a sophomore sociology major.

‘It’s the same with best friends or people who are dating,’ Kaechele said. ‘If you decide that these people are no longer your friends, it’s as if you had a boyfriend. You could break-up. It happens in both instances.’

Gay male or lesbian students could have romantic relationships while living together under housing policy – and no one could use gender to break them apart.

‘They’re not going to look up whether you’re together or not,’ Gil said.

These students also poke holes in the argument that gender-blind housing could lead to more sexual interaction, Stout said.

‘If two straight guys can get a room together, then why can’t a gay guy and a lesbian?’ Stout asked. ‘Neither one of us is going to be attracted to each other.’

But if students do become attracted to each other, they may act on their attraction and then have an awkward living situation, said Noah Drucker, a junior television, radio and film major.

‘There’s gonna be that sexual tension,’ Drucker said.

A gender-blind hallway or floor, while meeting the needs of transgender students, would segregate them and might make them feel like outcasts, Jaehnig said. Gender-blind suites or South Campus apartments may be a better option so that transgender students would not be removed from social interaction but would still maintain safety and privacy.

All students, however, could benefit from living within gender-blind areas, said Jason Rizzo, a resident adviser and sophomore biochemistry major. It could provide a more diverse learning experience, which SU says is an important part of residence life.

‘It’s a different experience to live with all guys or all girls than in co-ed rooms,’ Rizzo said.

If students were automatically assigned to a room with a member of the opposite sex, living so closely together could be uncomfortable, especially when changing and preparing for showering, said Elsy Almonte, a senior information management and technology major.

Many students and administrators believe that gender-blind housing should be a choice rather than a mandate.

If students can choose a roommate who smokes or not, then students should be able to choose the gender of their roommate, Gil said.

‘We offer choices in meal plan, type of housing, and it seems like it’s something students want,’ Jaehnig said. ‘This is another opportunity for students to decide who they want to live with.’

Published on April 20, 2004 at 12:00 pm