Boston University’s Center for Gender, Sexuality and Activism has finalized a proposal that advocates for transgender and non-binary students in regards to housing and bathrooms. The proposal is meant to update the current gender-neutral policies at BU.
The group is meeting with Crystal Williams, BU’s associate provost for diversity and inclusion, next week to present her with the Gender Inclusive BU proposal they have been developing over the last semester.
Rachel Bennetts, a collaborator on the project, said the proposal has been in the works since the time of the original gender-neutral BU campaign in 2013, which was also led by the CGSA. The group decided to present the proposal this year because of Williams’ appointment last fall.
“She is new to the university, and she has fresh eyes, and we kind of wanted to tell her what it’s like before she maybe falls into step with what everyone else thinks,” Bennetts, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said.
Williams wrote in an email that she hopes to learn more about the proposal in her meeting with CGSA, in an effort ensure that the two parties have an understanding of the issues at hand.
“I’ll now circle around to them to make sure we’re all on the same page and that their expectations are in accord with my own.”
One policy Bennetts said the CGSA wants BU to expand upon is gender-neutral housing. The fact that the housing program is centered around student choice often excludes students who really need it.
“The bulk of our housing proposal is that it’s supposed to be centered around the people who need it more and that it should be on an unlimited basis,” Bennetts said. “We think that everyone who wants to be in gender neutral housing should have the choice.”
Brian Stanley, CGSA’s internal liaison, said gender-neutral housing at BU should also be accessible to freshmen, which it currently is not.
“I think it can almost come across as invalidating if you’re a freshman and you can’t access this housing,” Stanley said. “I think that really puts a negative stigma on all of this. So, it’s important to have it accessible. A lot of our strategic peers have it accessible for freshman.”
Stanley also said the proposal will include a request for more gender-neutral bathrooms in BU buildings so transgender and non-binary students can feel safe and comfortable on campus.
“I think that there are legitimate health and safety concerns that are involved with what we are talking about,” Stanley said. “I know that trans people just end up not using bathroom facilities. And there are elevated health risks because of that.”
Breann Tobias, a sophomore in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said she doesn’t think BU has enough gender-neutral bathrooms available for students.
“I’ve seen one or two I think — definitely not enough,” Tobias said. “I feel like there’s nothing wrong with implementing more of them on campus.”
Stanley said the proposal combines a lot of research and personal narrative the CGSA has collected over time.
“It sort of formalizes it in a way that’s supposed to create a positive and productive working relationship,” Stanley said. “All the appeals within the proposal are, we think, manageable, focused around centering trans people and centering non-conforming people. I think it can be really beneficial overall.”
Bennetts said the proposal is not meant to suggest that the student body or BU’s administration does not care about the issues that transgender and non-binary students face.
“I think it’s that they generally don’t know,” Bennetts said, “because it’s such a small portion of the university that are people who are affected everyday by these issues.”
Bennetts said she wanted to emphasize that the proposal is meant to work in collaboration with the administration to try to update BU’s gender-neutral policies.
“We just want to let them know that these are problems and that we are starting to lag behind our peers a little bit,” Bennetts said. “We’re behind Harvard, MIT, Northeastern who all have these things for their students. We just want to catch up a bit.”
Renzhe Wang, a junior in CAS, said the introduction of more gender-neutral housing and bathrooms would be beneficial for students, but could also be costly for the university.
“I think that’s a good thing for equality, but it’d be a big change, so I think that they would also spend a lot of money on that,” Wang said. “I don’t know where the money would come from. So that’s a concern.”
Caroline Stokowski, a sophomore in SAR, said she thinks advocating for more gender-neutral housing would be a great thing.
“From the perspective of having a boyfriend maybe and being able to live with him and sharing things with him, [that] would be good, but also being accepting of people who are more gender fluid,” Stokowski said.
