York University to offer transgendered housing

Bryan Wilson, Excalibur (York University)

TORONTO (CUP) — A pilot project at York University will soon be offering one of the first gender-neutral residences in Canada.

The project, created by the Centre for Student Community and Leadership Development (SC&LD) and the SexGen York Committee, will create a six-bedroom suite in Calumet College.

Organizers hope to have the new facility ready for students enrolled in the 2008-09 academic year.

The Transgendered, Bisexual, Lesbian and Gay Association at York (TBLGAY), SC&LD and SexGen have been planning the project for several years.

The creation of the new residence suite is part of an effort to provide space to transgendered students whose “physical bodies do not match their gender identity,” explained Michael Gilbert, a professor at York University and chair of the SexGen York Committee.

“As you can imagine, for people like this, there are issues around communal washrooms and showers that are particularly difficult,” Gilbert said.

The project is a continuation of a York-wide initiative to expand diversity on campus.

“There have been a number of initiatives to make sure that everybody is comfortable [and] up to the standards the Ontario Humans Rights Legislation suggests they should be,” said Lynette Dubois, external co-ordinator of TBLGAY.

The university recently hired new full-time residence life co-ordinators and is providing more training and accountability for residence dons.

Last year, the university also removed gender identification from residence application forms.

Last year, York also added gender-neutral washrooms to the campus.

“Whenever I’ve gone anywhere [to the administration] about anything, it’s always been, ‘Oh yes, absolutely. Let’s see how we can do it,’” said Gilbert.

With the announcement of the pilot project came questions regarding the appropriate location.

Calumet College was chosen, in part, because of its design. The residence is separated into suites, as opposed to the common floors in most of the other residence buildings, allowing for more privacy and security.

Each suite also has its own washroom, which is important to students who are transitioning.

“The biggest single rate of risk of assault for female to male trans people [occurs in] bathrooms or change rooms,” said Dubois.

No one is sure about demand for the gender-neutral residence.

“It’s a proactive piece; it’s not a reactive piece,” Joy said. “So it’s just [the university] recognizing that there is an increase in the population of transgendered youth, and clearly they’re coming to university today, and we are making undergraduate residences a viable option for them,” she explained.

Gwendolyn Dea Dunsmuir, a fourth-year transgendered psychology student, thinks the project is needed on campus.

“There are trans people [. . .] who go to York [and] I think a lot of them probably aren’t out because there’s no safe place to be out,” she said.

According to Dubois, the university’s policies on gender diversity have been “cutting-edge” and are now actively addressing the real needs of students on campus.

“In the three years I’ve been external co-ordinator [of TBLGAY], the number of year-one students coming in and identifying openly as trans have gone up each year. This is not just an isolated York phenomenon. This is happening at schools across the nation, and we find that more people are coming out, and coming out younger,” Dubois said.

“We need to have the services in the universities where they’re coming out to help them.”