What Is Gender-Inclusive Housing?

On Feb. 5, students living in Grace Pearson Hall (GP) at the University of Kansas (KU) received an email notifying them that the building — which currently offers gender-inclusive housing options — would revert to gendered room assignments and bathrooms starting with the upcoming academic year.

In the email, KU Housing & Residence Life instructed current students with a housing contract for the 2025-26 school year to select a room assignment in either a GP female- or male-designated room/floor. Students can also request a housing assignment in another hall, which will have “some” rooms designated for gender-inclusive assignments (GIA).

The university said in a follow-up email that changes were required to comply with a 2018 international building code (IBC), which requires “multi-stalled bathrooms in residential dormitory buildings” to have “separate facilities provided by sex.”

The 2024 IBC, however, states that separate facilities are not required when bathrooms are “designed for use by all persons regardless of sex.”

The change comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating only two genders: male and female. The administration is also taking aim at diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives on college campuses.

Anthony Alvarez, a third-year history student at KU and GP resident who identifies as a transgender man, said gender-inclusive housing options are vital to many members of the trans community.

“It has been very exceptional to be able to meet as many trans people as I have and to be able to really form that community with them. I know several people who, in their time at GP, have transitioned, and I, personally, have been a source of support for them,” Alvarez told BestColleges.

Gender-inclusive housing allows students of all genders to live together in a shared space.

This option originated as a response to the increasing awareness that sex and gender are not the same. While sex is traditionally defined in biological terms, gender is a social and cultural construct that involves how someone identifies and feels.

Traditionally, colleges and universities separated housing based on binary sex: male and female. However, this proves problematic for students who are intersex, transgender, or nonbinary.

It wasn’t until the early to mid-2000s that housing to address the needs of transgender and gender-nonconforming students emerged. In 2003, Wesleyan University became the first institution to offer “gender-blind” housing. Now, more than 470 colleges and universities provide gender-inclusive living spaces.

Policies regarding gender-inclusive housing vary depending on the college or university. Some colleges have broad policies allowing any student to opt into gender-inclusive housing. Others cater explicitly to transgender and gender-nonconforming students.

For example, Harvard University asserts that gender-inclusive housing is for any student who wants to live in a mixed-gender setting, regardless of gender.

Other colleges and universities, however, may have more strict guidelines for who can live in gender-inclusive housing. For example, the University of Evansville, a private university, prioritizes gender-inclusive housing for transgender, transitioning, or gender-nonconforming students. The university specifies that these spaces are for students who need them to feel safe.

According to a list compiled by Genny Beemyn, director of the Stonewall Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 49 of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., have at least one institution that offers gender-inclusive housing, as of July 2024.

Beemyn told BestColleges that gender-inclusive housing became more prevalent on campuses during the 2010s as more trans and nonbinary students came out and pushed their universities to find them safe and comfortable places to live.

“It’s been driven by student need and institutions recognizing that it’s not going to work to put someone who identifies as trans or nonbinary in a room with someone who is cisgender, who either doesn’t know about it or perhaps may not be supportive of that student’s identity. You’re just asking for trouble with that kind of thing,” they said.

Alvarez, who has lived in GP for all three years of college, said that he always knew he wanted to live in gender-inclusive housing because he was worried about his safety as a trans man on campus and wanted to meet other like-minded students.

Transgender and nonbinary students are at a greater risk of discrimination, violence, and harassment on campus. A National Center for Transgender Equality survey found that 24% of transgender respondents over 18 experienced verbal, physical, or sexual harassment in college or vocational school.

Nondiscriminatory living arrangements can help make LGBTQ+ students feel safe and thrive socially, mentally, and academically while on campus.

“Not allowing trans students an opportunity to live in a scholarship hall that they can afford is a disservice to them,” Alvarez said. “… For [many students], GP is their home, and over the summer, they describe it as waiting for a chance to come home in the fall. So it’s really upsetting that that will no longer be available for people.”

While gender-inclusive housing has become increasingly popular over the past decade, Beemyn warns that institutions may start to reconsider these options under the current administration.

“I see schools pulling back from it because they fear getting on the wrong side of the administration, so [would] do it to avoid potential issues,” Beemyn said. “They don’t have to do anything and shouldn’t do anything until they are forced to do so, but schools want to take the safer path.”

The Trump administration has not explicitly addressed the issue of gender-inclusive housing on campus. However, Trump’s executive order defining sex as male and female, assigned at birth, could have implications for gender-inclusive housing.

KU said its actions are not politically motivated. Instead, it has an “administrative responsibility” to ensure that campus housing and policies are “informed and aligned with university policy and local, state, and national regulation.”

While federal action has not targeted gender-inclusive housing, some states have. In 2013, the University of North Carolina Board of Governors voted to prohibit gender-neutral housing facilities.

And, in Idaho, lawmakers are considering a bill that would require multi-person bathrooms and sleeping quarters to be designated for the “exclusive use” by either females or males, effectively banning gender-inclusive housing at state institutions.

Beemyn sees so-called “bathroom bills,” or legislation policing which bathrooms transgender people are allowed to use, as the first step to ban gender-inclusive housing.

Fifteen states currently ban trans people from using bathrooms consistent with their gender identity in some capacity, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Two states, Florida and Utah, ban trans people from using bathrooms consistent with their gender identity in colleges.

“We’re certainly on a slippery slope downward to taking away more and more rights of trans and nonbinary people and making it harder for them to be themselves and to have a sense of support and safety on college campuses,” Beemyn said.

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