UNL to offer 'gender-inclusive' housing to transgender students

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/news/nebraska/unl-to-offer-gender-inclusive-housing-to-transgender-students/article_dce4a284-7a40-56ff-b32b-b78fa94fe8a1.html

POSTED: THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2015 12:15 PM
By Kate Howard / World-Herald staff writer

Next fall, transgender students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will be able to choose to live in “gender-inclusive” suites and apartments on campus.

UNL housing will set aside a four-person suite and a two-bedroom apartment unit for students who request to live there.

Under UNL’s current policies, a transgender man would still have to live in a female dorm and a transgender woman would have to live in a male dorm. What that has meant practically is those students choose to live in a single suite or enroll somewhere else, since UNL requires most freshmen to live on campus, UNL housing director Sue Gildersleeve said.

FULL story at link.

[glasshouses]

1. So a man can live in an all female dorm there already?

Isn't that uncomfortable for some female students in the dorm?

[Exhibit A]

2. The comfort of female students is not a priority.

Plus ça change . . .

[glasshouses]

3. Well where would he shower and go to the bathroom?

[LeftyMom]

9. Why would women be uncomfortable being housed with women?

Or are you unclear on the whole transwomen are women concept?

[Exhibit A]

14. Why the insulting tone?

It's true that the needs of women are being -- once again -- ignored in favor of the wishes of men. You're clear on the whole biological sex-thing, right?

[Behind the Aegis]

16. Do you not under the transgender issue?

Seems the ones being made uncomfortable are the transgender students.

[Exhibit A]

19. I understand it perfectly well.

Is there only one permissible perspective on TGism here?

[Behind the Aegis]

20. Given this is the topic of the OP, it is what is being discussed.

Transgender people have feelings too.

[Exhibit A]

22. Ah, I see.

Someone's "feelings" are more important than women's real-life safety. Well, that's really nothing new.

[LeftyMom]

24. The safety at issue here is for transwomen, who are at disproportionate risk when housed with men.

Trans women aren't some malicious threat to cis women. This is stupid and ignorant.

[Behind the Aegis]

25. Ah I see.

A transgender person's safety is less important than the cisgender. That is definitely not new.

[beam me up scottie]

26. Their "safety"?

How are they being put in danger?

What is wrong with you?

[LeftyMom]

27. It's a TERF.

Ugh.

[Exhibit A]

29. LOL.

Ugh! Yes, indeed! There is nothing more loathsome than a woman who actually takes women's needs seriously. Feminism is just supposed to be a little hobby, n'est-ce pas?

[Behind the Aegis]

30. Transsexual women ARE REAL WOMEN!

[LeftyMom]

31. I'm really not interested in "feminists" who would rewrite the movement as a anti-trans hate group.

I don't think making other people less safe or loved or supported promotes my safety, nor do I think a narrow, weaponized definition of gender serves anybody's best interest.

Also every TERF I've ever encountered was narrow minded and mean. Who would want to make common cause with people like that? Not I.

[Chan790]

39. I'm always befuddled by feminists that don't understand intersectionality as well.

It's really simple actually. I understand it, you understand it...hell, virtually-every prominent feminist academic understands it...and understanding it is to accept it as factual; yet anti-intersectional feminism persists on DU for some inexplicable reason.

If your definition of women or feminist is exclusive of women in poverty, women of color, perspectives of non-Christian women, LGBQ... women, or transwomen...you're really part of the oppression of women. The issues faced by ethnic/religious/racial-minority women, trans-women and non-heterosexual women...are issues faced by women.

You cannot divorce those issues from "core" (cisgender, heterosexual, white, moderate-wealth) feminist issues and be a feminist.

[NealK]

36. Chances are that you’re a TERF if you believe that you’re a feminist when you…

1.) Claim that transwomen are cismen, that transmen are ciswomen and purposefully misgender transpeople.

2.) Out transpeople to employers.

3.) Tell trans women their surgery is about supporting rape culture.

4.) Assert that lesbian-identified transwomen can’t be lesbian.

5.) Claim that a world without trans people is preferable.1

6.) Find that your anti-trans arguments and the anti-trans arguments of far rightwing groups match.2

7.) Assert cisprivilege isn’t real; that non-trans people aren’t privileged in a society that’s hostile to trans people.

8.) Claim that gender isn’t real, but the MAAB/FAAB binary is.

9.) Claim that trans surgeries were pioneered by men in service of the patriarchy.3

10.) Lie about rape and death threats you’ve received from trans people.

11.) Fearmonger about the rape/violence threat transwomen pose to ciswomen in the womens restroom.

12.) Assert that trans people transition to satisfy their sexual urges.

13.) Degrade and dehumanize the genitals of trans people.

14.) Work to overturn trans equality protections.

15.) Work to halt access to trans medical care.

16.) Appeal to the Klan Fallacy.

17.) Compare transition to a disgusting Frankenstein-like process.

18.) Claim that trans people transition due to political or social pressures.4

19.) Claim that when you work to halt the propagation of anti-feminist stereotypes it’s empowerment, but when trans people work to halt the propagation of anti-trans stereotypes it’s censorship .

20.) Assert that trans women transition because they’re actually gay men and that transmen transition because they’re lesbians wanting to escape the patriarchy.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

38. spot on

Thank you for this.

[uppityperson]

41. Do you mean women who have transgendered? Those women's needs? Or do you not consider transgendered

women "real" women?

[beam me up scottie]

32. Quick!

Turn on the lights, maybe it'll scurry away under the cabinet...

[LeftyMom]

23. Yes.

[Hissyspit]

37. No.

Last edited Fri Jan 23, 2015, 10:57 AM - Edit history (1)

We tend to not allow ignorant bigotry, though.

Well, we're supposed to not.

[LeftyMom]

21. Who are the men in this situation? Women need to be housed with women.

The current policy is what isn't allowing that.

Also, what are the needs of women that are being disregarded in your argument? The only needs of women potentially being ignored here are those of safety and acceptance of the transwomen currently being housed with cis men.

Again, unless you're not clear on the idea that transwomen are women.

[LeftyMom]

4. Where did you get that?

I suspect you either misread something or are confused.

[glasshouses]

7. Maybe I am

[winter is coming]

5. I don't see why, and I lived in a dorm with men and women.

I'm kind of surprised there's still single-sex housing at UNLV. I thought that was mostly a thing of the past, except for very conservative schools.

[glasshouses]

6. Did you guys have separate showers and bathrooms?

[LeftyMom]

8. Presumably on toilets and in showers?

I've never seen a restroom that didn't have a door.

[glasshouses]

11. I never went to college or even visited a dorm

I guess I'm thinking that it's more than 1 shower stall per bathroom on each floor . Kind of like a locker room in a gym ?

[LeftyMom]

18. Everyplace I'm familiar with has a bathroom for each dorm room.

I think the communal shower thing is decades out of date, but I'm sure some really old buildings someplace are still set up that way.

In any case, why would it matter? One of my school classmates was trans and even though that was a long damn time ago and people were a lot less educated than they are now, nobody treated her like an interloper or a predator who needed to be kept away from the "real" women.

This whole line of discussion is ignorant.

[glasshouses]

33. It might sound ignorant but I'm learning about it here

I'm pretty old and grew up way out in the country.
I had to leave school in the 9th grade to help out my family

[pnwmom]

34. Plenty of dorms still have "out of date" facilities. nt

[winter is coming]

35. True, but the ones I've seen alternate sex by floor and/or converted a room into a smaller communal

bathroom. Some accommodation is made so men and women both have bathrooms on their floor.

[Behind the Aegis]

10. Where did you read that?

[glasshouses]

12. in the article

[Behind the Aegis]

13. I didn't see it.

[glasshouses]

15. it's right here

"a transgender man would still have to live in a female dorm '

[Behind the Aegis]

17. And therein lies the problem, the university is not defining them as men.

[glasshouses]

28. I see what you're saying now

[uppityperson]

42. No, that is not what it means. It means people can live with their own gender.

Women live with women, men live with men.

[azmom]

40. Mount Holyoke where my daughter

Attends is a women's college and changed their policy last year to include transgender. I believe Smith College will be doing the same thing. I'm not sure why it took them so long. Here is their new policy:

2. Mount Holyoke College’s policy on the admission of transgender students states that it welcomes applications for its undergraduate program from any qualified student who is female or identifies as a woman. Can you clarify “who is female or identifies as a woman”?

The following academically qualified students can apply for admission consideration:

Biologically born female; identifies as a woman
Biologically born female; identifies as a man
Biologically born female; identifies as other/they/ze
Biologically born female; does not identify as either woman or man
Biologically born male; identifies as woman
Biologically born male; identifies as other/they/ze and when “other/they” identity includes woman
Biologically born with both male and female anatomy (Intersex); identifies as a woman




There has been some controversy at her school about the decision to cancel this year's Vagina Monologues and replace them with real life experiences from students which would include transgender students.