The housing selection process is often cutthroat and stressful for many students simply trying to find a place to live. For some trans students, however, this process was made even more difficult this year.
First-year Psychology Major Maya Stefanovic and his roommate had put themselves in a group on the housing portal and were ready to select housing. The two were planning to live in the gender inclusive housing in Bellarmine Hall. When their housing selection time came around, Stefanovic went to put his group in a room and ran into an error message.
“We checked both of our accounts, and all of our preferences lined up. We were both in gender inclusive housing,” Stefanovic said. “Neither of us had requested anything that should make us have an error code.”
Stefanovic’s roommate ended up calling Housing and Residence Life (HRL) three different times, each with no answer. After leaving a voicemail, they did eventually get a call back, and the two were manually added to a room in Bellarmine.
Despite being manually placed into a room, Stefanovic received an email after the housing selection process concluded, saying that he had not chosen a room and had been placed into Campion Hall. Stefanovic was very concerned about this development, as he thought his place in Bellarmine was confirmed. What made the situation more stressful was Campion’s lack of gender neutral restrooms–something Stefanovic listed as a priority when choosing where to live. Luckily, he was able to get back into his room in Bellarmine after contacting HRL.
Via Tay, a first-year accounting major, ran into similar issues when selecting housing, but did not have the same outcome. When her selection time came up, Tay and her roommate tried to put themselves into a room in Bellarmine and ran into an error code. After being put on hold with HRL for around 10 minutes, she was told to refresh and try again. When that did not solve the issue, she had to call back and be on hold again.
“By the time we called again, [the rooms in Bellarmine] were gone, so we ended up being at [Xavier], which is another issue because Bell is the only building with ADA bathrooms, which a lot of gender non-conforming students use, on every floor,” Tay said.
Similarly to Stefanovic, having access to gender neutral restrooms was very important to Tay, and she is unsure how living in Xavier without access to those facilities will go.
Juno Fuja, a first-year marketing major, also ended up in Xavier after trying to live with their roommate in Bellarmine. Fuja and their roommate ran into the same errors when trying to assign themselves a room.
“When we actually tried choosing our room, it said that we couldn’t room together, even though we’re both assigned male at birth, and both had non-binary as our gender,” Fuja said.
Like Stefanovic and Tay, Fuja and their roommate called HRL to get the issues sorted, and spent around 15 to 20 minutes on the phone before eventually being placed into a room in Xavier.
Even some with early registration times had issues. First-year Communication and Media Major Tristan Scott was in a more complicated housing situation, as he had applied to be a resident assistant (RA) and was not in a housing group with his potential roommate. RAs do not hear if they have been hired or not until early April. Scott’s roommate was waiting to hear back about the possibility of getting a single room through disability services. Since both were unsure of their housing status, they decided to room together for the time being.
Because of his early registration time, every building was open when it was time for Scott to select a room, which was very exciting for him.
“It was really important for me this year to get Bellarmine because it’s the only dorm on campus with gender neutral restrooms, which is really helpful for me as a trans person,” Scott said. “I know that if I use a women’s restroom, I run the risk of making people uncomfortable because, especially out of the corner of your eye at first glance, I don’t look like a woman, and so I don’t want to make people uncomfortable.”
Scott placed himself in a room, and found out later that day that his roommate would not be getting a single dorm. He called HRL to see if his roommate could be added to the room, but that was not an option. Scott was told he could remove himself from the room, create a roommate group and then re-add themselves, or wait until his roommate’s housing time so they could add themselves. Scott was worried they would lose their room in Bellarmine if he removed himself, so the two decided to wait until the roommate’s selection time later in the day.
Before Scott’s roommate could join the room, another person had added themselves to it. From the information provided on the housing portal, Scott found out that this other person was a cisgender woman.
“For me, I have no issues on a basic line living with a cisgender woman, but I thought it was a little odd. There’s a question that asks, ‘Are you comfortable living with a cisgender person?’ and I selected no,” Scott said. “I don’t want to put someone in an uncomfortable position. I have a pretty typical teenage boy room. I look like a guy, I act like a guy, and so if you’re coming in expecting to live with a woman, I don’t want to make you disappointed or uncomfortable.”
After calling HRL again, Scott was told that his only options were to stay in the room or remove himself and find a different one. He admitted that he did not find it reasonable for HRL to kick someone out of the room, but all the other rooms in Bellarmine were full. He expressed to the person on the phone that he was anxious about moving to a dorm without gender neutral restrooms, but felt as if they were not being receptive to his comments.
“I think it’s a little bit odd that I, as a trans person, who would benefit from having [access to gender neutral restrooms], had to remove myself from that situation, basically choosing like, ‘do you want to be comfortable in your room, or do you want to be comfortable in the bathroom?’ It’s one or the other,” Scott said.
Scott eventually decided to remove himself from the room and place himself and his roommate in a place in Xavier. Although he did not want to live in a dorm without gender neutral restrooms, he ultimately decided that his safety in having a trans roommate was more important.
“If I’m placed with a cisgender person that I don’t know, there’s always the risk that they’re not going to respect me, they’re not going to respect my identity,” Scott said. “Even if I’m placed with a trans person who I don’t get along with, even if I don’t like them, I know that on a very basic level, I am safe and respected in that room.”
While many students shared similar problems throughout their housing selection process, some of the staff at HRL were surprised that students were running into issues.
“That shouldn’t have happened,” Tim Albert, associate director of housing, said. “Even if they had a different gender, the way the system is set up, on the back end, the roommate group allows them, as long as one of them is transgender, gender non-conforming, non-binary, it will allow them to sign up.”
According to Albert, HRL provides overrides in the software that allow students who have identified as trans or gender non-conforming to be able to select rooms with their preferred roommate.
Tyler Murphy, assistant director of Housing Operations and HRL, explained that this override process happens after the deadline to create roommate groups has passed. He stated that the students who ran into issues could have potentially had them because they created roommate groups after this deadline.
“Not to put blame on any student, but just to kind of figure out the puzzle pieces in the timeline where these could be happening,” Murphy said. “That doesn’t take away from the stress and the feeling of that moment, but that does kind of explain the technical side of things.”
Both Murphy and Albert agreed that this could be an area of improvement for next year. They discussed the potential of creating some kind of guide or refined timeline so students have a better understanding of the deadlines and when certain things need to happen in the housing selection process.
“We can always improve the process to help provide a better experience for our students,” Albert said. “Just because we’re one of, as far as I know, two Catholic institutions that have a [gender inclusive housing] policy…we don’t want to just rest on our laurels.”
Although Albert and Murphy expressed the desire to continue making improvements and changes to the housing selection process, many of the students who ran into issues have already lost trust in HRL.
“I felt very dismissed and not really listened to, which was definitely a little bit stressful because part of the reason that I chose Seattle U was because it is so accepting, welcoming, diverse, especially as a trans person. That was just a little bit disheartening to feel like that didn’t matter,” Scott said.
Tay, Fuja and Stefanovic also chose to attend Seattle U because they felt it was a welcoming place for those in the LGBTQ+ community. After their experiences with housing, they aren’t so sure of that anymore.
“I think for a school that really prides itself on being inclusive, they need to work harder on helping out their trans student body, because they’re not really doing it well right now,” Stefanovic said.
If students are dissatisfied with the results of the housing selection process, Albert encourages them to reach out for a solution.
“If there is a student who is non-binary, gender non-conforming or transgender, who needs access to a gender inclusive restroom, they just need to contact housing and we will ensure that they have access to a bathroom that they can use that they are comfortable in,” Albert said.
As a university that promotes the education of the “whole person,” that must include caring for the whole person as well. And a safe, inclusive home environment is fundamental to both care and education.
