When I was applying for housing, I set my gender to “non-binary” (the app defaulted to “female” and still showed that unless you viewed my profile). I selected that I am a queer student. I even put it in my personal bio, just to make sure it was seen. As someone who is non-binary and does not identify with my sex assigned at birth, having a roommate who at least is okay living with a trans person was important to me. I’d rather have someone who is supportive. I’d rather have someone who shares my experiences. But I’ll take someone who I can at least be out to without them harassing me. That is where the bar is right now. I initially selected a room with one other person (out of three slots). The person selected the profile option saying they were comfortable living with someone of any gender. Perfect. That’s all I need. I take the second.
I went back a couple weeks later and saw that a person picked the third room. I went to check their profile. “Female – only comfortable living with the same gender.” Well, shit. There goes my safe room. I tried to contact housing, but it was unclear if there’s a space for me elsewhere.
A couple weeks before classes start, I go back to double-check when the housing contract becomes active, and when I can start moving in. The initial roommate (the one who was comfortable with other genders) is no longer in the room. They’ve been replaced by another person whose profile says “female – only comfortable living with the same gender.” As I alluded to earlier, I am talking to the Office of Residence Life (ORL) about this. I’ve already had a meeting with my Resident Advisor (RA) about this as well. And frankly, I don’t really blame ORL for this issue. As I mentioned earlier, it wasn’t clear if there was any space left. It’s entirely possible that there were no other spaces left, and the other people just picked what they could find. Also, luckily, it does seem the people I was placed with are okay with it.
That said, something similar to this happened last year. And in that case, I wasn’t safe. I had to hide my identity for an entire year because one of my roommates was openly transphobic. (I’ve been out for four years and sometimes get mistaken for a man, so hiding my identity is not easy. I think she thought I was a butch lesbian, and she was definitely not comfortable with it, but because she still saw that as female, she didn’t say anything.)
Like I said, I don’t really hold ORL responsible for there not being enough rooms to go around. They and my RA have also been receptive to my concerns. But even if they are not to blame, it is their job to make sure the dorms are a safe place for students. When trans and non-binary people are playing the guessing game of “will my roommate who I did not choose and who says they can’t live with other genders actually be transphobic to me or not”, they are not safe. There need to be more layers of protection to ensure trans and nonbinary students are safe by practice, and not just by luck