All-Gender Dorms: What is their future?

Photo by Leighton Glass

Middlesex has pledged to bring gender-neutral housing to campus, even having a survey last year to gauge interest

Last year Middlesex shared a survey with the student body regarding gender-neutral housing. What are the school’s plans for the future? 

Dean of students Jason Sport and Kathy Swain said students need to know that “we want it to happen at some point in the future,” but this is easier said than done. Before any changes like all gender dorms can be made, the Deans believe that the very gendered visitation policy should change first. Part of the challenge is that, without a change to the policy, all gender dorm students would be outliers, and could enter other student rooms of different gender identities while non-student residents could only do so during visitation.

To some, the obvious answer tis to abolish the visitation policy entirely; however, this would also be impossible. Being a home to students primarily under the age of 18, certain legal requirements prevent a future without visitation. One of the ways Middlesex protects itself is to follow the precedent of other peer schools to determine what is reasonable in the eyes of visitation. “If Middlesex were to revolutionarily change their visitation policy, " says Sport, “our policies would be outliers, and would therefore be considered unreasonable.” Since Middlesex does not shy away from challenges, policy has already taken a huge step in the right direction to degender visitations. As of the 2022-2023 school year, students of all genders were allowed in any dorm common rooms outside of regular visitation hours. 

Setting aside the challenges presented by visitation policies, there are other logistical issues regarding enrollment. Since Middlesex is already overenrolled, converting a boys or girls dorm into an all gender dorm could force some students to live in an all gender dorm who do not want to live there. Especially since the primary goal for these new dorms is for “students to be in a space where they feel comfortable,” forcing students to live somewhere they do not want to would have the opposite effect. 

Similarly, the students who would live in these dorms would need their parents to sign a form of consent. Since this housing is primarily designed to make non-binary students feel comfortable in their home away from home, it presents problems for students in the LGBTQ community who are not officially out to their parents. It would be solving one problem and creating one more.  

As with any dramatic policy change, the biggest enemy is time. Making sure all parts of the school from students to, faculty, to the board of trustees, to heads of school takes precision and effort. All are working hard to make this vision a reality, and it is still unclear when exactly all gender dorms will become a reality, but one thing is for sure, “faculty and students are ready,” says Swain.  

Alex Barron