The Yale College Council wants to expand gender-neutral housing to next year’s juniors, according to a report sent out Monday morning.
The report cited a November 2011 survey of the classes of 2013 and 2014, which showed that 92.7 percent of respondents were either supportive or indifferent to gender-neutral housing, and that 67.1 percent would considering living in a mixed-gender suite.
“It is our hope that the Class of 2014 will have the option to live in gender-neutral suites during the 2012-2013 academic year,” the Council said in a Monday morning email.
The YCC worked with at least two students from each gender-neutral suite as well as Melanie Boyd, assistant dean of student affairs and DUS of women’s gender & sexuality studies, to develop the report, according to the email. The report stated that gender-based housing is intolerant of LGBTQ students, since it implicitly denies the existence of homosexual, gender-queer and transgender students.
The YCC’s report also said that gender-neutral housing would support a healthy sexual climate on campus by eliminating potential sexual implications of “going back with someone” to their single-gender suite, according to the report.
In a letter included with the report, Boyd said she believes gender-neutral housing will impede the “dynamics of assault” by helping students develop deeper relationships with people of different genders.
Gender-neutral housing has been available to the senior class since the 2010-’11 school year.