College dorms a new ‘sleeper’ in US battle over transgender rights

BOSTON: As lawmakers across the US battle over whether to allow transgender Americans to use public toilets that suit their gender identities, universities are scrambling to ensure dorms meet federal standards.

At a time of year when the nation’s 2 100 residential colleges and universities are sorting out student housing assignments, they also are poring over a May letter from the Obama administration that thrusts them into the debate on transgender rights.

Known as the “dear colleague” letter, it makes clear that federal law protects transgender students’ right to live in housing that reflects their gender identity.

Universities that fail to provide adequate housing to transgender students could face lawsuits or the loss of any federal funding they rely on.

Although hundreds of universities had begun to offer gender-inclusive housing in response to student demand in recent years, many are now reviewing or expediting their plans so they can provide the option to incoming students for the first time this year.

The policies are intended not only to accommodate transgender students, university officials say, but to help siblings, gay students who want to live with straight friends of the opposite gender or simply groups comfortable with mixed-gender housing.

The same letter that has universities examining their transgender housing policies sparked a broader fight by telling US public grammar and high schools to allow transgender pupils to use toilets and locker rooms that reflect their gender identities. Thirteen states joined a lawsuit accusing the Obama administration of attempting to add transgender protections to a 1972 law that never mentioned the subject.

The university moves have been less controversial in part because the population affected is one of the segments of society most comfortable with transgender issues.

Some 57 percent of 18- to 29- year- olds told a Reuters/ Ipsos poll taken from April 14 to May 3 they believed people should use public toilets that match the gender with which they identify.

That is a far higher percentage than the 40 percent of Americans of all ages who held that view.

The poll included responses from 6 723 people and has a credibility interval of 1.4 percentage points.

College officials interviewed also emphasised they have no plans to phase out traditional gender- segregated housing. – Reuters