PrintOver the past week, Columbia has received an overwhelming amount of media attention due to a gender-neutral housing policy that was recently proposed and approved by the Columbia College Student Council. The four students behind the policy, Sarah Weiss, CC ’10, Sean Udell, CC ’11, Avi Edelman, CC ’11, and Miranda Elliot, CC ’10, have worked on this policy for a long time. Yet just as it seems to be gaining ground, negative media coverage is threatening to undercut the policy’s noble goals. The Eye sits down with Elliot, president of GendeRevolution to discuss the policy, living in sin, and the closest bathroom in Hamilton.
From what I understand, this policy has been in the works for a while now, and I know you were part of the group to propose the idea to CCSC—how did you get involved in that?
It’s kind of the result of years of discussion about it. It was thrown out at a GendeRevolution meeting a few years ago as something we could potentially work on, and I know EAAH had thought about working on it as well. So it’s definitely something that’s been up in the air, and people had been thinking about it for a while. It was proposed in CCSC and heavily worked on by Sarah Weiss and a bunch of other people, and I was brought on toward the end when we were developing the actual concrete policy, and my role was to make sure that it was inclusive of trans people. Our part as GendeRevolution was to make sure that it was inclusive of transgender people and gender-nonconforming people and making sure the language was not that of simply male and female—you know, binary language—but that it encompassed our entire community.
GendeRevolution is an advocacy group, right?
GendeRevolution is a group that was started three years ago, and we got official recognition two years ago. And yes, we are dedicated to advocating transgender rights on campus.
And what exactly does your group do on campus?
In addition to this gender-neutral housing campaign right now, we are in the process of developing a gender-neutral bathroom campaign as well. So up until now, we have mapped out bathrooms in campus—which is taking a while—but after that, we are looking to advocate for more gender-neutral bathrooms—obviously, not turning every bathroom into gender-neutral—but at least having one or two in a building. We’re also working to make it clear where there are gendered bathrooms on campus. Say, if you are on the fifth floor of Hamilton and need to know where the nearest bathroom is—gendered or non-gendered—it can be confusing.
The big issue that the media is having a field day with, that we keep hearing all these funny quotes about, is that they are making it out to seem like your policy is not advocating safety but rather… sex.
I found the whole thing—I don’t know if funny is the right word—but definitely strange. Because obviously, our intention was not to form a policy to help straight people have sex more easily—we didn’t propose this to CCSC for that reason. And it seems like a pretty skewed view of the issue to focus so heavily on that, when that doesn’t seem to be based on any sort of statistic, or logic, based on other instances of the policy implemented—it just seems like our critics have all these fears that are being played out.
And in general they don’t seem to be reporting on what you guys designed the policy for.
The reporter from the Post actually contacted me and had me on the phone, but didn’t ask any questions, but rather wanted me to find her other sources, so I feel like it was poor journalism and research on her part. A lot of the media attention is—in general—is poorly researched as to what the policy is designed for. Obviously, I’m not saying it shouldn’t be for straight people to live together, that’s not my place, and I don’t really care about that aspect, but our focus is the safety and comfort of trans people.
Are you at all concerned that all the media attention will hurt the policy’s chances of being put into place?
Honestly, yes. I am kind of worried that the administrators that are considering the policy right now would be skewed negatively by this media coverage and get the wrong idea about what we’re trying to do. I actually sent an e-mail to the reporter from the Post to that effect, because I do feel that this is an important issue of safety for LGBTQ people and I think it’s essential for these options to be here for people. And to have it be so sensationalized really is a disservice to making sure there are safe living spaces for trans people and queer people and all people in our community.
You’d think that Columbia was the first school to put such a policy in place, due to the backlash. Are there other schools that are considering or already have a similar gender-neutral housing policy?
I’m pretty sure the University of Chicago is doing a pilot program right now, and there are several other Ivy League schools that also have this policy. I don’t know why we’re getting so much press versus other schools, but I guess that’s just part of living in New York.
They like to pick on us.
Yeah, they do. They definitely do.