All Gender Housing is a Success, All it Needs is a Little Marketing

BY BEA BECKER ‘25

Most of the conversations I have with people I am talking to for the first time since June somehow make their way to some form of "Oh, are you not living in that new all gender house?" At which point I smile, nod, and begin my sales pitch on the merits of my dorm, frustrated that information about all gender housing is not being distributed so that everyone is fully up to speed. 

Since I moved into the new dorm at the beginning of September, my experience of dorm living has been completely different from last year, and I would imagine pretty different from what most boarders are experiencing. Beyond the obvious change of moving out of a traditionally girls’ dorm and into a dorm housing people across the gender spectrum, we only have seven residents this year. 

At full capacity, Academy House can accommodate 16 people in five doubles and six singles. I do not mean to imply that there is something wrong with living in a small dorm. Rather, I think our small numbers have actually been an asset. Often, living here feels like having a long-term sleepover with my friends, while other times I am frustrated that more people are not getting to experience living in all gender housing. 

As someone who closely followed the development of all gender housing and the application process to move in last year, I found myself upset that the dorm was not marketed more effectively. Of course, it is hard to convince people to buy into something they cannot see and even harder to get them to give up what they already have for an unknown. The main problem I saw in the introduction of the housing was the idea that if someone wanted to move, they would already know it. Beyond that, it was not always clear that cisgender students were welcome in the house and that they would not be "taking a spot" from someone who needed it more. For trans students, choosing to move was a complex process that required convincing less than supportive parents to support their child's decision, and while the school offered to support students in those conversations, I cannot imagine that bringing administrators as backup would ever be helpful in getting parents on board. 

In my ideal version of the rollout, boarding advisories would discuss the specifics of the dorm so every student might consider if moving would be good for them, and the creation of all gender housing would not be possible to miss if you read your email. Maybe those ideas are pipe dreams, but I do think with a real dorm and people living in it we can start to reframe how we look at moving into Academy House. 

Academy House is not just an all gender dorm in the way that any other dorm is not just a girls’ dorm or a boys’ dorm. Each dorm has its own culture and feeling that we all are familiar with, and although Academy House is still in the budding phase of its existence, it will soon have that established culture. Even just in these first few weeks of school, I can already feel the bubbling up of tradition. 

There are lots of good reasons to think about moving into Academy House, and I encourage all boarding students to consider moving when the opportunity arrives. Whether you are a trans or non-binary student who wants to live in a dorm without any expectation of gendered behavior or a student who is curious about the prospect of living in an environment with diverse genders, just ask questions. Whether you feel overwhelmed by living in a larger dorm and want the feeling of a smaller, closer community or just do not feel a whole lot of connection to the dorm community you are currently in, consider moving. This dorm is already a fun, close community, and it is succeeding in its mission of creating space for gender diversity and non-conformity. All we need is more people to get engaged.