'Gender-Neutral' Housing an Ominous Trend on U.S. Campuses, Says Student Group
by Jim Brown
July 6, 2004
(AgapePress) - A conservative group is criticizing the push for "gender-neutral" housing on college and university campuses. The trend is a sign of growing activism in support of trans-gender students on campuses across the U.S.
A growing number of schools are now providing student housing in which members of the opposite sex can live together and share a private bathroom. Oberlin College in Ohio and Sara Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, are making communal bathrooms available in resident halls. And schools like the University of Chicago and Beloit College in Wisconsin are designating gender-neutral restrooms in major areas of their campuses.
Joshua McNary with the Young America's Foundation says it is unfortunate that schools are trying to appease what he calls the "politically correct left" on campuses.
"It's a ridiculous idea that for such a small lobby that is a fringe group that they would get treatment as the standard student on campus," McNary laments. "They make it imply that this is what is normal and this is what students on campus need to have a truly liberal education, when in reality it's just a small faction that's trying to get acceptance for something that most Americans and most students disagree with. "
Last year, YAF named the creation of a gender-neutral hall at Wesleyan University in Connecticut the "most shameful campus event." McNary says the trend toward such facilities is not only immoral, but also a waste of tax dollars.
"This kind of activity is not, in the long term, going to stand up and is not in the school's best interests," the YAF spokesman says. "And students like the students that work with our programs are going to be out there exposing this kind of kowtowing to these fringe elements of the left on campus."
McNary fears gender-neutral housing will likely become even more prevalent on campuses because of the growing influence of the homosexual and trans-gender lobby.
