@cababe97 School is for education not political indoctrination. I have a real issue with all gender dorms for 13 to 18 year old kids . These schools are struggling with sex, sexting, drugs ad alcohol and now an all gender dorms? I also take issue with coddling snowflakes who use sexuality and gender politics as their entire raison d’etre. Non binary? How about analog? I think there are an awful lot of kids that are struggling just to get their homework done…and the in your face trumpeting of these dorms is not about some amorphous kumbaya hodge podge of kids. It is feeding the poliitcal left’s insatiable appetite for making everything about the rights and demands of the few and holding them above those of the many. There is rampant hostility toward whites and males on these campuses. Militant left wing policies dictate nearly everything. Dorms are for sleeping and studying. They shouldn’t be about politics.
Simply existing is not political indoctrination.
While I might agree that often the liberal majority puts conservative ideas/representation at minority. The fact is, as long as there is a majority, one of the above is going to be dissatisfied. Politics and public opinion is fluid.
I agree with some of @Korab1 's point above, there will be students who are uncomfortable with the thought of dorm-ing with students who identify differently then norm. When introducing gender inclusive dorms, the rights of those students are being addressed as well as the rights of students who identify as trans, non-binary, etc.
Dorms are also places where a student should feel safe, comfortable, and at home.
To reiterate @stargirl3, gender inclusive dorms are about giving transgender/non-binary students a place to call home. Perhaps to give them a space where they are not ridiculed or bullied, both of which are responses of other students when they are faced with things that are uncomfortable to them.
So in this case, the rights of two parties are being addressed. The school is working towards the safety of BOTH sides.
@Korab1 I don’t think the article makes this clear at all. This can be your interpretation, and that’s fine. YMMV. But please remember that the writer of the article is a HS student, so the message may not be have been conveyed as clearly compared to one written by a New York Times staffer.
Anyway, I really doubt that Andover’s intention is to force any student to do anything with regards to gender inclusive living arrangements that makes him/her uncomfortable. As I said, my interpretation is that the kids that choose to live in this house, and their proctor, as well as the house counselors, choose to live there. I would certainly have an issue is a student were assigned there against their will. The only disappointment that I can see is if a non non-binary student really wanted to live in a particular house only to find out that it’s been assigned as gender-inclusive. But that would happen if a girl wanted to live in a house that is now a boys’ dorm.
@skieurope I dont now how it could be more clear. The lead paragraph in the article states
The article also states
So we have kids being able to request housing with the gender they identify with regardless of biology and without regard for the rights of the other students starting in 2016-2017, and all gender housing starting in 2017-2018. Two completely separate and different programs. I don’t know how it could be more clear than that - its not an interpretation, it’s what the words say.
Regardless of what your interpretation may be, the school IS allowing kids to to request assignment to a dorm with a gender not their own. It may not be their intent to make someone uncomfortable, but that is certainly the effect of their actions. You are mixing all gender housing with students requesting to live with the opposite gender that they identify with. As the article makes clear, these are separate issues and programs occurring simultaneously.
@Center I completely that dorms are for sleeping and studying. But a student should also feel safe in their dorm and if they don’t feel safe and comfortable in their own room, than something is seriously wrong. The purpose of the gender cousins housing is to give students who might identify as transgender, non binary, LGBTQA+, a safe space to live where they feel comfortable being themselves. It’s not about politics. I agree with you about that. It’s about making students feel comfortable at their own school, in their own dorm, and in their own rooms. It is completely unrelated to politics. Whether you believe that non binary people just make it up to feel “special” or not, I would thin that most decent human beings would want kids and teens to feel comfortable in their surroundings away from their family.
Safe and comfortable are two completely different things. Schools have an obligation to provide a reasonable degree of safety. How do you define what is comfortable or what a reasonable person would define as comfortable? I would feel most comfortable with a single instead of a roommate. Does that mean the school is obligated to provide me with a single room? Of course not. It’s not reasonable to expect that. Is it reasonable for a boy who identifies as a girl to expect that he would be entitled to live with and shower with girls regardless of their comfort level? Of course not. And yet the schools selectively decide which people’s comfort level is important to them.
All gender dorms are absolutely political. It’s a continuation and proliferation of the attempt to push our society to the left and eliminate traditional values.
I don’t understand the outrage. It’s a bathroom. You get your business done in your private space separated from other users’. Do you really think any teenager would go as far as pretending to be transgender and coming out to the world just so they can use the same bathroom as the opposite sex, in schools like Exeter or Andover? But think about the true transgender kids (or kids who cannot identify with their biological gender), a true minority. How would they otherwise fit in for the 4 years in the community they live 24/7? I have to say sometimes some people are using imagination way more than their reasoning function or even heart.
@panpacific group bathrooms and locker rooms aren’t about private spaces separated from others. They are wide open and communal. Anyone who acts otherwise would stick out like a sore thumb. This isn’t about crazies pretending to be something they aren’t so they can shower with whoever. Your argument, which mimics the national left agenda, sacrifices the comfort of the majority for the comfort of the super minority.
If I’m at the gym, I dont want someone at the locker next to me who thinks they are the same sex as me who isn’t. 13-18 year old kids are uncomfortable with nudity and sexuality as it is. They don’t need the school to make them more uncomfortable. That’s why I think the all gender houses are a great idea, but as I have made clear, I have a major problem with violating the rights of the vast majority so that a super minority can feel comfortable. The answer isn’t to let boys into girls rooms, or girls into boys rooms, it to have a third bathroom where everyone can feel comfortable no matter which flavor of ice cream they like.
@Center Your privilege is showing.
Alex Myers, the first openly trans student at Exeter and now an English teacher there, spoke at Groton last fall. Our discussions with him prompted us to remove gender labels from our single-stall restrooms (no brainer—also because there’s always a line for women and rarely for men). He also sparked discussion about turning one of our smaller dorms coed, though it’s still in discussion stages. It’s a hard topic, but it needs to be brought up.
@korabi I consider myself “central left”, so there’s a chance that I might’ve been brain washed by the “national left”. 
But what do we send our kids to these schools with a hallmark of highly diversified student body to learn? That the majority’s interests take priority over the minority’s, even if it means “inconvenient” for the majority and “lost and miserable” for the minority? (read post#17 again). Most of the elite schools - on both coasts at least - do have a pretty “liberal and progressive agenda”, so you may want to think twice about sending your kids there.
Are the girls in the bathroom nude? I have no experience in boarding schools so I can only relate to using a shower while in college. At the two colleges I attended, I don’t recall every seeing a girl nude. After the shower, everyone wrapped themselves in a towel and dried their hair or brushed their teeth or did whatever else they needed to do. I don’t remember nudity. Maybe boarding school is different.
@queenmother I’ve never seen any classmates naked, whether it be in the bathroom or locker room. That’s why I don’t understand the issue with coed bathrooms.
Unless it’s a communal shower, I don’t think you’d see teenage boys in BS dorms walking around naked that much either. @skieurope Am I wrong?
@panpacific that’s not what I am saying at all - what I am saying is that the right of the individual majority member is just as important as the right of the individual minority member. Reducing sexual and gender bending identification issues into issues of “conveniences” trivializes their hyper importance to kids of this age.
I read #17 again - are you saying it can only be an accepting community if (please give me a concise, PC term for kids who identify as their non-biological gender) are allowed to live wherever they want and shower with whoever they want regardless of how it makes the other person feel? Cant we be accepting but respect everyone’s feelings? Or do we only respect the feelings of the people whose cause we want to champion and who fit a liberal and progressive agenda?
Think twice? why, are people who aren’t liberal and progressive welcome at the elite schools? Is that why they are considered elite? How tolerant!
As far as locker rooms and bathrooms, the extent and prevalence of near nudity may vary by gender. Not sure who claimed people strut naked, but a wrapped towel wrapped around the waist is the average on the men’s side.
It’s not. Teenagers who are already pretty much universally insecure about their bodies strutting around naked?? Umm, not happening
Some of you have never been in a dance changing/locker room.
“Trivializes their hyper importance to kids of this age”.
Lol what?
Also, if a student is uncomfortable with people who do not identify with their biological sex, that’s a personal problem. No elite school is saying they aren’t welcome at their school because of that…
I think this is awesome!
The YMCA next to my school just got an inclusive sign on their bathroom, gives me a little smile each time I wait in line for it
or any male sports locker room.