A few weeks ago, a series of websites reported that students were campaigning for separate LGBTQ accommodation on university campuses, including here at York. The proposal would be for students to have the choice to be placed in halls with other LGBTQ students only, to help with the transition to university life and to avoid harassment.
Despite the complete lack of such a campaign at York as reported, commentators still proclaimed that this was the start of on-campus segregation. Critics have alleged that this option would allow the ghettoisation of LGBTQ students on campus, separating them from their straight or cisgender counterparts. This criticism is over-exaggerated. Firstly, LGBTQ only halls would be a choice only for those that want them, a fact some commentators have completely ignored. More importantly, whom you live with in halls does not necessarily dictate who you socialise and mix with. LGBTQ students who chose to take the option of living with other LGBTQ students in halls could, and would, still choose to socialise and interact with heterosexual and cisgender students. It’s nonsensical to pretend otherwise. We recognise this for other options provided to students when moving into halls: for instance, in some colleges residents can choose to live in a ‘sports’ themed house, yet no-one would pretend this segregates gym goers from couch potatoes.
Tied in with this allegation of segregation is an extra-ordinary lack of sympathy of those who do support the policy. Joanna Williams, a writer for Spiked, accuses students seeking this option of wanting to scorn equality; another writer for the same website contends that this is an example of students’ addiction to self-victimisation. Yet support for the idea represents neither of those two things. Rather, it represents the understandable desire from some LGBTQ students that they not be bullied or harassed on the basis of their identity.
The problem, of course, is that LGBTQ only housing wouldn’t prevent harassment and bullying on the basis of a person’s identity. Having housemates that are LGBTQ is no guarantee that they won’t be homophobic, biphobic or transphobic. In fact, LGBTQ only halls could exacerbate harassment, since an LGBTQ only block would serve as an easy target for homophobes. So too would revealing that you live in the “gay house” allow easy targeting. Moreover, LGBTQ only halls could prove exclusionary to people unsure of their sexuality or identity. For a prospective student choosing accommodation for the first time, the offer of LGBTQ only halls might confuse and mislead them. They may think that in order to feel accepted at University, they need to live in LGBTQ only halls, yet might also not want to ‘out’ themselves from the very start of University life. Rather than giving students choice and making them feel safer, LGBTQ only housing would prompt students to feel like they have to out themselves to be safe, even before they have arrived.
The policy of LGBTQ only blocks doesn’t just fail its aim to make LGBTQ students safer, but is an option that has very little demand. The only British university to offer LGBTQ housing for first year undergraduates is the University of Birmingham, and very few students take up the offer. A motion proposed at the student council of the University of Central Lancashire to provide housing specifically for LGBTQ students failed, not earning enough votes to even trigger the policy making process. The absence of campaigns for this option at universities all over the country underscores this lack of demand further. If students aren’t demanding the option in any significant numbers, then there is little reason why universities should provide that choice.
Halls for LGBTQ students aren’t the pre-cursor to campus apartheid that some accuse them of being, and it’s completely understandable why some might think them to be a good idea. But if they don’t make LGBTQ students any safer, confuse questioning prospective students, and aren’t even in significant demand, then universities shouldn’t provide them as an option.