Georgia State University (GSU) has announced its students will be able to live in a fully coed residence hall, if they want to, starting this summer.
According to USA Today College, GSU represents a wider group of public universities with a large, diverse student body. Fully coed dorm buildings are also inclusive for people who identify their gender as anything other than male or female.
Marilyn De LaRoche, director of housing at GSU, said the growing public discourse on gender identity, especially on college campuses, played a role in opening the residence hall to all genders.
"What we wanted to do was address the requests of a lot of students who wanted to live with someone of a different gender," she told USA Today. "For transgender and transsexual students, it actually offers them an environment of comfort to be rooming with people who have their same interests.
"Across the country, you have more than a 100 - maybe 125 - schools that already have this in place and has been in place for years. This is different for Georgia, but not different to the country."
Students like Nico Boggs, a senior at the University of Georgia, do not identify themselves as male or female and therefore have been waiting for more inclusive campus living options.
"My freshman year, I had one friend who, when he told his roommates two different times about his queer identity, he was asked to leave that room," Boggs, who identifies as agender, told USA Today. "I think [gender-neutral housing] gives queer kids - and especially [transgender] kids - the opportunity to not have to worry about what's going to happen when they have an intolerant roommate or something like that."
Agender is not having a gender and it is not to be confused or associated exclusively with asexuality, which is not being attracted to any gender. Can an agender person be asexual? Yes, but they do not go hand in hand.
Then there are students like Gabe Dixson, a graduate of Denison University, whose best friends in college were females.
"It just worked out a lot better - we got along, we were all really good friends," he told USA Today. "So we figured 'Why not just room together our senior year and see what happens?' And it was really fun."
