For the first time this year, Vanderbilt created a gender-neutral hall and bathroom on the third floor of McGill Hall, and the student reaction within the McGill community has been overwhelmingly positive.
“We didn’t have enough gender-neutral spaces at McGill to satisfy all of the students who wanted gender neutral,” said Traci Ray, associate director of residential education and living-learning communities.
According to Ray, the creation of a gender-neutral bathroom, as well as other gender-neutral housing options, is the result of a student-led initiative.
In the spring of 2008, a group of both male and female students applied for a Mayfield, and these students wanted to use themselves as a sample set and research the effects of having both genders living together in a small dwelling, Ray said. Although the group had a strong proposal backed with sound research, they were initially denied co-ed living because Vanderbilt did not yet have a policy that would permit gender-neutral living, Ray added.
This incentive to start a co-ed Mayfield, though, led to student and administrative conversations over the summer and the fall 2008 semester. Nora Spencer, director of the Office of LGBTQI Life and the Margaret Cuninggim Women's Center, also entered the conversation by helping with research and passing on information to the dean of students, Ray said.
According to Ray, the vital point in the decision-making process occurred when McGill hosted a forum with current McGill residents, along with rising sophomores who were interested in the McGill housing option. At the forum, both Ray and Spencer provided the students with information about how a gender-neutral dorm would function, Ray said.
At the end of the forum, a student vote revealed that not all McGill residents felt comfortable living in a completely co-ed environment, but a partial co-ed building was deemed to be OK.
“So we couldn’t say that all of McGill would be gender neutral, because we would lose a lot of students who were a part of the McGill experience,” Ray said. “100 percent of the people at the McGill forum supported having one gender-neutral floor.”
As of now, only the third floor of McGill is gender neutral, while the second floor is filled with all males and the fourth floor with all females.
Erica Santiago, a senior and the president of McGill, said the initial reaction to a gender-neutral floor and bathroom was mixed among the McGill residents.
“There is a reason why people live on the second floor the whole time they are here, and there is a reason why people live on the fourth floor the whole time they are here, and they are not comfortable with this (gender-neutral) situation,” she said.
The decision to make McGill the site of a gender-neutral floor and bathroom came out of a consideration of all of Vanderbilt’s Living and Learning communities. According to Ray, both McGill and the Mayfields floated up as pilots for the project.
“When we talked about an environment that could host this notion, it was really a natural fit,” Ray said.
Many of the McGill residents themselves were not surprised when this change was officially implemented this semester.
“McGill is known in the beginning as a philosophical dorm,” Santiago said. Many of the residents are pondering gender and what gender means, and many people don’t identify with gender. “It only made sense for people that do not always identify with gender to not have to be gendered by using a bathroom,” Santiago added.
Many of the McGill residents have not noticed a strong reaction as a result of the gender-neutral floor and bathroom.
“I don’t think there has been a strong reaction. It’s just like it was last year; it has sort of been natural progression,” said senior McGill resident Alexa Marcotte.
And Santiago added that in some ways, the situation is how it’s always been.
“Well, in the past, boys were already using the girls’ bathroom, so the next step was to make it allowed,” Santiago said.
There is still some debate over if gender-neutral bathrooms will spread to the other floors in McGill.
Ray said it is hard for her to predict what will happen to the rest of the McGill building in the future.
“For McGill, I envision that it might slowly go completely gender-neutral. But I can’t say that 100 percent because we have people who are interested in living over there and being a part of the McGill experience, but the gender-neutral bathroom didn’t equal that for them,” she said.
Santiago sees the gender-neutral living option as being in high demand, and she believes that Vanderbilt will have to expand gender-neutral dorms.
“In order to have the McGill experience, we might have to shift the building to all gender-neutral,” she said.
Marcotte similarly felt that it was necessary to make McGill completely gender-neutral in the future.
“I think because we are a living-learning project, it is important for us to be intermixed and not separated by gender,” she said.
As of now, Ray hasn’t been made aware of any problems that have resulted from the gender-neutral changes.
“The only reaction I get is, ‘Let me see when a space opens up so I can get in there,’” she said. “Those living on the floor are living happy and in harmony. We haven’t had any issues.”
