November 15, 2006 — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Greensboro, NC – In light of recent media coverage and developments at Clark University (Worcester, Mass.), the National Student Genderblind Campaign (NSGC) has formally announced its founding and the launch of its website www.genderblind.org. This website is a resource created by college students for students, administrators, and others who are interested in creating gender-neutral options for their dorms and/or bathrooms.

The National Student Genderblind Campaign is a student-initiated, grass-roots organization working to achieve gender-neutral collegiate policies. Often, gendered collegiate housing and bathroom policies can force students (especially students of various sexual orientations and gender identities) into uncomfortable or even dangerous situations. The NSGC believes that it is essential that gender-neutral options exist for these, and all, students. All genderblind policies are different, fitting with the unique needs of individual institutions. They all, however, call for the option for any two students to room together, in mutual agreement, without restriction based on biological sex or gender identification.

Gender-neutral housing policies provide options for transgender students, students in the process of discovering their gender identity, gay or bisexual students who feel uncomfortable with rooming with members of the same sex, intersex students who do not wish to be identified by any sex, and students who feel that they would cooperate better with a roommate of the opposite sex. The NSGC believes that current policies, without gender-neutral options, reflect a time of institutionalized heterosexism that marginalizes countless students today.While the specifics for gender-neutral options vary at each institution, universally, like all rooming arrangements, gender-neutral rooming requests must be made by both parties mutually.With regard the passage of gender-neutral policy at Clark University last week, Clark student Jeffrey Chang, co-founder of the NSGC, said, “Recent developments at Clark, Harvard, and William and Mary show that more colleges and universities across the country are addressing this issue. This is simply the next step in the evolution of student housing. Fifty years ago coed dorms were unheard of. Then came coed floors and coed apartments and suites. This is just the next step in the evolution–having members of a different sex living in the same room. Twenty years from now this will become the norm, not the exception. It is my experience that students overwhelmingly support the implementation of gender-neutral options.”Currently, the Campaign has been able to identify over a dozen schools with housing policies allowing for gender-neutral options. Because it is difficult to identify each and every school’s specific regulations, this number does not include those institutions with very new policies, or schools with policies that have not yet reached the media.“When we first started working towards genderblind housing at Guilford College last year, there were no lists of schools that had already approved gender-neutral policies, no way for us to read the drafts and proposals written by other students at other schools,” said David Norton, Executive Director and co-founder of the NSGC. “It was hard because we had to do extensive networking before we could even get started on the actual process of changing policies. Our hope is that the NSGC and genderblind.org will support students who are starting initiatives at their own schools. It will also provide resources to college administrators who are interested in implementing inclusive policies of their own.”###