Although Kourt said the process of getting housing — he had applied to live in the male dorms — was “bumpy and stressful,” he thought things were going okay. But when he received a message from housing officials, he knew something was up.

For over an hour, Kourt met with Neuman Duncan, the director of university housing, on his way to take a math placement exam this week.

“During our conversation,” Kourt said, “he told me that a sociology professor on campus believed I was ‘not truly a transsexual’ because I do not seek sexual reassignment surgery.”

Kourt said the university will only allow him housing in male residence halls after he provides:

• a letter from the doctor that monitors his hormone treatment;
• a letter from his therapist saying that he has gender identity disorder, or gender dysphoria; and
• official documentation that he has had sexual reassignment surgery.

Kourt had already provided the housing department with a letter from a doctor who monitors his hormone treatment. For personal reasons, Kourt does not seek to be diagnosed with “gender identity disorder” and does not want to seek sexual reassignment surgery.

He said that if he did not present the three items requested by the university, then he would not be allowed to live in male housing. At the same time, the university has denied housing for him in female housing, as well.

At this time, Kourt is not allowed to live in any part of the public university’s campus housing. He is currently considering his options and how to proceed with the issue.

“I thought it would be easiest to live in on-campus housing. I was wrong. Really wrong,” he said. “I can find other places to live, but I believe this has gone far beyond just me.

“What about other trans-people that might want to live there?”

Commentary:

Picture yourself living in North Carolina 60 years ago:

There is a university for white students and a university for black students. A bi-racial student with a white mother and a black father approaches both universities for admittance. The white university says she cannot enroll because she is not white. The black university similarly says she cannot enroll because she is not black.

Although something like this scenario probably never would have happened — as the bi-racial student would have most likely been accepted at the black university — it helps to paint a picture that surely helps illustrate an important point: When people do not fit into a structured, discriminatory and binary system, the chances of discrimination against that person goes up… way up.

Such is the case with Kourt. He is a person who does not fit into society’s tidy binary system on gender. Because he has transgressed society’s gender rules, the discrimination he faces on a daily basis — including the denial of housing at a public university — is very real and hardly ever subtle.

The National Student Genderblind Campaign, founded and currently led by Guilford College (Greensboro, N.C.) student David Norton, was formed to battle just this kind of situation. The Campaign encourages education, awareness and policy work to create new avenues for gender-neutral housing on college campuses.

This is what the Campaign says on their website concerning why everyone should care about campus housing-related gender issues:

• University mandated gender-based segregation is a gross and arbitrary infringement to our right as students — and our license as adults — to self-determination.
• Traditional rooming policies — those without gender-neutral options — are heterosexist, oppressive, and anti-affirmative:
  1. they marginalize gay, lesbian, bisexual, and students of various sexual orientations who feel comfortable, or more comfortable, rooming with someone of the opposite sex/gender;
  2. they alienate transgender, genderqueer, and intersexed students who are forced into discriminatory, gendered rooming situations based on biological/legal sex rather than gender identification;
  3. they assume that men and women can never, and will never, live together non-sexually given the choice to do so;
  4. and they needlessly reinforce an oppressive gender binary and perpetuate gender segregation.
• Gender-restrictive policy is an everyday, yet often unnoticed, manifestation of institutional heterosexism. At its core — in a heterosexually dominated culture — heterosexism assumes that heterosexual relationships represent the norm and are, therefore, implicitly superior to “non-normative” relationships.

According to the Campaign (PDF), only 23 colleges or universities across the nation currently offer some sort of gender-neutral housing policy, in whole or part. Southern Utah University is not one of them.

***

Addendum by Alex: Since Matt posted this on his site last week, the Southern Utah University has responded:

[A letter] has to state clearly, by a doctor, are we dealing with a male student or a female student, because that’s the only two kinds of housing we have on our campus.” Voice of Dean O’driscoll, who is the assistant to the school’s president.

O’driscoll, who is the assistant to the school’s president, says Kourt has not been denied housing in the male dorms. His application has not even been considered because he hasn’t provided the proof the school needs.

O’driscoll admits proof of gender is not required of all students — just those who are transgender.

And Kourt filed a formal complaint. From NCTE XD Mara Keisling:

That they would requires someone to have surgery to live in the dorm is just wrong. It's absolutely irrelevant. They don't ask anyone else for proof of gender. They shouldn't be checking his genitals. Universities shouldn't be making medical decision for students. That should be left up to patients and doctors.

Yeppers.