University of Florida to offer rooming option to transgender students

This may not be something most people are aware of or consider: the need for transgender students to choose their roommate based on gender and what will be most comfortable and safe for them. From The Ledger:

TAMPA | A transgender student made University of South Florida officials stop and think. Frustrated by a hostile housing experience, Taylor McCue wanted USF to join the growing number of colleges across the country — like Rutgers and Harvard — now offering students the option to live with anyone of any gender. Couldn’t USF do the same? Yes, it turns out, and it is. Today the university goes beyond what other universities in Florida typically do with transgender students, by actively offering them the chance to live alone or with a friend of any gender. They can also live with a random roommate without being outed. At other schools, the burden to ask for special treatment is often on the student. This is just USF’s first step. In the spring, the school will launch a pilot program offering several gender-neutral dorm rooms, where anybody of any gender can live with anybody else.]]>