Next fall, 37 of 38 College Houses will have three gender designations for communal bathrooms: male, female, and all gender. All 37 of these houses will have at least one bathroom of each designation.
Shorey House in International House will be the only house without all three options, as it only has two communal bathrooms. Shorey residents will be able to use the all-gender bathroom on the fifth floor of Thompson House, also in I-House.
Bathroom gender designations will be announced to students returning to College Housing before the House lottery, so that students are able to select rooms based in part on bathroom gender designation.
This change eliminates the previous process of floor elections to designate the gender of the bathroom. College Housing will determine and maintain the gender designations by floor for the 2017–2018 academic year.
Single-user bathrooms will not be affected by this change, as it applies only to communal bathrooms. Bathrooms on single-gendered floors will be designated gender-binary men’s or women’s restrooms.
According to the e-mail, College Housing and Residential Services reviewed the topic for several months with input from a student committee. Resident Heads and Resident Assistants were also consulted.