Parents of incoming college students are absolutely insane. I spent a summer working in residential life, and you wouldn't believe some of the stuff they came up with. If someone called to complain that their son needed a single because of his tendency to sing "Oops!…I Did It Again" while asleep, I probably wouldn't have been surprised.
But I digress. A worried mother wrote into The Chicago Tribune's Amy Dickinson to ask, "Is it discrimination when a straight man doesn't want to room with a gay man?" Her son had discovered his roommate's sexual identity via Facebook, and an attempt to speak with the school's housing director blew up in her face.
Dickinson wrote back to the woman, "'My roommate is gay' in and of itself isn't a valid reason to switch in advance, any more than, 'my roommate is Asian' would be.
This should be your son's issue to sort out on his own." Would you agree with her advice, or is it invalid to compare sexuality to race with this scenario?
– Dewitt
this actually happened to me while i was in college. though they were going to let my roommate switch rooms but the only other available room had an (as he called it) “arabian” living in it so being the prejudiced bastard he was decided gay was better than “arabian” and just stayed with me. i did not feel so bad after learning of that.
I was worried about that when I started college last fall. I was up front about my sexuality and both my roommates were ok with it. In fact, they liked it. They said they learned more about the gay culture and helped them understand.
http://www.dlist.com/rex26576
my roommate publicly decried he had to live w/ a fag. but behind closed doors i got his big fat jock dick in my ass every chance he got lol
This is amusing to me, as someone who works in University Student Affairs… Residence Life absolutely cannot consider sexuality when it comes to room assignments, or reassignments, for that matter. It would likely “blow up” in someones face if they tried using gay as a reason for wanting a room change. There has to be a valid reason, ie: personality conflict that cannot be resolved, conflicting schedules, etc. That’s not to say that people don’t get creative when they want to change rooms. But anyway, I think Dickinson’s advice was appropriate, this woman’s son should definitely have to work the issue out on his own, because nobody knows what a roommate situation will actually be like until they get there.
Well, think of it this way: why are men and women not allowed to be roommates in a dorm? Is it because you don’t want there to be sexual tension between roommates? Don’t want roommates to sleep together? It might logically be along the same lines. Of course, that just means we should throw out (mandatory) gender segregation, but still allow it optionally.
As an RA, I can tell you that every roommate assignment will have issues. Some will be minor, some will be nearly life-changing. Some will require a switch. I have never, in my 5 years working in Residential Life, had to switch anyone based on sexual orientation alone. Proposing such a thing is ignorant, even by LGBTA students. We all need to work to get along, no matter the differences.
That being said, I am also very proud to work for a school with a fully inclusive RL program, and a school that offers Gender Blind/Neutral Housing for students that wish to live with a different sex.
i have come to learn through my dorm days that str8 guys are gayer than gay guys, they push the limits more than any gay guy would…That being said i wasnt out during my college dorm days which wasnt long ago,but that was my own deal hell i had jocks nerds and a gay vampyre during my 4 yrs and we all were okay with it, its parents that need to grow up!! oh by the way go NSU!!!
Actually had the exact same thing happen to me during my first year of college. In my second semester, got a roommate from El Salvador who managed to get reassigned just two days after discovering I was gay. I had come out to him so that he wouldn’t be surprised if I had friends over for movies. He said he was cool, then two days later, he was gone. lol. Needless to say, he made a huge ‘to do’ about it to everyone and felt the need to let everyone he knew in the dorms know there was a ‘fag’ in the dorms.
On the upside, I got another semester of getting a room all to myself (with no increase in room price). Trust me, I took advantage of that situation every chance I could. 😀
I’ve lived with a lot of straight guys and it’s usually no problem at all– and sometimes a lot of fun! We’d have fun going out because I’m not going to be competition if they’re hitting on the girls.
I was in a situation once where some guy had had a really bad situation with a gay roommate– the gay guy was kind of nuts and made inappropriate moves, etc. So this guy specifically requested NOT to have a gay roommate. Unfortnately, the RA didn’t know that I was gay and put him with me! But it worked out fine– he decided that I was cool and he had just had bad luck with the last roommate– we’re still friends.
If his roommate has done nouthing that would be consider a sexual advances than what the complaint over perhaps the true reason for the room change is that her son can’t deal with his own hidden identity and is afraid with a gay roommate he might act apon them .
My bi roommate at the University of Utah remains one of my closest friends to this day. He was a Swede who competed on our school’s swim team. It was he who enlightened me on how open-minded some cultures are outside of the US. Although we eventually did have our fun together throughout college, he had no hang-ups and treated me like a peer, period. No preferential treatment nor walking on eggshells around my being gay. Gee, what a novel idea.
What I find interesting is that people are completely fine with separating men and women from being roommates and not calling it discrimination. Why… because people and the school do not want to take the chance of having the roommates sleeping together with the assumption that the boy and girl rooming together are both straight. If a girl said she did not want to be roommates with a guy because he might look at her while she is changing then the school would instantly change her roommate and most likely never have put her in that situation in the first place.
So if a straight guy like that girl feels uncomfortable rooming with guy who is gay I think they should switch his roommate, the dorm room is going to be his place of living and if he is uncomfortable it is not fair to him. He has the right to have a stress free place to come back to. This goes the same for the gay guy. He might be uncomfortable with having a guy as a roommate. What if he wants to switch out and get a single room or room with a willing girl. There has been a huge movement in universities that now have dorm rooms that guys and girls can be roommates and this was one of the main reasons for that.
I came out my freshman year at the University of Michigan. My first roommate couldn’t deal (he had lots of issues), and I had an awesome single for the rest of the semester. I tried to be uber-gay to discourage interlopers (it worked for a while), but eventually one of the candidates figured out the deal and said “I don’t care how gay you are I’m still going to be your roomate”. 🙂 He was a great roommate, darned cute, but we never got it on alas.
Dear Son, your behavior has become scandalous and notorious. You must stop this fagging immediately as your reputation in future years will be your downfall.
Jennie Churchill mother – to son
Winston Churchill –
his sex with same and younger aged boys was the system of fagging. The younger boys did the laundry, shoe polishing, stole extra food for the upperclassman, and yes – even sucked his cock or more – some got into it more then others.
My grandfather was sent to boarding school in England and said it was worse then the trenches of WW I.
So – what can we learn here?
So people enjoy it and pass beyond it.
Hormones don’t recognize gender or orientation. And if a student is against being with gays – well – England and Canada have worked that one out in the military as open homosexuality is not an issue.
The USA has a whole different puritanical and contradictory victorian attitude to struggle with. We are simply amazed that you still struggle with gay marriage, gays in the military.
If a person is secure in their own identity and sexuality – they are never threatened by the differences of others. Tolerance is part of maturity.
Good luck!
I was out during college and only had a problem my first semester. I was in an on campus apartment with three homophobes. For the most part they kept to themselves.
One was an alcoholic and threatened me one night but I reported him for threatening me. He was kicked out of school. From then on his buddies left me alone.
I like her advice. I just finished my freshman year and I lived with two straight pretty religious guys, but they didn’t have a problem with it. We joked about it a good bit actually and I would help them with their style. College is supposed to make people more well rounded and prepare them for the world. Allowing people to switch because of their roomates orientation goes against what college stands for.
duh. someone being gay can be a personality conflict issue. of course the student should be allowed to switch if it’s a problem. behavior is not the same as race.
Here’s a good question to make the situation even more debatable…….
Dewitt….you asked if sexuality is the same as race in this situation….what if the gay student was actually transgendered?????? I think that would be more closely related to race in this situation.
first, im an RA. also, my first semester at school was miserable because my roomate was a severely homophobic country boy. i felt terrible about him having to live with me because i knew it made him very uncomfortable, which he shouldn’t have to live with. if my resident came to me and told me that he could not live with a gay man, i would have no problem changing his room assignment. dorms are supposed to be a home away from home and its hard enough living in a new enviroment. this is added pressure and stress and i feel like it would be out responsibility to make the new residents as comfortable as possible. why would it matter to change the room? who does it hurt? the gay would get his own room and the straight would be more comfortable. everyone wins!
a similar situation happened to my ex boyfriend. He told the head of the college that just because he was gay didn’t mean he was ATTRACTED, sexually, to his roommate. Actually, as he said to both his roommate, the head of college and the roommates (apparently heinously bitchy mother), the son was probably the guy in the whole of the college he was LEAST ATTRACTED to, so there wasn’t a problem…
hahah