This Thursday, over 100 students, faculty and staff attended the open forum on Gender Neutrality in South Forum, sponsored by the Stonewall Resource Center (SRC), Grinnell AJust, the Transgender Action Committee (TAG), and Student Affairs.

The hour-long forum served as an open-house to define terms relating to gender-neutrality, gave a historical context for Grinnell’s involvement with and commitment to gender-neutrality, interacted with student’s varying levels of experience with gender-neutral issues, and, in typical Grinnell style, pushed for ideas of equality and social change.

“The big goal is continuing the dialogues on gender neutrality,” said Ragnar Thorisson ’11, one of the organizers of the forum. “For the wider Grinnell community, it’s to make sure everyone at least understands and is familiar with [gender-neutrality] because I think it really does affect everybody on campus.”

This push for more clarity and definition on gender-neutrality came about from an increased demand for Gender neutral housing. According to Assistant Dean of Students & Director of Residence Life and Orientation Andrea Conner. “[Grinnell] went from single digits to 10 percent of campus having gender neutral housing,” Conner said.

Though the increase is a positive change for gender-neutrality, some students were placed in gender-neutral housing without extensive knowledge of the meaning of living in a gender-neutral space.

“We [have] visibility for what’s going on so people living on gender neutral floors know that it’s just more than a sign on a bathroom,” said co-leader of TAG, Nik Jameson ’11.  “There’s more of a community there than being able to use a bathroom and then hopefully [to make] more spaces on campus trans and queers spaces and less gendered so people can feel safe no matter where they are on campus.”
In the beginning of the forum, organizers discussed the need to create safe-spaces on campus, defined terms they would be using throughout the evening, such as dominance, subordinance, privilege, oppression and the difference between gender and sex.

Smaller groups were then formed, according the attendee’s familiarity and experience with gender-neutrality, to continue the discussion in a more intimate way.

“On one hand we wanted to have a diversity of experience to have a more productive conversation, but on the other hand some people felt that the discussions really have to be tailored to people’s needs in the sense that some people may be coming in there not really knowing the distinction between sex and gender,” Thorisson said. “We have to really lay the groundwork to have a conversation…and we want to tailor it to peope’s needs so that one person isn’t lost and another person isn’t completely bored.”

In addition to organizers facilitating an expansion of community knowledge about gender-neutral language, Conner expressed the need for continued expansion of gender-neutral housing on campus.

“We don’t offer gender-neutral in all our types of housing, like Off Campus Language Houses, so that’s an area that it’s clear we need to work on,” Conner said. “We need to have gender-neutral housing in all housing options.”

In the open forum, Conner cited that Grinnell doesn’t currently offer any gender neutral housing options in substance-free housing or in every cluster.

Though Grinnell campus is still striving in efforts to become more gender-neutral, the open forum provided a much-needed forum for students, faculty and staff to ask questions and become more educated.

“I just thought it was great,” Greg Parks ’11 said. “We got to learn more specifically what’s going on with gender-neutrality and progress that’s been made and where we’re headed.”

However, some students left with more questions.

“For me the whole pronoun thing was perplexing going in, I received some answers, got some clarification on some parts of it but still somewhat perplexed,” Ashur Bratt ’12 said.

Bratt wants to continue the conversation about gender-neutral housing. What can be ascertained from the forum, however, is that a community discussion has begun in a larger way and will continue into the future.