Winning the Housing Lottery : Changing University Housing Policies for Transgender Students

At Southern Utah University, Kourt Osborn, a transgender student, was denied a dorm room because of his gender identity. Born as a female, Osborn, who identifies as a male, applied to live in the male dorms. The University determined that Osborn could live in the men’s dormitory only with physician supervision of his hormone treatment, therapist acknowledgment of his Gender Identity Disorder, and official documentation of sexual reassignment surgery. Osborn was told that the failure to present these three items would result in a denial of male housing. Furthermore, Osborn was also denied the option of female housing. Osborn filed a formal grievance, to which Dean O’Driscoll, assistant to the University’s President and the University’s spokesman, responded that the school was not discriminating against transgender students, but following a policy that aims to ensure that all students feel safe and comfortable in oncampus housing. O’Driscoll admitted that proof of gender is not