Student Affairs Professionals’ Roles in Advancing Gender Inclusive Housing: Discourses of Dominance and Resistance

Gender inclusive housing (GIH) is a recent policy development designed to enable greater inclusion of students of all genders in residential housing (Garvey, Chang, Nicolazzo, & Jackson, 2018; Taub, Johnson, & Reynolds, 2016). Student affairs practitioners (SAPs) play important roles advocating for improved policies and procedures on campus (Schuh, Jones, & Torres, 2016), fostering inclusion for underrepresented groups (Pope, Reynolds, & Mueller, 2014), and serving as social change agents (Gaston-Gayles, Wolf-Wendel, Tuttle, Twombly, & Ward, 2005). This study used critical narrative analysis to explore the roles and challenges faced by SAPs in the establishment of GIH on their campuses. In their narratives, normative discourses regarding the fear of parental disapproval, the stereotype of the deceptive trans* person, and the primacy of building codes as deterrents for GIH were surfaced. Strategies for resistance, such as providing counterstories that center trans* student experiences, and the costly impact of these normative discourses on the housing experiences of trans* students, were also explored. Recommendations for the advancement of student affairs’ roles in advocating for GIH and other critical resistance practices in the age of neoliberal higher education are advanced.