TO THE EDITOR:
In response to Swati Rayasam’s Oct. 17 letter “UNC housing policy is a discriminatory one”:
UNC policies define “gender” as biological sex. What Rayasam calls “gender,” UNC calls “gender expression.”
If this “gender-neutral” housing policy proposal uses UNC’s definition of gender, we are dealing simply with opposite-sex roommates.
If we ought to call it “gender-expression-neutral housing,” let’s assume that the vast majority of UNC students, and at least a plurality of likely applicants for this housing format, identify their gender and gender expression in the same way.
In either case — setting aside the perfectly valid exceptions for caretakers and siblings — most students will sign up for neutral housing for one of two reasons: to live with their boyfriend or girlfriend in on-campus housing, or to satisfy their “ill intents.”
Let’s also go ahead and call “ill intents” by its proper name: sexual predation.
In this second case, the University cannot and must not create or condone an environment where sexual predation may occur on campus grounds — on state grounds — against any student under any circumstances, and neutral housing seems to me an invitation to those (mercifully) very few students who are, in fact, sexual predators.
In the first case, the University ought not create or condone the environment within which sexual violence between roommates is most likely to occur no matter where they live: a cohabiting couple.
