Two of the country’s most famous boarding schools will begin offering all-gender housing this fall in response to concerns about support for transgender and gender-nonbinary students. Phillips Exeter Academy and Phillips Academy Andover, high schools founded in New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the late 18th century, have historically housed boys and girls in separate dorm buildings. Beginning next school year, students—whose parents can pay more than $54,000 for their children to board there—will have the opportunity to choose “gender-neutral” housing instead.
NPR reports that conversations about a possible shift in housing offerings at Exeter began nearly two years ago, when English teacher Alex Myers—an Exeter alumnus and trans man—asked some trans and gender-nonconforming students how the school could serve them better. Housing was a universal point of discontent. The school usually housed students with peers of the gender they enrolled under unless a special exception was made, putting students who transitioned during their high-school years, like Myers, in stressful and potentially unsafe situations. And even if the school would make an exception for a trans student, not all students would feel right switching to the other gendered dorm. For nonbinary students or those who come into school cis but questioning, all-gender housing may be the only comfortable option.
Exeter’s new all-gender dormitories will be in two buildings previously used as single-gender housing. Students residing there will each live in a single-person room, heading off any concerns about changing and privacy. The communal gender-neutral bathrooms will also be modified with extra privacy accommodations. Students who wants to live in all-gender housing will have to apply and get input from their parents.
The head of Andover, John Palfrey, described the move as a way to attract and support a more diverse student body. “Our idea is to bring young people from all over the world, from all walks of life, from all backgrounds—and, frankly, from all gender and sexuality backgrounds,” he told NPR, asserting that he hasn’t gotten any negative responses to the news. “So I see this as entirely in keeping with our long tradition.” Myers claims almost 90 percent of surveyed students at Exeter want to see all-gender housing at their school.
In December 2015, as a fellow with Andover’s Brace Center for Gender Studies, now-senior Karissa Kang presented a proposal for all-gender dorms at the school. Kang noted that, at the time, 30 or so students identified as transgender, gender fluid, or another gender identity outside the man-woman binary. At about 3 percent of Andover’s student body, that population is large enough to warrant a schoolwide policy and appropriate accommodation, Kang said, and with growing awareness and acceptance of gender diversity, that proportion will likely increase in coming years.
More than 150 U.S. colleges and universities have begun offering gender-neutral housing options on their campuses, but few boarding high schools do. It’s significant that rivals Exeter and Andover, two of the oldest, best known, and most prestigious such schools in the country, are the ones taking the lead in safe and comfortable living environments for gender-diverse students. No doubt administrators at other schools, especially those competing for similar student applicants, will be watching to see how the new system plays out.
