• LGBT student leader recalls experience living on campus.
• Roommates may cause issues for LGT students.
• University says it treats all student concerns equally.
When the president of Spectrum, an LGBT ally group, used Ball State’s roommate match up, he made sure to mention he is gay to avoid an uncomfortable living situation.
Ball State does not have a designated LGBT floor or dorm on campus, Jaime Goebel wanted to be sure there weren’t any potential issues between him and his roommate.
Goebel said most problems for LGBT students come from the roommate and not just other individuals on the floors, since typically those with opposing beliefs just stay away.
He personally did not have any problems with his roommate, since he already knew he was gay beforehand.
“The very fist thing he messaged me was, ‘Oh, are you a sassy gay boy? Because I’ve always wanted a sassy gay friend,’” Goebel said.
But during his freshman year Goebel found a collage on the doorway of the shared bathroom, with one picture that said, “God wants you to stop being a faggot.”
He told the resident assistant, who also shared the same bathroom, and the collage was taken down.
Matt Kovach, assistant director of housing and residence life, said he thinks Ball State students are pretty mature about cultural differences today. He said housing and residence life handles complaints from LGBT students like they would for other students.
“We want to be supportive and make sure they are successful, really living in a safe, comfortable environment,” Kovach said. “I wouldn’t say we do much that’s different from any other student.”
Kovach said problems between LGBT and heterosexual students are rare because of how few people housing and residence life pairs up. He said about 6,500 people are living in the dorms, with only about 1,000 of those being paired up by the university.
He also said the resident assistants have gone through training to help deal with any conflict that may arise. Some have gone through optional ally or transgender training.
Goebel said he encourages any students with problems with their roommates to go talk to their resident assistant. If that doesn’t work, students could also use the multicultural advisors located across campus.
He said transgender students especially have this problem in the dorms.
“For many of our trans members, [restrooms] are an issue because they’re placed in the dorm according to their assigned sex at birth,” Goebel said. “Because many of their appearances don’t match that, it makes it really awkward in the restroom because the girls are like ‘why is this guy in the restroom?’ or the guys are like ‘why is this girl in the restroom?’”
Spectrum is hoping to work with SGA to phase in gender-neutral bathrooms to avoid this problem.
Goebel said he doesn’t think campus currently does enough to make LGBT students feel comfortable in their environment.
“It’s mostly the precautions that the LGBT students themselves make in the process,” Goebel said. “When these are an issue with the roommates, there is no way to resolve it. Your roommate is the problem, but for the solution they make you move instead.”
Goebel also said it would be beneficial to have a system where those with opposing viewpoints wouldn’t be matched together. He said if there was a section asking if students were OK with living with LGBT or other communities of students, the problem could be avoided.
“They don’t have a way of saying, ‘do you have an issue living with any of these people,’ because they just want to believe nobody has those bigotries or hatreds or prejudice,” he said. “But really in essence they do.”
Kovach said he has never been asked if an LGBT freshman could live off campus to avoid harassment. If the case did arise, he said it would be handled like any other student case would be, and a committee would ultimately determine the outcome.
Some universities like the University of Southern California and the University of Massachusetts have an LGBT floor in their dorm. Both of these schools are on Campus Pride’s top 25 schools for LGBT students list.
Kovach said Ball State hasn’t really considered making an LGBT floor or dorm, or providing gender-neutral dorms.
“We like the diversity of all of our communities,” Kovach said. “You don’t want to stereotype or consolidate a particular portion of the community.
Goebel agreed saying it would be bad in multiple ways.
“It would farther separate the LGBT community from the rest of campus,” Goebel said. “It would just put another wall up.”
He also said an entire floor of gay men would cause drama and tension.
Ashleigh Bingham, Spectrum’s graduate advisor, said that it would also prevent LGBT students from making friends outside of their own community.
“I think, as nice as it is intended to be, it would take away from the college experience a lot,” Bingham said. “You’re making it harder for them to make friends outside. All of us have straight friends and all of us have friends who fall anywhere on the spectrum.”
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