A referendum calling for gender-inclusive housing policies goes to the student body for a vote this week, after the resolution passed the GUSA Senate, 23-4. Voting will open on April 11 at 8 p.m. and close April 13 at 8 p.m., the same timeline as the GUSA Senate elections.
The two-part referendum calls on Georgetown to include a question on the Living Preference Questionnaire that asks if students would be “affirming and supportive of a roommate who identifies as LGBTQ+,” by fall 2024. These questionnaires, on CHARMS, create roommate recommendations for students and are used to match pairs when freshmen elect to receive a random roommate.
“When freshmen are coming in, you’re having to choose between outing yourself to the people on CHARMS you’re looking to roommate with, or not outing yourself, and risk rooming with someone who’s not affirming,” Ethan Henshaw (COL ’26), the GUSA Senator who introduced the referendum, said. “It’s really unfair to students.”
The referendum also demands that Georgetown, starting in fall 2025, introduce fully gender-inclusive housing, where students can elect to live with anyone regardless of their gender identity.
“It gives people the opportunity to choose who they want to live with, so if you’re a male and want to live with a female you can, if you’re nonbinary and want to live with whatever gender you want to you can,” President of GUSA Jaden Cobb (COL ’25) said. “It alleviates this gender-normative that we have in society and allows people to have choices.”
Under the proposal the default random placement will still pair people of the same gender together, Cobb said it allows flexibility for students, particularly those who identify as LGBTQ+ and may not feel comfortable living with someone of their same gender. For example, Cobb said that he has had conversations with gay men who would feel more comfortable living with women than with other men.
To pass, the referendum needs a simple majority, and 25% participation rate from the student body. The measure will then go to the Georgetown Board of Directors, forcing a vote in June 2024. Only if the Board of Directors votes in favor of the policy will gender-inclusive housing be implemented.
Georgetown students have been working towards gender-inclusive housing for almost 10 years, according to GUSA Speaker of the Senate Megan Skinner (SFS ’24). GU Pride, GU Queer People of Color, and the LGBTQ Resource Center have advocated extensively for these policies to be adopted and played an instrumental role in crafting the proposal.
“This week’s referendum has grown out of a years-long advocacy movement for queer students, by queer students,” Liam Moynihan (SFS ’25), Advocacy Chair of GU Pride, wrote to the Voice. “I believe that our campus will emerge from this referendum unified, ready to take one more step towards a campus where all students are loved, affirmed, and respected for who they truly are.”
Moynihan added that this campaign, which has gained much of its traction in the past year, cannot be separated from the last 40 years of queer student advocacy — starting in 1980 when LGBTQ+ student groups sued Georgetown for official university recognition and accusing it of unlawful discrimination.
Cobb promised to prioritize gender-inclusive housing during his campaign for GUSA president. Since his election, he has helped lead the push within GUSA and the administration, and sees this referendum as an important step for protecting marginalized groups on campus.
“I think about how you can use the privileges that you have to help those who don’t have those same privileges,” Cobb said. “It is a privilege to be comfortable living in an environment with your same gender, and it is a privilege to be a cisgender person.”
Residential Living has considered enacting gender-inclusive policies in recent years; however, they have failed to make significant progress, prompting the referendum, Skinner explained.
“Frankly, the administration’s slow approach to getting the ball rolling on this isn’t because it can’t happen, because it won’t happen, or because they don’t want to do it, it’s because they don’t think students care,” Skinner said. “We’re showing them this is a pressing issue.”
Both Cobb and Skinner agreed that referendums are an important tool for student advocates, acting as a method to show the administration how strongly the student body feels about an issue.
However, this is the first referendum in three years, and student advocates have not forgotten why a 2021 referendum to restructure GUSA failed: lack of voter turnout.
“We’ve really been working on strategies for engaging students in this referendum process this week to increase voter turnout,” Skinner said. “It’s essential that students’ voices are heard on this issue, because that’s the whole point of raising it, we want to show administration that people care.”
The GUSA leaders pointed to the success of the 2021 Metro U-Pass and 2019 GU272 referendums as examples of University policy change. While the Board of Directors ultimately did not adopt the GU272 referendum’s proposal of a $27.20 student activity fee — a number chosen to honor the 272 enslaved people sold by the university in 1838 — it inspired the creation of the reconciliation fund.
“We can learn from [GU272] how the referendum really has the ability to allow us to evaluate the institution and its policies,” Skinner said. “We want to be a school that has more progressive policies, that listens to the cultural climate in the moment that we’re in and adapts to make the best living and learning environment for students.”
With the gender-inclusive housing referendum, GUSA seeks to join more than 450 institutions in the United States, including Jesuit schools like Loyola and Marymount and other DC-area universities, who offer more gender-inclusive housing policies, Cobb said. For Cobb and other student advocates, this referendum is a critical step to make Georgetown a more inclusive campus.
“People may think GUSA is a joke, but this is one of the times where it’s not a joke,” Cobb said. “This affects a lot of people’s lives, and your vote really, really does matter.”
