The Office of Residential Life will offer two new housing options next year, gender-neutral housing and a floor that will house students interested in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex and allied communities.
The new themed floor, named Gender Sexuality and Society, will be open to about 30 students beginning this fall in De Neve Acacia. Gender-neutral housing, which will allow students of different genders to live together, will also be available this fall to students who apply for it, said Suzanne Seplow, executive director of the Office of Residential Life.
UCLA is the last undergraduate University of California campus to offer housing that caters to the LGBTQIA community and it is the eighth to offer gender-neutral housing.
Seplow said a group of UCLA students, staff and faculty started looking at ways to create themed housing options in 2007. The committee created 10 different broad categories for new themes, one of which involved gender and sexuality, Seplow added.
The group narrowed the options down to four different themes, creating the Afrikan Diaspora, Global Health, “Chican@/Latin@” and Sustainable Living floors. But Seplow said they did not include a gender- and sexuality-themed floor at the time because student support was not as strong.
Seplow said she approved the new theme on Jan. 6 because the idea had been put forward previously and now had strong student support.
The new themed floor is the product of a student initiative from the Progressive Floor Initiative, a student group and committee of 10 students.
Jewel Pereyra, a member of the committee and fourth-year gender studies and American literature and culture student, said seeing the 18-month project come to fruition was fulfilling.
The committee hopes floor programs will encourage residents to be active leaders of change, both in the UCLA community and the L.A. area, said Juan Espinoza, a committee member and second-year political science student.
Resident assistants in the new themed floors will put on programs related to the theme, Espinoza said.
Program ideas include co-programming with other universities in Southern California, attending and volunteering at AIDS Walk Los Angeles and L.A. Pride, and bringing Queer Alliance groups to the Hill so they are more accessible to students, Espinoza said.
University dorms at other UC campuses, such as UC Berkeley’s Unity House and UC Santa Barbara’s Rainbow House, have special housing communities that are related to LGBTQIA communities.
Some students said they are interested in living on UCLA Housing’s new themed floor next year.
Louie Aurelio, a first-year sociology student and member of the LGBT community, said he is considering signing up for the Gender, Sexuality and Society floor because of the proximity it would give to others of the LGBT community and the friendship it would bring.
“This space would allow people to express their opinions, find camaraderie and celebrate differences,” he said.
Gender-neutral housing is intended to accommodate students who are comfortable living with the opposite gender, Seplow said. The rooms will be available sporadically in the De Neve Building and Dykstra Hall, which is expected to reopen in the fall. Students can apply for gender-neutral housing through their housing application, Seplow said.
UC Riverside was the first university to offer gender-neutral housing and launched Stonewall House, which is geared towards the LGBTQIA community, in 2005 as the result of a student initiative. It currently houses about 20 students this year, said Mary Tregoning, associate director for residential education at UC Riverside.
At UCLA, sign-ups for the themed floor will end Jan. 24. Students can apply to live on the new floor through the UCLA housing website.
Email Kirby at fkirby@media.ucla.edu.