‘Even a lot of admin’ were ‘very supportive,’ student advocate says
Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic higher education institution in the U.S., has not received much pushback on campus over a change allowing “gender-inclusive” dorm options, a student leader told The College Fix.
The new housing choice stems from years of campus advocacy and a spring semester referendum that passed the student body by an overwhelming majority.
It will allow males who say they are the opposite sex to live and sleep in the same rooms as female students.
The change will begin with first-year students for the upcoming fall semester, the Washington, D.C. university announced in June on its website.
Its housing system CHARMS, or Campus Housing Roommate Matching System, will ask students if they are “in need of gender inclusive housing” and if they are “willing to live in an inclusive housing space,” according to a post on the Georgetown University Student Association’s Instagram page.
The change currently only applies to freshmen because most upperclassmen already have housing arranged by this time, according to GUSA.
However, the university has “committed to creating a committee to look at gender inclusive housing for all undergraduates with [a] target start date of Fall 2025,” the student government stated.
Valli Pendyala, advocacy director of the student organization Georgetown University Pride, told The College Fix while the university is Catholic, it also has a supportive community, including its “well-run” LGBTQ Resource Center.
“Overall, there wasn’t really a lot of pushback [to the referendum]. Residential Living and their office — and even a lot of admin — was very supportive. Kind of the attitude of ‘why haven’t we done this before?’” Pendyala said in a recent phone interview.
“There was some pushback from more conservative members of the student community, but not as much as you would expect when you think ‘Catholic school,’” Pendyala told The Fix.
Meanwhile, a Catholic advocacy group called TFP Student Action described Georgetown’s decision as “trampling on Catholic morality.”
“God created us male and female and that reality is unchanging. So how can Georgetown call itself Catholic and at the same time support woke policies that accept the lie of gender ideology and foment confusion and the blatant denial of truth?” Director John Ritchie told The Fix in a message via social media.
“We must urge Georgetown to reject the woke nonsense of transgenderism and return to its authentic, traditional, glorious Catholic roots,” Ritchie said.
The Catholic Church teaches marriage is between one man and one woman. According to the Vatican, individuals cannot change their sex, and “any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”
MORE: Catholic Georgetown to offer ‘gender-inclusive’ housing in fall
Previously, Georgetown’s method for assigning housing was to match students who identify as outside the sex binary with roommates on a case-by-case basis.
Pendyala told The Fix student leaders have been advocating for “gender inclusive” housing for years, but the Georgetown University Board of Directors never acted.
Then, in April, the student government passed a referendum to put the housing option to the student body for a vote.
Pendyala said GUSA leaders, Residence Living, Georgetown’s LGBTQ Resource Center, and students across campus conducted extensive advocacy work ahead of the referendum.
“It was a joint campaign between the GUSA senators that pushed for this referendum to be passed, and GU Pride and other advocates like College Democrats were involved as well,” Pendyala said via phone call.
“It was less that we were worried that people will vote no. It’s more that in order for this to go to the Board of Directors, we had to get a 20 percent turnout and that’s what we were concerned about,” Pendyala told The Fix.
According an X post from the student government, 31 percent of the student population voted, and 91 percent voted in favor of the change; more than enough to get it in front of the board.
On June 4, GUSA President Jaden Cobb “presented to members of the board of directors in order to implement the gender inclusive housing referendum,” the student government wrote on Instagram. “The university committed to introduce gender inclusive housing policies starting with the class of 2028, and committed to creating a committee to look at gender inclusive housing for all undergraduates with an target start date of Fall 2025.”
The Fix contacted University Secretary Marie Mattson, who chairs the board, by phone this week and left a message with a receptionist asking for more details about the board’s decision, including whether it was unanimous. Her office did not respond.
The Fix also reached out to the university’s media team multiple times via phone call and email for comment on the new housing policies but received no response.
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