Parker Chelikowsky ’27’s struggle with housing at St. Olaf began before they ever set foot on campus. Before New Student Orientation, incoming students were sent a survey for housing preferences — things like room temperature, sleep schedule, and food allergies. As Chelikowsky remembers, there was also an option to check a box for “gender support” in the section where students can indicate their gender preferences for their roommates.
Chelikowsky indicated that they were open to living with a person of any gender. However, their expectation, per the wording of the form, was that Residence Life (Res Life) would follow up.
“I want a follow-up on this. I want you, [Res Life], to talk to me about this,” they said in an interview with The Olaf Messenger. Residence Life never did, and Chelikowsky was placed with a cisgender man. After speaking to other transgender people on their floor, they learned that this was a common experience.
“Why was that never regarded at all?” Chelikowsky questioned. “[It] would not have been logistically difficult to do.”
Since then, Chelikowsky has lived in the Norwegian townhouse, where, according to them, roommates are assigned “with input, sometimes.” At first, Chelikowsky decided to live in the Norwegian house because, they said, it was “easier than going through the rest of the housing process.” However, they stayed on for their junior year after a positive experience. Both of their townhouse roommates have also been cis men. “Individually,” Chelikowsky liked their roommates, but “systematically, it irks me,” they said, to always be housed with cis men.
Furthermore, a spot in a townhouse, which Chelikowsky describes as “good” for trans and nonbinary students, is not guaranteed. “[It is] always a specter that you’re not going to end up there,” they said, leaving nonbinary students to struggle through a general system that was not designed with them in mind.
Students marked as nonbinary in the housing system face additional hurdles in an already challenging process. While some dorms on campus, such as Kittlesby, have gender-inclusive floors, most do not. Nonbinary students who wish to live in a gendered dorm must personally contact and meet with Residence Life and request an override in the system — a step that does not exist for gender-conforming students. If they do not, they cannot pair with roommates, and at housing selection time, the page may appear blank.
This is an unpleasant surprise for many gender-nonconforming students who are not aware of any extra steps. Entering sophomore year, Annie Rezac ’28, who uses they/them pronouns, planned to room with a female roommate in a double on a gendered floor. However, come housing selection, despite there still being doubles open to gender-conforming students, no rooms were shown as available to Rezac.
The pair remained unhoused for several days, had to meet in-person with Res Life, and were placed in an unwanted triple. Eventually, a double in Hoyme opened up, but it was a stressful, uncertain time. They went into housing for junior year hoping the issue would be resolved, but Rezac, despite communicating via email with Associate Dean of Students for Residence Life Christopher Medley about their situation, still had to meet separately in person with him.
“I never heard any communication that that was a thing, [nor] that it was fixed,” Chelikowsky said. As they see it, nonbinary students face the greatest “pressure” to be housed in a specific place: gender-inclusive housing, yet they are “systematically disadvantaged” to access that place.
Currently, according to the housing website, St. Olaf has gender-inclusive housing options available in the Mellby basement, Hilleboe and Kittelsby, Ytterboe, Rand, New Hall, and the townhouses. In an interview with The Olaf Messenger, Medley explained that some dorms and floors still “sit on the binary” due to their bathroom setup.
According to Medley, Res Life is aware of housing difficulties for gender-nonconforming students. “We communicate out that if you need all-gender support, to talk with us and have conversations about what that could possibly look like and how to troubleshoot,” he said. “If we hear a concern, we do try to figure out if there’s a way to work with it.”
Medley said that St. Olaf is getting close to being a 50-50 split between gender-divided and gender-inclusive housing. This past academic year, Res Life created an all-gender floor on the second floor of Kildahl — a first-year dorm — and increased options in Kittelsby for all-gender housing, which reportedly “reduc[ed] issues and concerns,” though gender-nonconforming students who “[don’t] want to live in a triple” still need to speak to Res Life. Further, dorms such as Ytterboe “have the option of going binary or all-gender,” according to Medley.
Just across the river, Carleton College has instituted majority gender-neutral housing. All residence halls offer all-gender bathrooms. This is not possible at St. Olaf due to residence hall building styles. However, there are potential benefits to gendered housing.
“I understand, for a lot of reasons, why we have gendered housing,” Chelikowsky said. “[It offers] women [a] guarantee that they won’t be placed in gender-neutral housing without explicitly wanting that [and makes] sure that women don’t feel harassed when they go to the bathroom.”
Medley agreed, pointing out that some students prefer to live on gendered floors while others want all-gender housing. Residence Life’s goal is to provide support for where students want to live. He said, “The entire building of Hill-Kitt is able to operate in an all-gender capacity if we wanted to,” but it depends on students’ needs. “It’s when you only have one way to do it, then it becomes an issue.”
Chelikowsky, however, said, “[The] supply of gender-neutral housing does not meet the demand for it on campus.”
In an interview with The Olaf Messenger, Senior Admissions Fellow Helen Dosedel ’28 talked about the anxieties incoming students who require gender-neutral housing and their parents have about the options available to them: “As a tour guide, [gendered housing] is one of the biggest questions we get. Parents will ask about if the floors are gendered — what do co-gender floors look like, is my kid going to get put in that — [and it’s] hard to talk about.”
“I have so many queer students I’m taking on tour, [and housing is a] really big fear for them,” Dosedel continued. “I have to be honest and tell them there’s not many options. [Considering] St. Olaf is built so much on accessibility and inclusion, [it’s] counterintuitive.”
Gender-inclusive housing isn’t the only concern for gender-nonconforming students — finding gender-neutral bathrooms on campus is a struggle as well.
“It’s frustrating to be relegated to maybe one or two bathrooms in the whole building,” Chelikowsky said. The gender-neutral bathrooms that are available get disproportionately dirty because cisgender people use them too.
When asked whether St. Olaf’s Lutheran affiliation or the role of significant donors contributes to St. Olaf’s majority-gendered housing, Medley said, “not to my knowledge.”
Chelikowsky will be studying abroad next fall, and housing for their senior spring is uncertain. Their roommate is nonbinary and has other housing restrictions. Wherever they end up, Chelikowsky “doubt[s] that it will meet [their] roommate’s needs.”
“In a time-sensitive situation like housing draw, it’s terrifying and it’s horrible to be a nonbinary person,” they said.
