You’re not alone. There are a number of allies on campus that have helped many Mustangs navigate university processes. Explore a few of them below.
Gender-Inclusive Housing
We are committed to providing gender-inclusive housing to students and fostering diverse membership and dynamic community on the Hilltop. You’re likely here for a reason, and we are glad you are!
We acknowledge that you, or those that you care about, who identify as trans*, non-binary, and/or gender non-conforming may have additional concerns or questions about SMU’s housing accommodations. For your convenience, we’ve outlined our standard practices below to offer you transparency.
Finding your place on-campus
You can submit information about your preferred gender in the SMU Housing Portal when you complete a housing application. You will be asked to update your gender from the information SMU received from your admissions application.
If you choose to update your gender, a link will be displayed on the Gender-Inclusive Housing page in the SMU Housing Portal. This linked page will invite you to share your gender identity, indicate your preferred gender of roommates, suitemates, and a preferred room type.
Need more details on roommate, suitemate, or room types? Read on.
You have options when you live on campus. We offer single, double, and suite-style rooms. Each offer various bathroom configurations as well. Review our available room types, ordered by their prevalence.
Double Room with Community Restroom: Within this room type, two students live in the bedroom and access a shared bathroom with 10-20 floormates. Currently, most of Residence Life and Student Housing’s inventory has community-style restrooms labeled men and women. You are welcome to use the restroom of your choosing, but we are not currently equipped with single-stall or gender-inclusive restrooms in our community-style bathroom buildings.
Double-Suite Rooms: This room type features two bedrooms that share a private bathroom. Two students share the bedroom and three to four students share the suited bathroom. Due to the shared suite, it is helpful to know your preferred gender of suitemate(s) so we can make y’all most comfortable.
Single-Suite Rooms: This room type features two bedrooms that share a private bathroom. One student lives in the bedroom and two to three students share the suited bathroom. Due to the shared suite, it is helpful to know your preferred gender of suitemate(s) so we can make y’all most comfortable.
Single Room with Community Restroom: Within this room type, one student lives in the bedroom and accesses a shared bathroom with 10-20 floormates. Currently, most of Residence Life and Student Housing’s inventory has community-style restrooms labeled men and women. You are welcome to use the restroom of your choosing, but we are not currently equipped with single-stall or gender-inclusive restrooms in our community-style bathroom buildings.
Single Room with Private Bathroom: This configuration has one student in the bedroom with their own private, connected bathroom. This room type is very limited and is typically reserved for students with disabilities. Please note that if you select this room type, you should list a second room type preference due to our limited inventory.
Now that you have an understanding of the room types in our inventory, it’s time to review your roommate options.
You have several options when selecting a roommate when you live on the Hilltop. Review each of them and follow the associated steps to complete the process.
Option 1: Go potluck and get paired with a roommate via our roommate matching algorithm. Based on the housing applicant pool, it is likely that a student will be paired with someone who identifies as cisgender. Our roommate matching system, called Roommate Finder in the SMU Housing Portal, uses you and your perspective roommate's gender preferences from Step 1 to find the best match:
From Step 1, you submitted your preferred gender of their roommate in the SMU Housing Portal.
Did you know? All housing applicants are asked if they are open to being paired with students who are trans*, non-binary, and/or gender non-conforming, so that we can identify a good match.
Students are paired based on their roommate profile questions about sleeping, studying and cleaning habits. To illustrate: a non-binary student requests a male roommate/suitemate, and is paired with a male student who identified as comfortable living with a roommate who identifies as trans*, non-binary and/or gender non-conforming, and has a similar roommate profile.
Option 2: The Roommate Finder system (available after completing an application) in the SMU Housing Portal, generally allows students to search students of their same gender. Trans*, non-binary, and/or gender non-confirming applicants will only see other students who also identified as their same gender. The pool of possible roommates is generally fairly small, and this may not provide many potential roommate options.
Option 3: A third option for finding a roommate, and the most common, is through a communication platform offered by SMU’s Women & LGBT Center, which can be access from the Trans@SMU webpage. You will be able to share more freely about yourself with others who have chosen this option. Once you identify a potential roommate, each of you must email housing@smu.edu your roommate’s name and SMU ID number to be matched in the SMU Housing Portal.
Option 4: While we provide these semi-structured pathways to finding potential roommates, you are always able to identify your roommates on your own. Some Mustangs have found success via Admitted Student Days, Scholar Groups (e.g., Rotunda, Hunt, Presidents), social media, and SpringFest. Once you identify a potential roommate, each of you must email housing@smu.edu your roommate’s name and SMU ID number. In some cases, you may be able to pair with your roommate in the SMU Housing Portal’s Roommate Finder.