Williams College starts new ‘Queer Home’ for students who want to live ‘freely and flamboyantly’
‘We can decorate our common rooms and our doors with flags, pronouns, and different queer themes,’ one student said.
Housing options for LGBTQ-identifying students have been offered at other schools as well.
Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts has started a new housing option for LGBTQ-identifying students and so-called “allies.”
The new “Queer Home” will be part of Williams College’s six Theme, Affinity, Program, and Special Interest (TAPSI) options, which include a “Sustainable Living Community” and “AAPI” (Asian American and Pacific Islander) housing, The Williams Record reported.
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Williams College’s page for TAPSI housing–which is seemingly no longer available online, but of which an archived version still exists–stated that the goal of TAPSI housing is to provide “students who share an aspect of their identity the opportunity to live together in an intentional community with shared values and goals, allowing these students to feel supported and have their identities affirmed by those who live around them.”
Caroline Yu, a student who will also be working as a community coordinator at the Queer Home, said the new housing is a “space to express ourselves more freely and flamboyantly,” and added: “We can decorate our common rooms and our doors with flags, pronouns, and different queer themes,” according to the Record.
Williams College launched its TAPSI housing initiative in 2021 with the “Sustainable Living Lab,” the Record wrote.
The “Sustainable Living Lab” is “committed to enrivonmental [sic] justice and sustainable practices,” according to the archived page with descriptions of the different TAPSI options.
The idea of “queer housing” or similar options has been promoted and instituted in other schools as well.
Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., for example, announced in July of 2024 that it will give incoming students in 2028 the option of “gender-inclusive housing” if they “identify as transgender, non-binary, or gender non-conforming.”
On May 15, students at Northwestern University in Illinois called on the school to start a new “Pride House.”
In 2023, Ithaca College in New York instituted new housing as “an inclusive space for non-cis identifying students.”
Campus Reform has reached out to William College for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
