Pen's Blog

Finding College Dormmates - A Trans Nightmare

Jan 20, 2024

Well, here we are. Recently, my college housing applications opened up. The following is a true story...

A long time ago, soon after realizing I was trans, I began plotting. My mom is a massive passive agressive loser with this type of thing, so I knew I would have low chances in a sucessful transition if I were to stay in my parents house. Thus, the idea of transitioning once I was in a college dorm was born. The only catch; I need to find someone trans friendly.

So, I need a trans roommate, and housing applications just opened up. Let's find one! There are, of course, a couple barriers to entry here. I am not out, so I will have to find someone online. The college is assigning our dorm buildings for us. I can pick the room and roommate, but not the building. Therefore, my roommate will need to be in the same building as me. Finally, I don't know how long the rooms will be available, so I need to find a roommate as soon as possible.

There are many online services for finding dormmates. Let's check them out. Oh what's that? None of them let you specify which dorm building you want to occupy? The only one that does has no queer identity options? FUCKING EXCELLENT! The only category on these online services is the school, not the dorm building you occupy. So this is essentially useless.

Well, the college has a lgbtq services email and phone addresss. Let's email them to see how it...

WOW! EXCELLENT! THIS SURELY BRIGHTENS MY DAY AND IMPROVES MY LIFE!

At this point, I'm going to accept anything I can get. I know a girl in my biotech class who's planning to go to the same school as me, with the same degree, and thus the same dorm building. I don't know how much I can trust this person, but it's better than a complete random. An important scrap of information is that I'm not out at school. I asked them to dorm with me on the 18th. So, now, I'm feeling better. I definitely can't come out to them, but they're a known variable. I can cope with this. So, the issue is resolved, right? I just have to wait for tommorow where I can talk her again and get her roommate ID. WRONG! She and by extension her parents do not know that I'm a trans woman, they think I'm a guy, and because of the heteronormativity and/or rape culture in our society, her parents would rather their daughter not be dormmates with someone percived to be the opposite sex. YIPPIE!

My spirit broken, I pick a room on the 7th floor of the housing building in hopes to disincentivize people picking the same dorm as me. The nightmare has ended, but at what cost.

So, what did we learn! WELL, dormmate matching companies suck and their websites need to be improved. My school's lgbtq email address needs to be fixed. I don't care if it's acting as designed, the way it was designed is wack. Heteronormativity/rape culture harm not only cis women and gay people but also closeted trans women (you probably already knew this). I also learned that my dorm building has a delerious amount of floors. Why are there 7 of them? That's too many floors. Lastly, I will have to transition in secret in college, which is better then living with my parents and transitioning in secret, but it still sucks. It's almost like there is no lesson, and that this situation is just miserable with absolutely nothing to learn from it!