From Deseret News archives:
Transgender student fights denial of housing at SUU
But, Osborn can't live in a male dormitory at Southern Utah University because, medically, he's still a woman.
Osborn says he is undergoing hormone treatment but hasn't had sexual reassignment surgery. And that was a key factor in his recent denial for housing in the spring semester.
"They are really asking too much of people," Osborn said. "Sexual-reassignment surgery is so expensive and so ineffective that many transgender people, like myself, don't get it."
The university says it isn't discriminating and has housed at least one other transgender student in the past in campus housing.
But advocates for gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual rights sent out a joint press release Monday, saying that Osborn's denial is evidence of the need for non-discrimination policies to include sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. Lawmakers will consider in the upcoming legislative session whether to extend such policies to the workplace.
"Kourt is living as a man in his day-to-day life," said Will Carlson, spokesman for Equality Utah. "They have the capacity to give him the housing they give every other student. It seems like a reasonable request."
Carlson said Osborn may be able to show sex discrimination because he has changed his driver's license to male but can't get male housing.
But it isn't a case of discrimination because the only reason Osborn was denied is because he didn't meet the school's baseline requirements that he's completed hormone treatment and undergone gender-reassignment surgery, says Michael Carter, assistant attorney general and SUU counsel. Osborn's application will be reconsidered if he can provide proof that he's done both, Carter said.
"We have housed another transgender student in the past who has met our baseline criteria. This student has not," Carter said. "We are not in the process of discriminating against transgender students."
The university doesn't have mixed housing, and even though some dormitories have private bedrooms, students still share bathrooms, said Jennifer Burt, SUU spokeswoman.
Burt said the said the university deals with transgender housing requests on a case-by-case basis to ensure that the transgender student's needs are met in a way that also meets the needs of other students.
While Burt said she understands that Osborn only applied for male housing, Osborn said he was also told he couldn't live in the female housing.
"Because we don't have mixed housing, we have to have some kind of a baseline we can work with for situations beyond obvious classifications," Burt said. "We can't knowingly put a female student in with male students or a male student in with female students."
E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com
