Fox & Friends Mocks Gender-Neutral Housing Options

Posted Wednesday, October 26, 2011 by Brian Stewart

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  • Fox & Friends Mocks Gender-Neutral Housing Options

Fox & Friends anchors spent several minutes on Tuesday’s show aggressively mocking a pro-LGBT move by officials at Grinnell College in Iowa, ridiculing transgender students and belittling the sense of equality prevalent on progressive campuses like Grinnell’s.

The private college began offering gender-neutral housing three years ago—though Fox & Friends call it a new move—in response to requests from students who are transgender, don’t identify as either gender, or are in transition. Now, nearly one-fifth of Grinnell’s students live in such housing.

Fox & Friends’ Brian Kilmeade calls gender-neutral options “in vogue … like bell bottoms” and Gretchen Carlson tells viewers that the story shows how “one little tiny percent of society” is causing, essentially, the whole world to change. She must be confused—inclusivity isn’t tyranny.

An overwhelming number of professional organizations have supported such campus set-ups, including earlier this year when the NCAA said in a memo [PDF] that coaches should work to be inclusive of LGBT athletes, including with gender-neutral locker room use.

Watch the segment:

Equality Matters highlights the following discussion from the clip:

[STEVE] DOOCY: Just the idea that, at Grinnell, you could actually have a man in the next shower to my daughter –

KILMEADE: Or in that shower if all the heads are taken.

DOOCY: I’ve got a problem with that. Yeah.

KILMEADE: You know, say “listen, I was in a rush.”

CARLSON: Let me just say that that stuff was going on in college when I went way back anyway, but it wasn’t mandated.

DOOCY:  Right, but it wasn’t authorized by the school.

[…]

CARLSON: They say they don’t want to create a “shack up” community.

KILMEADE: Right. OK. Everyone has hopes and goals but, believe me, college, shack – and shacking up happens anyway, and you are now scripting it in.

Gender-neutral options on campus are a growing and positive trend, including a battle for more inclusive housing at Northwestern University. According to the Des Moines Register:

[Gender-neutral locker rooms are] the next step for Grinnell College, which became Iowa’s only college three years ago to offer an option for males, females or others to share the same dorm room, part of a growing trend nationwide. The University of Iowa and Cornell College are among Iowa colleges also considering the option in coming years, while more than 50 mostly private colleges across the country have been joined recently by a few public universities with gender-neutral housing.

Creating a more welcoming environment for all students is in the best interests of college administrators nationwide.  The only thing making Fox think otherwise is blatant transphobia.

Brian Stewart is the journalism and online communications manager at Campus Progress.

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