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Transgender etiquette

General Hostel Operations

Aidan Haines started this discussion 12 years 2 weeks ago

Hi all,

What are your policies if any on dealing with transgender people? For instance, I recently had a male to female transgender person come and wanted to stay in a female dorm. It's a bit of a touchy situation. I don't know if this person is pre-op or post-op but it is certainly obvious they were born male... I know some girls like female only dorms because they feel like they can change, have more privacy, feel safer etc. I just don't know if it's kosher to put someone who actually has the twig and berries still flopping around, in with girls who specifically requested to be with other females...

I gave her a bed in a mixed dorm and she didnt mind but it's a difficult subject. I could see some people getting offended and insisting on a female only dorm. Anyone had any experience with this?

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Rucksack Brian

12 years

That could be a tough situation to handle. We don’t have any specific transgender policies, but all of our dorms are mixed.

Transgendered individuals identify themselves as male or female based on personal introspection. This has nothing to do with anatomy. On one hand, if a person feels that they are a woman, it would be difficult to argue that she doesn’t belong in an all-female dorm. On the other hand, she might be quite understanding of the other women’s preferences since she is asking them to be understanding of her preferences too. It sounds like this was the case in your situation.

Regardless of gender, if there is an individual who you think will make other guests in a dorm uncomfortable, perhaps it is better not to put them there. Isn’t it better to disappoint one person than to risk making all of the other guests in the room uncomfortable?

Has anyone else been in this situation?

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sydney

12 years

I made a telephone booking for someone who sounded very deeply masculine once. He was looking for a dorm and I told him we only had female dorms available and that I was sorry. He responded by going very silent and saying quietly, "But I am a female..." I was shocked and horrified that I had offended a husky sounding woman so I apologized and offered to make the booking. When he arrived we saw that he was a transgendered. I had to have the VERY awkward conversation that we were sorry but we have to go by what is marked on his passport or ID.

*Just like to note that I used the therm "he" as to avoid confusion to my story. I'm not trying to be ignorant towards transgendered people and their desired gender.

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ShredLife

4 years

This is very old but now that more people are doing the transgender thing, particularly in the US with laws around it now, just wondering if anyone has run into this issue more recently. I'm *certainly* not an expert, but I suspect that doing what sydney did above would be illegal in at least some states. It would really suck to get hit with a discrimination lawsuit but it does seem like it could be a very difficult issue... What if you "legally" have to put a very masculine appearing transgender person into a female dorm, and girls in the dorm are uncomfortable with it? I definitely hope I never have to deal with this.

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ShredLife

4 years

Also, some US States have also removed the gender from IDs or added new genders so that people don't have to choose between M/F.

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JimmyBlack

4 years

This topic is about as tricky as it gets. One of our hostels is located in the heart of the LGTB ect. Neighborhood of San Diego. We at one time had separate bathrooms for Male/Female but due to a growing frequency of unpleasant incidents, we placed new bathrooms signage on each door that has the face of an Alien and says "Whatever" underneath the face. That has actually garnered a lot of positive feedback from guests.

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