Christian colleges and universities make up around one-third of all colleges and universities in the United States, and many of these schools maintain policies that make it difficult for people of different genders to interact with each other in campus housing. For example, while an increasing number of secular colleges and universities offer gender-neutral housing, many Christian colleges and universities refuse to do so. Why might this be the case? In our new study, we argue that many U.S. Christian colleges and universities’ decision to maintain “gendered” housing, roommate, and visitation policies may be informed not only by their conservative, cisnormative (the assumption that everyone identifies as the gender they were assigned at birth) views on gender, but also by their heteronormative (a world view that promotes heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexual orientation) views of sexuality.

Through an analysis of residence life policies at 609 Christian colleges and universities in the United States, we discovered that 27% of Christian colleges and universities segregate women and men into different residence halls. In addition, 86% of Christian colleges and universities require that students room with someone of the same gender. And 72% of Christian colleges and universities maintain gender-specific visitation policies that require students to follow a strict set of rules if they wish to visit the room of someone of a different gender, such as signing in at a front desk, leaving doors propped open, and keeping lights turned on.

Schools’ conservative, cisnormative beliefs about gender certainly inform their decisions to maintain these policies. Specifically, members of white, conservative Christian denominations are more likely to believe that there are only two biologically determined genders and that women and men are characterized by innate, essential gender differences. Such beliefs likely influence some Christian colleges and universities’ decision to place all students into one of two types of residence halls—women’s dorms or men’s dorms—and then enforce roommate and visitation policies that assume all students identify as women or men.

In addition to adhering to such beliefs about gender, most Christian colleges and universities expect their students to adhere to conservative Christian norms regarding appropriate sexual behavior, such as avoiding premarital sexual intercourse. LGBTQ students are also discriminated against at many Christian colleges and universities; for example, in line with prior research, 28% of Christian colleges and universities in our sample explicitly prohibit same-sex relationships. Because many Christian colleges and universities believe that their students are (or should be) heterosexual, and want their students to refrain from sexual intercourse, they place students into rooms and residence halls where they cannot easily be alone with a person of a different gender.

Yet, our work also suggests a deep irony in schools’ adoption of gendered residence life policies. Specifically, the same schools that condemn same-sex relationships and seek to exclude LGBTQ students from their campus actually craft policies that provide more opportunities for lesbian and gay students (as opposed to straight students) to live alongside, room with, or visit the dorms of their romantic partners. Thus, the assumptions about sexuality that underlie Christian colleges and universities’ gendered housing, roommate, and visitation policies are internally contradictory in that they have the potential to enable some of the same behaviors (e.g., same-sex dating) that they seek to prohibit and undermine some of the same behaviors (e.g., heterosexual dating) that those schools support. 

To be sure, we do not suggest that it is easier to be LGBTQ on a conservative Christian campus; many schools continue to punish students who are caught dating people of the same sex, and many schools have chilly campus climates that make it difficult for LGBTQ students to be comfortably out. But what our research does suggest is that schools’ heteronormative residence life policies are not firmly tethered to reality. Crafting residence life policies that assume that all students are men or women who are attracted to the so-called “opposite sex” inevitably means that some students will be living alongside people of the gender to which they are attracted. 

The internal contradictions underlying Christian colleges and universities’ residence life policies suggest that Christian colleges and universities’ residence life policies are in need of rethinking and that attempts to enforce cisnormative, heteronormative policies simply will not work. Although evidence suggests that gendered residence life policies have a negative impact on LGBTQ students’ (and especially transgender and nonbinary students’) mental health, current U.S. Department of Education policy enables religiously affiliated colleges and universities to maintain them. To challenge this state of affairs, organizations like the Religious Exemption Accountability Project have filed lawsuits against many Christian colleges and universities’ policies on gender and sexuality. Many LGBTQ students and their allies also continue to mobilize in favor of more inclusive, equitable policies at their schools. It is possible that such efforts will convince more schools to adopt gender-neutral residence life policies in the years to come.

Jessica Schachle-Gordon is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at Oklahoma State University. You can follow her on Twitter @JessicaSchachle

Gabby Gomez is a Ph.D. candidate in the Sociology department at Oklahoma State University. Follow her on Twitter @gabgo128

Jonathan S. Coley is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Oklahoma State University. You can learn more about his work here and follow him on Twitter @jcoleysociology

Dan Morrison is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. You can follow him on Twitter @danielrmorrison