LGBT Issues Committee - 3/3

Much of our discussion was about issues relating to Transgender students, although we talked briefly about the LGBT community in general on campus including students, faculty, and staff.
We discussed basic improvements that need to be made in University Housing to make it more Trans-Inclusive. This would include options for students who identify as transgender and the ability to make this switch in the middle of the year. Unfortunately, University Housing uses only information from the UW system's common application, which is gender-binary (only allows male/female options). I will be drafting a new set of recommendations for University Housing for our report this year.
It was noted that the Registrar's office is very accepting and able to make name and gender changes on official documents.
Justin is working on language to define transgender for the purposes of the university and University Housing.
We discussed the University Housing Viewbook, which is sent out to all incoming students. It has a small section in it that talks about the housing LGBT Liaisons, gives contact information for Eric Trekell, the director of the LGBT Campus Center, and also informs that transgender students can contact the LGBT Liaisons for special housing considerations.
We also discussed possible reasons why so little has been done within the university while there has been a mandate to make all campus policies gender-inclusive (transgender-friendly).

We are basically trying to figure out how to make sure that the policies that are already in place are carried out and how to make the most effective recommendations for the campus.