Male and female sharing the same dorm room . . .
By Larry Gordon, Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — They weren’t looking to make a political statement or to be pioneers of gender liberation. Each just wanted a familiar, decent roommate rather than a stranger after their original roommates left to study abroad.
That’s how Pitzer College sophomores Kayla Eland, female, and Lindon Pronto, male, began sharing a room this semester on Holden Hall’s second floor.
They are not a couple, and neither is gay. They are just compatible roommates in a new, sometimes-controversial, dormitory option — known as gender-neutral housing — that is gaining support at some colleges across the nation.
Ms. Eland, a biology major who hopes to become a doctor, said a roommate’s personality and study habits are more important than gender. “This might not be right for everyone,” she said of sharing the small, cinder block-walled room with a man. “But I think it’s important to have the right to choose where you want to live, how you want to live and who you want to live with.”
Mr. Pronto, an environmental studies major who works each summer as a forest firefighter, agreed. Apart from remembering to lower the toilet seat, he said, living with a woman friend is not much different from rooming with a man. “As far as I’m concerned, a roommate is a roommate,” he said.
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