Every year Northeastern students have to face the possibility that they may not receive the housing assignment that they want, or that they may not receive housing at all. For Jaxon White, the issue is much more complicated than his position in the lottery.

White, a transgendered sophomore at NU, was born female but identifies himself as male.

“I always knew I was a boy,” White said. “I was just always told that I was a girl.”

White has received the go-ahead from his doctor to begin hormone therapy. This will induce what he calls a “second puberty,” which would be followed by the necessary surgical procedures to complete the process. While it says female on his birth certificate, White said he is and has always been male, but he was born as the wrong biological sex. His gender identity is male, according to White.

Since coming to Northeastern, he has had difficulty finding a housing assignment that he felt was appropriate for his situation. Because he will be going through a “second puberty,” living with female students would be awkward if those roommates felt uncomfortable about living with someone who would be going through male puberty.

At one point last year, he requested to live with a male friend. According to White, he was told that they were members of the opposite sex and would not be allowed to live together in campus housing, even if they both signed an agreement saying they were willing to do so.

Even though White was not allowed to live with his male friend, Director of Residential Life M.L. Langlie said that Northeastern does not have a written policy prohibiting members of the opposite sex from living in campus housing together. Yet she also said that Northeastern does have a policy that they will only house members of the same sex together.

“Since they [NU] are a private institution they can do whatever they want, even if they don’t have a written policy,” White said. “It frustrates the hell out of me because they do not understand that there are special circumstances.”

When asked why White was not allowed to live with a male friend if the university has no written policy prohibiting this, Langlie declined to comment, saying that the information was confidential and she was not at liberty to discuss it.

While White says that the Northeastern community as a whole has been nothing but supportive, Residential Life is a somewhat different story.

“I think that they [ResLife] think that they are very receptive to my situation, but they aren’t,” he said.

White also said that while staff members in ResLife have been extremely nice to him, Langlie has been completely unreceptive to his plight.

“[Langlie] was overconfident that she understood my situation and what I was telling her but she obviously did not,” he said. “I spoke with her over the phone and she seemed as if she couldn’t be bothered with me.”

White also said that in phone conversations between Langlie and his parents, Langlie came across as insensitive and that his parents were upset with the manner in which she handled their conversations. However, Langlie said she handled the situation properly.

“I treat all students with respect and courtesy – this characterizes my interaction with all students and parents,” Langlie said.

White is currently on the waitlist for housing in the fall of 2003, though he is still pursuing the matter because he wants the university to make a firmly set policy and stick to it. He knows that there have been other students with similar situations before him who were told they could not live with members of the opposite sex and dropped the issue and moved off campus. For White, however, the issue will not be dropped. He said that not only can he not afford to move off campus, but that students with his situation in the future should not have to move off campus because the university will not help to accommodate them.

“Northeastern has been working towards developing a set policy on the issue but they haven’t actually gotten anywhere for a while,” he said.

White, a native of Cambridge, said that growing up was a very confusing time for him because he always felt one way but was told something different. From the fifth grade to his sophomore year in high school, White attended all-girl schools.

“I was forced to repress who I was,” he said. “I grew up feeling something was so wrong with me.”

He was confused growing up because until he was in high school he did not know what things like “gender identity” and “transgendered” meant. White had these feelings without any way to explain them until his late teens.

“It’s an unimaginable pain looking in the mirror and seeing one thing but feeling another. I tried to fit into another standard.

“Nothing in the world can explain how amazing it is to finally realize who you are. I’m not struggling with myself anymore.”

He has always felt safe on campus and never felt that he was being discriminated against because of gender issues, White said. Now, that security which he has enjoyed for the past two years will not be available to him.

“I don’t want to be afraid to walk home at night because someone outside of this campus may discriminate against me and I won’t have that same protection the Northeastern community provides,” White said.

Langlie said that students in White’s situation are encouraged to use the services of NU’s Off-Campus Housing Office in the Curry Student Center to find a housing option in the area that suits their needs.

“Northeastern needs to realize that there are special circumstances and that not dealing with them is ignoring the severity of the issue,” White said. “NU needs to provide gender blind and gender neutral housing for people who need that option.”