#dorm

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I went back to college and the dorms were horribly overpriced. One of my classmates was a sentient T-Rex named George. We were both annoyed he couldn't fit in the dorm building to come hang out.

[retrogamingblog2]

[littlealienproducts]

Busy Bees Door Mat from Hug Rug

[webdiggerxxx]

꧁★꧂

[martaasnotes]

this week i set up some shelves behind my desk and added some postcards of some of my favorite paintings.. im so happy! but,, i spend all my free time gazing at the renoir instead of doing work....

[indolentinsect]

a mini senior room dorm tour :)

i just moved in today, so things may change as i settle in more, but this is just some little peaks of what my space looks like

simultaneously excited and nervous for classes to start tomorrow; and good luck to anyone also starting classes soon!!

[thenordroom]

Simple & Stylish Dorm Room Decorating Ideas

[high-quality-tiktoks]

How the third floor at the dorms are feeling rn

[rivertocairo]

Queen of Hearts - Wine, Cigarettes, Boss Bitch

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

hi so i was recently having a discussion with my friend—cis girl—and we go to boarding school. she was calling our dorms the “girls dorms” and i was wondering if it’s appropriate to call it the “afab dorms.” i am aware of the discourse online with that word, but i was wondering if it would be appropriate in this context. or if there is anything else i can call it besides girls dorms because half of the students are trans and it makes me uncomfortable and dysphoric to call it the girls dorms.

thank you

Lee says:

It might be beneficial to have a discussion with the other residents of the dorm, especially the other trans students, to see how they feel about the terminology. They might have insights or preferences that you haven't considered.

As you mentioned, some people feel that "AFAB" and "AMAB" can be reductive or invalidating when it's used unnecessarily as it emphasizes sex assigned at birth over current identities, so there are probably some trans students in your dorm who wouldn't appreciate being reminded that they were assigned female at birth on a daily basis when speaking about their housing and that might make them dysphoric too.

I would also consider whether you're 100% certain that everyone in your dorm was actually assigned female at birth. If there's a possibility that your school would allow a transgender person to live in a dorm that matches their identified gender if they requested to do so, then it's probably not a good idea to refer to buildings by assigned sex at birth because it may not be an accurate categorization of everyone in the space. Even if no trans folks currently are in dorms that match their identified gender, there may be a possibility that a trans person in the future will be allowed to live in those dorms and then you're setting up a naming convention that would require themself if they didn't feel comfortable being referred to as AFAB when they were not. And some intersex folks don't feel comfortable using AMAB/AFAB to refer to themselves, etc, so there are a lot of reasons why "AFAB dorm" may not actually be an accurate descriptor of the building's residents.

Instead of just referring to the dorms by gender or assigned sex at birth, you could consider other terms that emphasize the structure or function of the dorm rather than the gender of its residents. Get creative! People assigned to live in the dorm are aware of why they are living there, they don't need the dorm name to tell them that they were assigned female at birth.

You can refer to it as the "West/East dorm" (if there's a geographical distinction), or if there's a formal (or informal) name for the building like "Hill House," or "the Beacon Street Building" then use that name. You could even refer to it as something silly like the "Frog Home" or whatever tickles your fancy. It could be a fun activity to come up with a list of names and have everyone in the dorm vote on the name they want to use to refer to the dorm for the year.

If you really want to call it the "AFAB dorm" then nobody can stop you from calling it whatever you like, but I would try to think outside of the box and start brainstorming other things that you can call the dorm. The only limit is your own imagination (and what you can convince the other dorm residents to go along with!)

[swoleisthegoal]

ROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT HEAD

[one-time-i-dreamt]

My community college had dorms that were kinda goth-themed and I found out that Shadow the Hedgehog set his on fire and I HAD to rescue Kirby. Kirby was back in my dorm taking a nap. Somehow I wound up in a kebab joint and a board game area.

[retrogamingblog2]

Animal Crossing Star Fragment Lamp 🌟

[inspiredlivingspaces]

IG housebeautiful

[tygerland]

[jamsandsuch]

me and cinna winding down for the night