Trans Experiences in Accommodation Project

To the following teams and people who have provided this project with invaluable advice, feedback, ideas, information, and support, thank you:

UCAS
UCL Accommodation and Hall Teams
UCL MC&E Team
UCL Digital Accessibility Team
UCL Trans Network
Unite Students and Hall Teams
urbanest and Hall Teams

Supneet Bajwa
Abida Begum
Daniel Capewell
Siobhan Cosgrove
Jason Davis
Jayne Flowers
Poppy Gilgunn
S(ien) Gill
Christopher Griffin
Meg Haskins
Claude Hylton
Ahmad Ismail 
Emily Lintern
Simon Liu
Eliana Longley
Johanna Novales
Georgia Mann
Lo Marshall
Rae Maxwell-Kavanagh
Elizabeth Mead
Emilio Pires De Miranda
Shauna Scott
Arya SK
Eli Stewart
Anji Suri
River Újhadbor
Ittai Welby
Sarah West
Lucian Wu
Amy York

Special thank you to Emilia Olsen (UCL MC&E) for her advocacy, editing, guidance, and steadfast support. Special thanks also to Johanna Novales (UCL Engineering, Co-lead UCL Trans Network) for their input on this project’s development and their meticulous editing of this report. This could not have been done without the two of you!  

The aim of the Trans Experiences in Accommodation (TEA) project is to provide a platform to amplify the voices of trans students living in student accommodation at UCL. Trans residents were invited to share their experiences of thriving, safety, and belonging, and ideas for creating a more inclusive environment in UCL Halls. We focused primarily on the application process, arrival, and settling-in periods.

22 students across 11 genders [1] engaged with the project. Those who completed the online questionnaire answered 31 questions, comprising a mixture of long-answer and multiple-choice rating questions. 3 participants elected to become co-researchers on the project, taking part in 1-hour long discussions.

Overall, most experiences were either neutral or slightly positive. A minority of experiences were either very positive or very negative. Having a positive or negative experience was not more likely on account of membership in a particular gender – no gender was found to have generally better experiences than others. Luck, particularly in having trans-inclusive flatmates, was the dominant factor in determining who had a good experience. The lack of LGBTQIA+ visibility in UCL Halls likely increases the susceptibility of experience to luck, as the environment did not enable most participants to assert their gender and related needs. 

We have 23 recommendations to enhance the experiences of trans students in Accommodation. Most of our recommendations are directed towards Accommodation, including policy, practice, and staff training. 6 of our recommendations are directed towards other UCL teams: Student Registry Services, Admissions, and Support and Wellbeing, as we found there are aspects of their interactions with students that impact on their overall arrival experience into Halls.

Interpretative cautions: This is not a quantitative study. The purpose of this project is to provide a platform for people’s experiences, not to explore trends or correlations in data. We strongly advise against using our data to as evidence to support wider trends or extrapolating from our data for predictive purposes.  Apart from it being contrary to the purpose of this study, doing so would be ill-advised on account of us having no information on how representative our data is within UCL Halls. No data is available regarding the total number of trans students in UCL Halls or the institution more broadly. Any patterns observed within this data may, therefore, be highly localised – potentially specific to a particular Hall or flat.

[1] Nonbinary (6), Trans-male (4), Agender (3), Female (2), Gender fluid (2), GNC Butch lesbian (1), Male (1), Unlabeled (1), Unsure (1), Trans-femme (1), Trans-masc/Nonbinary (1).

Co-researcher: Any person who was involved with the In-Person Discussion phase of this project (see §2.2) and thus contributed to the interpretation of processed data on this project. For pragmatic reasons, co-researchers were still addressed as ‘participants’ in the Information Sheet, but their engagement with the data of this study and the writing of this report warrants distinction.

Participant: Any person who shared their experiences with this project via the Online Questionnaire (see §2.21) but was not involved in In-person Discussions.

Trans: Any person who is transgender, non-binary, agender, gender fluid, gender questioning, or otherwise gender non-conforming. The term is shorthand for ‘transcendent of the western cisgender binary’. (See †1 in Appendix for detailed elaboration.)

(UCL) Accommodation: The department at UCL responsible for administration and management of UCL’s student accommodation, including the students experience in halls. UCL Accommodation directly manages all UCL-owned sites (see below) and works closely with external providers in partner halls. During the 2023-24 academic year, Accommodation was responsible for housing approximately 7000 students.

(UCL) Halls: The physical buildings UCL-owned sites [2], urbanest King’s Cross, and the Unite Students sites: Beaumont Court, St Pancras Way, and Stapleton. Intercollegiate halls have been excluded from this definition and project as UCL Accommodation has limited impact on their policies and practices.
(UCL) Marketing, Communications, and Experience  (MC&E) Team: Part of the Campus Experience & Infrastructure department (Estates). The team is responsible for engagement with the UCL student community and developing strategies to enhance student experience in and around the campus and physical environment, including halls. This team also manages peer-led projects such as the Campus Experience Ambassador and Flourish ResLife programmes.

'We’: The first-person plural is used throughout this report. Depending on the context, this voice will refer either to the research team comprising Eshka, Francis, Co-researcher 1, and Co-researcher 2, or Eshka and all co-researchers and participants.

Welcome: The period at the start of UCL’s academic year from mid-September to early October that involves the arrival and induction of new students.

[2] 109 Camden Road (Ann Stephenson, Ifor Evans, Max Rayne, Neil Sharp), Astor College, Bernard Johnson House, Campbell House, Goldsmid House, Gower Street (Arthur Tattersall, John Tovell), James Lighthill House, John Adams Hall, John Dodgson House, Langton Close and Frances Gardener House, New Hall, One Pool Street, Ramsay Hall and Ian Baker House, and Schafer House and Prankerd House.

Between 2022 and 2023, two trans students spoke to the MC&E Team of highly negative experiences at UCL due to their gender and intersectional characteristics. Negative experiences included transphobia, misgendering, community invisibility, political hypervisibility, and a general lack of trans-specific support. As involved members of the UCL’s academic and LGBTQIA+ community, both wanted to introduce changes to UCL policy and practice to improve the experiences of other trans students.

Unfortunately, the lack of a larger sample of formally collected data at UCL, and UK universities in general, made motivating changes difficult. As one of the students highlighted, the circle is vicious: There is limited data (see §1.4), so universities have nothing to act on, which furthers the environment that disenables marginalised people from sharing their struggles, and so on.

MC&E was keen to support a disruptive initiative by providing a platform to amplify the voices of the trans community. As MC&E works closely with UCL Accommodation, Student Support & Wellbeing, and is heavily involved with the Flourish residential life programme, it was apparent that maximum involvement and impact could be achieved by focusing specifically on trans students in UCL Halls. Additionally, a similar project focusing on UCL campus is already underway [3], and thus the two projects would complement each other.  

The decision to focus on Halls, however, was not merely one of pragmatic convenience. Halls are a significant and formative part of many students’ experiences at UCL – most students living in Halls are first-year undergraduates or postgraduates. Halls are a full-time home during term and residents will likely spend more time there than in any other part of UCL. This constancy exacerbates the effect of any challenges the environment presents [4]. Furthermore, a significant proportion of students in Halls have declared additional requirements. These intersectional factors may further compound negative experiences. Thus, focusing on Halls as an area to improve experience has the potential to positively affect a significant part of a student’s overall experience at UCL during a formative period. 

Together, these considerations spawned the Trans Experiences in Accommodation (hereafter: TEA) Project. The project would explore experiences during the pre-Welcome and Welcome periods, as these are periods where residents are most affected by Accommodation’s policies and practices and when they have the most contact with staff.

[3] Marshall, L. (2022.) Transforming brick walls: Exploring barriers to belonging and progression experienced by trans students in higher education. Institute of Advanced Studies. Unpublished.

[4] See Domain 4 of the University Mental Health Charter report

Experiences of thriving, safety and belonging were the key focus of this project for two reasons: First, someone being able to thrive, feel safe, and belong to their environment are fundamentally important to their overall wellbeing. While it not a complete picture, understanding these three experiences and related aspects provides a good overall indicator of a person’s quality of life.

Second, and more pragmatically, resident satisfaction, perceptions of safety, and perceptions of community are experiences that are already surveyed in Halls by the MC&E Team (without demographic segmentation). It would thus be possible for us to draw at least one direct comparison point to general experiences in safety, and adjacent comparisons via thriving and belonging.

The separation of safety and belonging from thriving was motivated by discussions with other trans researchers and the student community. It became apparent in the developmental stage of this project that entangling the three could result in unclear data. While it was acknowledged that the three can be highly interrelated, thriving was generally agreed to be a longer-term, ‘how someone’s doing overall’ experience, whereas safety and belonging could be more transient. For example, one person said that she could feel safe in some places and unsafe in others, but that wouldn’t change how much she felt she was thriving – provided immersion in unsafe locations was not prolonged. Similar thoughts were expressed around belonging, as this can be highly variable with the presence of community and the nature of one’s environment. It thus seemed appropriate to understand each of these experiences separately.

Further discussion occurred with the on the use of ‘belonging’ rather than ‘community’. While using ‘community’ would have provided a direct comparison point to existing resident survey data, ‘belonging’ is more multifaceted and provides a better overall picture of someone’s experiences. One researcher we consulted with pointed out that, for them, belonging didn’t have a great deal to do with community: to belong, they needed to be seen just for what they do without a focus on their identity. Another highlighted for him the importance of the environment in belonging – explicit declarations and evidence of allyship were key to the sense they belonged. We therefore felt ‘belonging’ a more appropriate term to use.

A key consideration of this project was how to balance accessibility with maximising opportunities for participant self-expression. Direct discussions (such as via in-person surveying or focus groups) tend to facilitate the more detailed and humanised sharing of experiences, which result in high barriers to entry and capacity demands – both for participants and researchers. Remote questionnaire-type methodologies, by contrast, are more accessible and tend to receive wider engagement but lack dialogue, thus making it difficult to fully understand experiences.

After some discussion with the MC&E Team and the UCL Research Ethics Committee, it was decided to split the data-collection into two parts to maximise the benefits of each: The first phase would be an anonymous, online questionnaire to maximise initial engagement and the second would be a follow-on inviting interested participants to join in-person discussions as co-researchers.

Online Questionnaire
The anonymous, online questionnaire was designed to balance capacity demands, accessibility, and participant welfare with depth of data. A mixture of 31 free-text and multiple choice (with a free-text option) questions in seven sections were used [5]. To reduce capacity demands, most of the questions were multiple choice with free-text options (which were ultimately not widely used), to reduce the time and effort participants had to spend writing.

In-Person Discussions
The second data-collection phase was an opt-in, live discussion with participants in the Online Questionnaire. The discussions were intended to provide an opportunity for them to elaborate on their own responses, and for them to be involved in discussing the general trends in the data.

[5] See the Research Resources page on the UCL Accommodation Website.

• Participants defined thriving in four different ways: Type 1 ('Ordinary person'), Type 2 ('Free expression'), Type 3 ('Genderless'), and Type 4 ('Loud and proud').
• Unsegmented data showed a highly variable experience of thriving among participants even, within a single thriving conception. This indicates Halls are not, in general, decisively an environment where trans students can thrive.
•  ‘Genderless’ thrivers had very positive experiences, consistent with the general approach of Accommodation, while those with different conceptions had experiences largely dependent on luck with flat mates.
• Participants and co-researchers who thrive in different ways identified invisibility and lack of opportunity to discuss transness as increasing susceptibility to luck, as they feel disenabled in asserting their identities.
• Increasing visibility of trans and LGBTQIA+ iconography was identified as a way of normalizing and increasing awareness of transness to facilitate assertion of identity.
   
• Thriving recommendation 1: Consider displaying trans and LGBTQIA+ iconography in reception to clearly indicate the stance of UCL Accommodation regarding queer inclusivity.
• Thriving recommendation 2: Encourage staff who feel comfortable to wear pronoun pins and rainbow lanyards to indicate proactive allyship and help to enable trans people to assert their own. It should be explained why this is beneficial to trans students but not an obligation, given potential risks – especially for staff who are themselves queer. Staff should be made aware of the support available to them should unacceptable behaviour occur.

• Participants defined safety in two distinct ways - Type 1 ('No risk') and Type 2 ('Free expression'). Some provided definitions that encompass both conceptions.
• Participants overwhelmingly responded positively to feeling safe in halls, with a majority "strongly agreeing".
• The skew of experiences is not explained by either gender of safety type, suggesting feelings of safety are largely independent of personal characteristics and desires.
• Co-researchers identified 2 main reasons for why Halls feel so safe. The combination of these factors provided meaningful safety to the majority participants:
  1. Pragmatic, proactive safety culture of Hall Teams.
  2. Having ensuite rooms and gender-neutral bathrooms in Halls.

• Safety recommendation 1: Continue to maintain and support the proactive, meaningful safety culture of Hall Teams that helps trans residents to feel very safe.
• Safety recommendation 2: Continue to support the allocation of ensuite rooms to trans students who declare their dysphoria as an additional requirement.

• Participants defined belonging in five distinct ways, four of which centre around a need for community or social relationships with like-minded people.
• The distribution of responses to the statement ‘I feel I belong in my Hall’ had a slight negative skew, indicating experiences are mixed and Halls are not decisively and environment trans students feel they belong.
• Categorizing the data by belonging conception shows that those who defined belonging in relation to community, Type-1s (‘Queer community), 3s (‘Familiarity’), 4s (‘General community’), and 5s (‘Genderless’), generally disagreed to belonging. Type 2s (‘Same treatment’), who defined belonging in terms of not being othered, all ‘slightly agreed’ to belonging in Halls. A likely cause of this is a general lack of social interaction in Halls.
• A notable split can be observed among Type-1s (‘Queer community’), with ‘more binary’ participants having more negative responses than those who are ‘less binary’. We cannot explain this observation due to a lack of data.
• Participants and co-researchers suggested dedicated queer housing and queer-focused Flourish events could address the existing barriers to belonging by providing more comfortable interactions and increasing socializing opportunities.
• Increased involvement from SRAs in promoting trans belonging in Halls could improve engagement with the programme from this demographic.
• Discussions the research team have had with Sheffield University provide evidence to support these suggestions, but also indicate that there may be resource barriers to implementing dedicated queer housing at UCL.
• A ‘test-run’ LGBTQIA+ History Month Flourish event was successful, supporting the case for implementing more activities and events in future. SRAs already receive appropriate training on supporting LGBTIQIA+ students that should make them effective and appropriate leaders of such activities and events.

• Belonging recommendation 1: UCL Accommodation and relevant teams should consider engaging in discussions with the UCL LGBTQIA+ student community about the feasibility of dedicated LGBTQIA+ housing. The practical difficulties should be fully disclosed and at the forefront of any discussions. Even if the conclusion is such an initiative is impossible, it will at least be a community-led decision, not simply one taken unilaterally by policy makers. Support from the UCL SU with these discussions may be appropriate and beneficial.
• ​​​​​​Belonging recommendation 2: Consider the implementation of more regular LGBTQIA+-focused Flourish activities, particularly relaxed social events such as movie nights or community hangouts, to address limited socializing opportunities for queer students at UCL. One-off inter-Hall events such as LGBTQIA+ History Month and Pride Month should be continued, with greater involvement from SRAs.

• Students are not asked about their gender by UCL. The ‘gender’ data held on SITS and StarRez is likely mislabelled sex data, for reasons that are unclear.
• While undergraduates do have gender data imported from UCAS, postgraduates only submit legal sex data to SITS, which is then mislabelled.
• During enrolment, undergraduate gender data is non-transparently overwritten with legal sex data.
• There is a clear potential for issues to arise owing to unintentional use of sex data as gender data.
• The Accommodation Office uses (accurately labelled) gender data during room allocations, and thus has legitimate purpose in acquiring gender data, but not sex data.
• Gender data is already obtained from staff by UCL HR, but this has not been extended to students.
   
• Gender data collection (GDC) recommendation 1: The mislabelling of sex data as gender data on SITS should be corrected, and a secondary gender field added if deemed necessary. Until this occurs, staff should be made aware that they are handling sex data, not gender data.
• GDC recommendation 2: UCL SRS should consider following the precedent of UCL HR and invite students who answer ‘No’ to HESA’s GENDERID question to submit their gender as free text. This ensures, consistent with UCL’s own EDI data collection guidance, that a full and accurate range of experiences is captured.
• GDC recommendation 3: UCL SRS should consider adding a pronouns field to the existing ‘Student Personal Details’ container on Portico. This will provide Accommodation staff with relevant and essential information for day-to-day interactions and further support them in creating a trans inclusive environment.
• GDC recommendation 4: UCL Accommodation should review and consider whether it is appropriate for Hall Teams to have access to data on a student’s gender. Given the interactions they have with students, access to such data may not be commensurate with legitimate purpose. It is likely that, in most instances, access to data on pronouns is far more relevant and appropriate. This recommendation likewise applies across UCL.

• The Additional Requirements guidance does not explicitly list gender dysphoria as a health-related condition, despite it being classified by the Accommodation Office as such.
• Most participants said they ‘neither agreed nor disagreed’ to declaring needs relating to their gender on the Accommodation portal. A significant proportion ‘disagreed’. The guidance was interpreted by both Co-researcher 1 and 2 as being only for specific medical needs. As Co-researcher 2 conceptualises her needs in this way, she felt able to declare her needs. Co-researcher 1, and likely others who do not (or do not feel able to) conceptualise their needs as medical did not declare any needs, despite wanting to and potentially being eligible to do so.
• Concerns around sharing bathrooms due to acute, dysphoria-related discomfort were expressed to us by several participants, but only 1 had informed the Accommodation Office.
• Being allocated an ensuite as a reasonable adjustment significantly contributed to the positive experience Co-researcher 2 had in Halls. Having ensuites similarly positively impacted the experiences of Co-researcher 1 and Francis, who were allocated ensuites by luck.
• The demand for medical evidence from young adult (and potentially under-18) trans students to qualify for Additional Requirements is unrealistic and unreasonable given the realities of trans healthcare in the UK (and worldwide).

• Additional Requirements recommendation 1: Gender dysphoria should be explicitly listed by UCL Accommodation as a health-related condition that qualifies for Additional Requirements.
• Additional Requirements recommendation 2: The requirement for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria to qualify for reasonable adjustments should be dropped. The UCL Accommodation Office should consider accepting alternative, non-medical forms of evidence. For example (case dependent): unenrolled deed polls, letters from youth workers or therapists explaining a student’s needs. All these options should be clearly listed apply to trans students on the Additional Requirements guidance.

• Owing to misunderstandings of how and what personal photo data is collected by Accommodation, most of our data is unusable. The only data that was useable were specific comments made by two participants.
• Only international postgraduate students are asked by Admissions to upload scans of their passport for visa purposes when they apply to UCL. Accommodation does not receive this data.
• One participant raised concerns about unclear guidance on the Admissions portal regarding their passport data overwriting the preferred name they entered. We also found that the instruction to provide a legal first name was ambiguous and not accompanied by suitable guidance.
• One participant raised dysphoria-induced discomfort around being asked to upload a photo of herself for identification. While little can be done to address this as photo ID is necessary for security purposes, we find the guidance on the Accommodation insufficient regarding proportional data collection and use. Greater transparency, such as that shown by SRS in their collection of photo ID data, should help to reduce anxiety and concerns about the use of this data.

• Passport data collection recommendation: UCL Admissions should consider providing clearer guidance to international postgraduate students on the purpose of their uploading scans of their passports. The guidance should emphasise that the name on their passport will not overwrite their preferred name submitted on Portico or legal name (if different) submitted under “Personal information”.
• Legal name data collection recommendation: UCL Admissions should consider making the collection of “First (Given) Name(s)” unambiguously a request for students to disclose their legal name. Guidance should be included to make trans students aware that unenrolled deed polls are accepted by UCL as proof of legal name. The guidance should also notify students that they can provide a preferred name on Portico after submitting their application but, if they do not, their preferred name will be assumed the same as their legal first name.
• Personal photo data collection recommendation: UCL Accommodation should consider expanding their guidance on why their collection of personal photo data when accepting a contract is necessary and its intended usage. This should offer similar transparency to the guidance provided by UCL SRS on their own photo data collection task during enrolment.

• Participants generally agreed that Ambassadors, Hall Teams, and SRAs, gave them a sense of safety when arriving to Halls. Our data suggests this is likely due to the training given to these staff members on promoting a welcoming environment.
• Experiences of supplying legal ID to Hall Teams were inconsistent. Gender was not causal to the divergence in experiences.
• From four participants, we found a correlation between negative experiences and participants lacking legal documentation with the correct details, and vice-versa for those with positive experiences. We lack data from all participants but infer that this is likely applies more generally.
• UCL Accommodation informed us that deed polls would be accepted as valid legal ID, provided the details matched those stored on StarRez.
• There were two experiences, one during check-in, of Hall Team staff contravening training guidance and UCL policy on preferred name and pronoun usage.
• Participants did not generally feel comfortable approaching staff, particularly SRAs, about questions or concerns they had related to their gender. This is likely due to LGTBQIA+ people not being discussed at any point during arrival, which prevents trans people from perceiving ‘openings’ where they could speak to SRAs about these topics. Perceptions of staff friendliness, helpfulness, and inclusivity were not causal to this lack of comfort in approaching staff for needs related to their gender.
• A significant proportion of participants reported either not knowing about their SRAs or having met them, likely due to non-attendance of Flourish activities.

• Arrival recommendation 1: Training given to all staff in student-facing roles during arrival that emphasises and promotes practices to create an inclusive and welcoming environment should be continued.
• Arrival recommendation 2: Annually, prior to Welcome, all staff interacting with students should be given refresher inclusivity training to ensure recent and current knowledge of best practices. UCL policy should be strongly highlighted as a basic expectation.
• Arrival recommendation 3: In the check-in guidance for arriving students, it should be explicitly stated that deed polls and GRCs are accepted as forms of legal ID. While this is already UCL policy and staff should already be aware, we recommend that Accommodation also ensure Hall Teams are reminded of this prior to check-in to avoid potential uncertainty.
• Arrival recommendation 4: To ensure best practices are followed under high stress, a script or similar structure should be provided to Hall Teams. This script should emphasise asking for and using a student’s preferred name and defaulting to ‘they’ pronouns (unless they are explicitly declared). The script should also provide guidance on sensitively handling contingencies such as detail mismatches.
• Staff training recommendation: The inclusivity training delivered to Hall Teams should be updated to say that, in addition to gender markers, titles are not to be used to infer or assume a student’s pronouns. It should be emphasised that only direct testimony or an explicit record of ‘pronouns’ are valid information on a person’s pronouns. Additionally, titles should also not be used to address a student, with only their preferred name being acceptable.

• Hall Teams and SRAs receive extensive training that enables them to provide appropriate wellbeing support and signposting to residents. SRAs, in particular, receive specialized training on supporting students with particular needs, including LGBTQIA+ students.
• Despite the capacity for support, participants gave generally strongly negative responses to feeling comfortable approaching Hall Teams or SRAs with questions or concerns related to gender. This is despite the majority of participants saying they found their Hall Teams and SRAs friendly, approachable, and inclusive. Our data suggests two likely explanations:
  • Three participants had very negative experiences of Hall Teams being friendly, approachable, and inclusive.
  • Due to inadequate signposting, trans students lack evidence that Hall Teams or SRAs have the knowledge or understanding to be suitable people to discuss transness with.
• Four participants reported having either no or very limited knowledge of who SRAs are. This is likely due to SRAs mostly only being visible at Flourish activities. Two SRAs agreed this was a significant problem, and also pointed to the inefficacy of room checks and the perception of SRAs as not being part of the student community as causal to this lack of engagement.
   
• Wellbeing recommendation 1: The content of Welcome Talks should be revised to ensure the role of SRAs in providing specific support for gender and sexuality-related experiences is clearly signposted. If applicable, other types of specific support, such as disability, should also be signposted.
• Wellbeing recommendation 2: UCL Support and Wellbeing should consider further investigation with their SRAs into the efficacy of flat visits and alternative engagement strategies if appropriate.
• Wellbeing recommendation 3: A dedicated resource for LGBTQIA+ students should be created and provided in physical form in Hall receptions and online. Support or direct involvement by the UCL SU may be appropriate. The guide should contain, at minimum, the following contents:
  • Crisis support UCL support for LGBTQIA+ students
  • LGBTQIA+ policies at UCL
  • Advice from LGBTQIA+ students about studying at UCL.
  • ‘Where to go’ recommendations from LGBTQIA+ students (such as for haircuts, socializing, etc.).
  • LGBTQIA+ rights in the UK
  • Signposting to information about LGBTQIA+ healthcare (including medical transition)
  • Information on ‘how to be a good ally’.

• Thriving recommendation 1: Consider displaying trans and LGBTQIA+ iconography in reception to clearly indicate the stance of UCL Accommodation regarding queer inclusivity.
• Thriving recommendation 2: Encourage staff who feel comfortable to wear pronoun pins and rainbow lanyards to indicate proactive allyship and help to enable trans people to assert their own. It should be explained why this is beneficial to trans students but not an obligation, given potential risks – especially for staff who are themselves queer. Staff should be made aware of the support available to them should unacceptable behaviour occur.
   
• Safety recommendation 1: Continue to maintain and support the proactive, meaningful safety culture of Hall Teams that helps trans residents to feel very safe.
• Safety recommendation 2: Continue to support the allocation of ensuite rooms to trans students who declare their dysphoria as an additional requirement.
   
• Belonging recommendation 1: UCL Accommodation and relevant teams should consider engaging in discussions with the UCL LGBTQIA+ student community about the feasibility of dedicated LGBTQIA+ housing. The practical difficulties should be fully disclosed and at the forefront of any discussions. Even if the conclusion is such an initiative is impossible, it will at least be a community-led decision, not simply one taken unilaterally by policy makers. Support from the UCL SU with these discussions may be appropriate and beneficial.
• ​​​​​​Belonging recommendation 2: Consider the implementation of more regular LGBTQIA+-focused Flourish activities, particularly relaxed social events such as movie nights or community hangouts, to address limited socializing opportunities for queer students at UCL. One-off inter-Hall events such as LGBTQIA+ History Month and Pride Month should be continued, with greater involvement from SRAs.

• Gender data collection (GDC) recommendation 1: The mislabelling of sex data as gender data on SITS should be corrected, and a secondary gender field added if deemed necessary. Until this occurs, staff should be made aware that they are handling sex data, not gender data.
• GDC recommendation 2: UCL SRS should consider following the precedent of UCL HR and invite students who answer ‘No’ to HESA’s GENDERID question to submit their gender as free text. This ensures, consistent with UCL’s own EDI data collection guidance, that a full and accurate range of experiences is captured.
• GDC recommendation 3: UCL SRS should consider adding a pronouns field to the existing ‘Student Personal Details’ container on Portico. This will provide Accommodation staff with relevant and essential information for day-to-day interactions and further support them in creating a trans inclusive environment.
• GDC recommendation 4: UCL Accommodation should review and consider whether it is appropriate for Hall Teams to have access to data on a student’s gender. Given the interactions they have with students, access to such data may not be commensurate with legitimate purpose. It is likely that, in most instances, access to data on pronouns is far more relevant and appropriate. This recommendation likewise applies across UCL.
   
• Passport data collection recommendation: UCL Admissions should consider providing clearer guidance to international postgraduate students on the purpose of their uploading scans of their passports. The guidance should emphasise that the name on their passport will not overwrite their preferred name submitted on Portico or legal name (if different) submitted under “Personal information”.
• Legal name data collection recommendation: UCL Admissions should consider making the collection of “First (Given) Name(s)” unambiguously a request for students to disclose their legal name. Guidance should be included to make trans students aware that unenrolled deed polls are accepted by UCL as proof of legal name. The guidance should also notify students that they can provide a preferred name on Portico after submitting their application but, if they do not, their preferred name will be assumed the same as their legal first name.
• Personal photo data collection recommendation: UCL Accommodation should consider expanding their guidance on why their collection of personal photo data when accepting a contract is necessary and its intended usage. This should offer similar transparency to the guidance provided by UCL SRS on their own photo data collection task during enrolment.

• Additional Requirements recommendation 1: Gender dysphoria should be explicitly listed by UCL Accommodation as a health-related condition that qualifies for Additional Requirements.
• Additional Requirements recommendation 2: The requirement for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria to qualify for reasonable adjustments should be dropped. The UCL Accommodation Office should consider accepting alternative, non-medical forms of evidence. For example (case dependent): unenrolled deed polls, letters from youth workers or therapists explaining a student’s needs. All these options should be clearly listed apply to trans students on the Additional Requirements guidance.

• Arrival recommendation 1: Training given to all staff in student-facing roles during arrival that emphasises and promotes practices to create an inclusive and welcoming environment should be continued.
• Arrival recommendation 2: Annually, prior to Welcome, all staff interacting with students should be given refresher inclusivity training to ensure recent and current knowledge of best practices. UCL policy should be strongly highlighted as a basic expectation.
• Arrival recommendation 3: In the check-in guidance for arriving students, it should be explicitly stated that deed polls and GRCs are accepted as forms of legal ID. While this is already UCL policy and staff should already be aware, we recommend that Accommodation also ensure Hall Teams are reminded of this prior to check-in to avoid potential uncertainty.
• Arrival recommendation 4: To ensure best practices are followed under high stress, a script or similar structure should be provided to Hall Teams. This script should emphasise asking for and using a student’s preferred name and defaulting to ‘they’ pronouns (unless they are explicitly declared). The script should also provide guidance on sensitively handling contingencies such as detail mismatches.
   
• Staff training recommendation: The inclusivity training delivered to Hall Teams should be updated to say that, in addition to gender markers, titles are not to be used to infer or assume a student’s pronouns. It should be emphasised that only direct testimony or an explicit record of ‘pronouns’ are valid information on a person’s pronouns. Additionally, titles should also not be used to address a student, with only their preferred name being acceptable.

• Wellbeing recommendation 1: The content of Welcome Talks should be revised to ensure the role of SRAs in providing specific support for gender and sexuality-related experiences is clearly signposted. If applicable, other types of specific support, such as disability, should also be signposted.
• Wellbeing recommendation 2: UCL Support and Wellbeing should consider further investigation with their SRAs into the efficacy of flat visits and alternative engagement strategies if appropriate.
• Wellbeing recommendation 3: A dedicated resource for LGBTQIA+ students should be created and provided in physical form in Hall receptions and online. Support or direct involvement by the UCL SU may be appropriate. The guide should contain, at minimum, the following contents:
  • Crisis support UCL support for LGBTQIA+ students
  • LGBTQIA+ policies at UCL
  • Advice from LGBTQIA+ students about studying at UCL.
  • ‘Where to go’ recommendations from LGBTQIA+ students (such as for haircuts, socializing, etc.).
  • LGBTQIA+ rights in the UK
  • Signposting to information about LGBTQIA+ healthcare (including medical transition)
  • Information on ‘how to be a good ally’.

We are sharing the resources we created for this project in the hope that they will be helpful examples to anyone who wishes to do research with UCL's trans community. 

• Ethical approval application form
• Data protection application form
• Participant recruitment poster
• Participant information sheet 
• Data collection questions (Online questionnaire) 
• In-person discussion informed consent form
• In-persons discussion overview