editors note:  To give some color and history to the move to inclusive cabins rather than traditional Boys and Girls cabins here is a personal note to a friend from a board member's perspective at the time:

On the Ballou thing..  yes parents need to sign for kids to be in the special room..    Kris, the director, made a presentation to our board..  and  to argue against it really made you look OLD and not with it and such...   ONE point is that so many of the population is not straight that keeping kids 'safe' by putting boys together and all girls together is not real.  Another is that some kids do not identify as boy cabin or girl cabin...      kids today do not seem to do drugs, smoke and sex like the old times as they have really worked on making it not cool to move away from the herd..  pairing off is not an 'in' thing....   well  I don't know, we had a lot of nice arguments.. and when it came to vote it was clear that several folks on the board really were into it and some were questioning still..  I wanted more discussion so we all could understand but they wanted to push the vote..  I looked down and abstained from vote.     I hate it when we can't all agree as that means to me usually we need to understand more..

so vote was like 3 YEA  and 2 NO and abstain...       

Somehow it was also a gay bashing thing if you did not go along with it..  or Transgender bashing or some shit...

All the kids sleep together at the youth Cons  was one point...   

Kris's major in school is or was gender studies  so he is really into breaking down any barriers 

We really did not want there to be a 'cool' kids cabin..  or a 'others' cabin on the other hand...(no one said that)...  so who knows...  I am sure Kris can make it work  he is a very engaged director.  If we had someone like him in our time we would have learned a lot more - but maybe not gotten away with so much...

Devin Hollands <devinhollands@gmail.com> Oct 20, 2012, 11:39 AM

to Kris, Lauren, Camp(Dan G.)

GROUND floor   I think we would just leave the 7 and 8 rooms as ONE BIG room for meeting etc   .editor: (now the Willow Room)..   THUS this ground floor would be camper space  and the Bathroom in the there could be set up with shower etc.. for the UNISEX - Family Shower...Undeclared.... 

 Thus campers not wanting to use a Boys or Girls shower room would have reasons for going into that area..  so if someone wants to go into building  and then go to shower it is not a big deal... No one would know why you went into the building.    Where if you have the door on the Outside to a special room.. Everyone would see you go in there and know.. "hmmm, that person does not want to go in the other rooms"....   a  little more private is the point - of having entrance INSIDE a camper space Area...

=================

Same point different note:

gender free space:

   I would like this to be the full bath in First Floor of the extension...   this is why it makes sense to have the room on the first floor also a large space for camper program use..  so campers are allowed to enter the first floor freely...

  they would have no reason to go upstairs or downstairs.

     But as the new extension would be a place campers go in and out of freely  like the shower house...  then there would be NO stigma to camper who felt that they wanted to use the Gender neutral space.  I feel it needs to be a more private area.. so there is reduced stress level entering and leaving.. ie "who will see me?" .. what I am thinking is everyone in this situation may feel they would rather have such a space but on the other hand do not need or want everyone to know they feel that way... and they may not even know how they feel and would rather not be identified as the one who goes in the "3rd" room.   

    So if we can make it architecturally more accommodating that is what I am trying to envision...

Devin