Students applying for gender-neutral housing in the 2010-11 school year will live in 1835 Hinman or Kemper Hall, student leaders said Tuesday.

The pilot program, open to upperclassmen in 2010-11, will place students in both dorms regardless of gender. The Gender Protection Initiative chose the suites in collaboration with Mark D’Arienzo, associate director for University housing, said Gender Protection Initiative President Mugsie Pike.

The housing initiative may help solve problems that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students face in the residential housing system, as well as provide a housing option for students with opposite-sex friends, Pike told The Daily in early April.

The Gender Protection Initiative carefully selected suitable locations on campus for the new program, Pike said Wednesday.

“We had to make sure that it wasn’t a residential college, because residential colleges have their own board and their own governing system and not everyone can get into them,” she said. “It’s a lot more complicated and that eliminates a lot of places.”

The group didn’t want to be placed in an isolated, smaller house, so they looked at larger dorms, the Communication senior said.

The locations were also chosen because students asked for “a South Campus and preferably a North Campus location in a major dorm, integrated into the life of the dorm,” Weinberg junior Caroline Perry, a leader in the student-led Gender Protection Initiative, wrote in an e-mail Tuesday.

“Kemper has mixed-gender suites-though, until now, not mixed-gender rooms-for upperclassmen already, and the suites in 1835 Hinman have a good mix of singles and doubles within a single suite with its own bathrooms as well,” Perry said.

The rooms in 1835 Hinman will be filled first, Weinberg senior Patrick Dawson said in a Facebook message to members of the Gender Protection Initiative Facebook group. Single and double rooms both will be available at the 1835 Hinman site.

Students have shown “a moderate amount of interest” in the housing, Pike said. Those who plan on applying may have been waiting to find out where the housing would be located or signed up for other housing, she said.

“If there are more people than spaces, then (the housing will) be prioritized based on year,” Pike said.

However, the rooms are not included in priority numbers, which are not involved in the housing’s selection, she said.

Interested students may contact Doris Dirks, the coordinator of student organizations for social justice, Pike said.

Brian Rosenthal contributed reporting.[email protected]