LGBTQ Students on Campus: Issues and Opportunities for Higher Education Leaders

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students are more visible than ever on U.S. college campuses. Yet they remain both sexual-orientation and gender-identity minorities (that is, as a numerical proportion of the student body) and minoritized (that is, targets of discrimination and oppression by those in power). Referring to these students as minoritized on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity highlights the role of societal heterosexism, which privileges heterosexuals, and cisgenderism, which privileges people whose gender identity aligns as society expects with the sex they were assigned at birth. Although it is common on campus to conflate people with these minoritized identities into one “LGBTQ” group, in reality, sexual orientation and gender identity are different concepts. More...