Prevention Educator Perspectives on LGBTQ+ Exclusion in Alcohol-Facilitated Campus Sexual Assault Education

Abstract

Alcohol is involved in most sexual assaults on U.S. college campuses. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) students are at higher risk of both sexual assault victimization and substance abuse than their cisgender, heterosexual peers. Through a larger participation action study alongside Campus Advocacy and Prevention Professionals Association, findings emerged on how U.S. campus-based prevention educators are addressing alcohol’s role in campus sexual assault specifically with LGBTQ+ students. Eleven semi-structured interview participants highlighted limitations to existing prevention efforts and the importance of affirming LGBTQ+ students. Prominent themes include hetero-cisnormativity, stigmatization, and tokenization and lack of representation. Strategies to overcome these limitations are discussed.

Keywords:

• Campus sexual assault
• college
• alcohol
• prevention
• LGBT
• heteronormative

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank our study participants, project expert advisory group, Rebecca J. Macy, and Sarah E. (Betsy) Bledsoe for their contributions to this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 We use the term LGBTQ+ as an umbrella term for students who are either or both sexual (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual) or gender (e.g., nonbinary, transgender, genderqueer) minorities.

2 Cisgender means that “an individual’s gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth” (Marine & Nicolazzo, 2017, p. 18).

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by an Innovative Research Award from the Prevention Innovations Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.