Proudly proactive: celebrating and supporting LGBT+ students in Scotland

ABSTRACT

The absence of data regarding UK university students’ sexualities and trans identities has, for too long, rendered lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT+) student communities invisible. This interview-based study aims to explore the experiences of LGBT+ students at a Scottish university, beginning to address this gap in research. This study argues that despite perceptions from staff and prospective students that universities are welcoming to LGBT+ students, and attempts from institutions to comply with equalities legislation, the reality is homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and queer phobia creeps into students’ lives both on and off campus. This has therefore necessitated the student-led provision of exclusively LGBT+ ‘safe spaces’ to allow LGBT+ students to explore and express their identities fearlessly. In order to challenge the current campus climate, this paper thus argues that a radical shift is required in order to transform institutions to successfully support and celebrate LGBT+ campus communities, allowing universities to truly call themselves ‘proudly proactive’.

KEYWORDS:

• LGBT
• queer
• higher education
• UK
• gender and sexual minorities
• university

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Hazel Marzetti http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4555-2258

Notes

1 It is acknowledged that the language used in this paper will not be immediately clear to all, therefore a glossary of terms has been included in Appendix 1 to clarify.

2 Although there is no room here to explore it here, it is noted that there are still limitations to current monitoring.

3 Post-’92 institutions is a term used to describe the group of institutions (often polytechnic or technical colleges), which became universities through powers granted by the ‘Further and Higher Education Act’ (1992) (Hunt 2016).

4 Subsequent to this project’s completion, the University of Strathclyde has undertaken research into trans people’s experiences of university (University of Strathclyde 2017).