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University can be a welcome opportunity to explore your identity, expand your horizons, and date people whose profiles on Facebook will make you cringe five years down the line, writes Kaite Welsh.

However, lack of coordinated support means that for many LGBT students, higher education is not the gateway to freedom that they may have expected.

The Equality Challenge Unit published a report in March 2009 about the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans staff in Higher Education. Nearly 5,000 LGBT staff and students from various Higher Education institutions in England and Wales were interviewed for the report, and its findings make for bleak reading.

As well as a disturbingly high number of complaints regarding homophobic bullying by fellow students and lecturers – the figure for trans students is even worse: nearly half have experienced outright discrimination from their peers, and a quarter have been unfairly treated by faculty members – students also experience discrimination closer to home.

20% of students surveyed came out to their parents after starting university. But despite the fact that almost 5% of lesbian, gay and bisexual and 7.1% of trans students have parental financial support withdrawn after coming out, 19.5% and 42.9% respectively had their applications for their university hardship funds rejected.

Even more LGBT students are unofficially estranged from their parents, and therefore not receiving the local authority support to which they ought to be entitled.

One student, who did not respond to the survey, was forced to lie about the subject matter of her queer theory-based research to the family member who helped financially support her:

“They say they want to support me, but if I told them what I was really working on, they’d be furious. If I was studying what they think I am, which is just 19th century literature, I might feel easier about coming out, but I think this might be too much.”

The prejudices are not only limited to students – faculty members have an equally difficult time justifying research around gay culture. Even in arts and humanities, traditionally known for their liberal curricula, there is a limited support of LGBT-focussed research.

One lecturer responded to the survey expressing concern that the Christian ethos of their university contributed to a culture of homophobia supported by senior members of staff, where even research around queer studies has been blocked or dismissed by colleagues.

Fortunately, some universities take a more proactive attitude to supporting not only their LGBT students but the research of their lecturers.

Sussex University’s Centre of Sexual Dissidence was established over a decade ago, drawing together students and faculty members from a wide variety of disciplines, and welcomes “all interested parties, regardless of how they choose to identify or dis-identify.” Based in notoriously gay-friendly Brighton, the university has now become famous for its gender and sexuality studies.

The ECU, who last year published a series of guidelines to help faculty members who are transitioning between genders, also suggest that positive images of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual students in university brochures and websites influence queer students’ choice of institution. The National Union of Students, whose nominations for LGBT Society of the Year closed last week, actively supported the research.

David Lammy, Minister for Higher Education, applauded the report and said that “there still needs to be a concerted effort by the sector and institutions to ensure that LGBT staff and students feel welcome and are acknowledged and recognised as an integral part of the higher education community.”

Posted in: Campaigns & Politics, Exclusives |