A straight person attempts to speak for members of the queer community about the straight allyship of their campus, while the students want to know more about the queer community itself. Online resources for college research should prioritize featuring queer voices in order to more accurately convey information about the campus community to prospective students. Illustration by Antonio Starks
Print Editor-in-Chief Audrey Enghauser discusses the scarcity of queer voices within the college research process and the importance of queer communities, beyond straight allyship, to queer students.
When I began the endless college research process, one factor in my decision was the presence of a school’s queer community. I wanted to know that I would find a strong sense of community of people I could relate to at my future college.
However, in my research, I came across echo chambers of straight voices.
Sites might describe colleges as LGBTQ-accepting or having abundant resources for queer students. While this is a good first step, telling students about the straight attitude toward gay students does nothing to inform students about the queer community itself.
Campus Pride is a somewhat insightful website that synthesizes data about the LGTBQ support resources offered at different colleges. However, if these sites truly want to help queer students in their college search, these teams could also address other common questions about queer people themselves.
How lively is the community? What is the dating scene like? How easy is it to find queer friends? How large is the community in the surrounding town?
In an attempt to get some of these questions answered, I sought out more discussions and student reviews on Reddit and Unigo. Here, I came across a second problem — straight people attempting to speak on the queer experience at their college.
For example, when I did find information on a campus’ queer community, it was often non-LGBTQ people making assumptions of the gay experience at their school based on their perceptions as an outsider to the community.
I found this endless search for information about the queer experience at any college to be hopeless. When it seemed like no one else online was looking for or providing information about queer communities, I doubted whether my concerns about finding them were even valid.
“For many queer students entering college, it is essential to have an environment where they will not only be accepted by those around them, but will have access to a strong community and support system of other queer people.”
For many queer students entering college, it is essential to have an environment where they will not only be accepted by those around them, but will have access to a strong community and support system of other queer people.
According to a September 2021 study published in Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, a sense of community is helpful for queer people in the face of hardships such as the pandemic.
“Our findings highlight the specific ways in which community has been helpful for LGBTQ people, including activism, being authentic, relying on intergenerational resilience, centering the importance of mental health, and centering the experiences of the most marginalized in society,” the article stated.
However, according to The Trevor Project National Survey, only half of surveyed LGBTQ youth found their high school to be a queer-affirming space.
Given this, students should have access to empowering resources made by queer people that can guide them in their search to find an affirming space in college.
“If research tools can adapt to focus more on representing queer voices, prospective students may be able to find a better fitting future home and more accurately envision the environment.”
For University of Georgia student and Clarke Central High School Class of 2020 alum Shea Peters, who identifies as queer, finding belonging with other LGBTQ people has been important to their experience at college.
“It’s just easier to be friends with other queer people than it is to be friends with straight people. There’s not that level of conscientiousness (and) judgment that goes with being a queer person in a straighter friend group,” Peters said. “If there aren’t any people who you really relate to who you’re around all the time, then it’s like a main source of finding a community is kind of distanced from you, and puts a huge roadblock in actually getting to have friends, having a good time and feeling supported.”
Sites such as Campus Pride could do a better job of communicating a school’s queer campus community by featuring personal experience stories from queer students to extend beyond just education of basic resources.
If research tools can adapt to focus more on representing queer voices, prospective students may be able to find a better fitting future home and more accurately envision the environment.
At a time with an increasing level of queer acceptance worldwide, we have enough power to regain control over these conversations and help each other find the communities we seek.
