Rethinking LGBTQIA Students and Collegiate Contexts: Identity, Policies, and Campus Climate

243 Pages·2019·3.588 MB·English

by  Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher, Devika Dibya Choudhuri, Jason L. Taylor

RETHINKING LGBTQIA STUDENTS
AND COLLEGIATE CONTEXTS
Rethinking LGBTQIA Students and Collegiate Contexts situates and problematizes
identity interaction, campus life, student experiences, and the effectiveness of ser-
vices,programs,andpoliciesaffectingLGBTQIAcollegestudentsatbothtwo-and
four-yearinstitutions.Thisvolumedrawsfromintersectionalandcriticalperspectives
to explore the complex ways in which LGBTQIA identities are shaped, discussed,
and researched in higher education spaces. Chapters provide student affairs and
highereducationscholarswiththeoryandpracticeperspectivesonsociopoliticaland
historical contexts, student learning and development, support services, and how
higher education reflects society’s pervasive stereotypes and lack of awareness of
LGBTQIAstudents’identitydevelopmentandneeds.
Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher is Professor of Higher Education/Community
College Leadership and Associate Head of the Department of Education Policy,
Organization, and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
USA.
Devika Dibya Choudhuri is Professor of Counseling at Eastern Michigan
University, USA.
Jason L. Taylor is Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at
the University of Utah, USA.
“The book you hold provides some insight and direction into how
postsecondary educators, scholars, and students might understand this
moment in the history of LGBTQIA students in higher education. This
book both helps explain this paradoxical moment in LGBTQIA student
experiences in higher education and helps move the research and prac-
tice further into a new moment.”
—From the Foreword by Kristen A. Renn,
Michigan State University, USA
“I encourage you to… re-engage what you think you know about
LGBTQIA students and the topics of sexuality and gender in general.
The chapters in this book offer great opportunities to do so.”
—From the Afterword by Dafina-Lazarus Stewart,
Colorado State University, USA
RETHINKING LGBTQIA
STUDENTS AND
COLLEGIATE CONTEXTS
Identity, Policies, and Campus
Climate
Edited by Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher,
Devika Dibya Choudhuri, and
Jason L. Taylor
Firstpublished2020
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CONTENTS
Foreword vii
Kristen A. Renn
Preface: Reflecting on Identity, Reframing Policies, and
Reshaping Higher Education x
Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher
Acknowledgements xviii
PARTI
Rethinking LGBTQIA Identity 1
1 Multiplicity of LGBTQ+ Identities, Intersections, and
Complexities 3
Devika Dibya Choudhuri and Kate Curley
2 How Intersex Identities Shape Sex and Gender: What’s at
Stake in Postsecondary Education? 17
Kari J. Dockendorff
3 Gender, Kinship, and Student Services: A Dialogue Centering
Trans Narratives in Higher Education 27
Jason C. Garvey, Benjamin C. Kennedy, Soren Dews, and
Rachel Greene
4 Exploring the Experiences of LGBTQIA+ Collegians with
Disabilities: Maybe I Exist 45
Amanda A. Bell
vi Contents
PARTII
Rethinking Contexts 59
5 Assessing the Classroom “Space” for LTBTQ+ Students 61
Jason L. Taylor
6 Asexual Student Invisibility and Erasure in Higher Education:
“I Thought I Was The Only One” 78
Amanda L. Mollet and Brian Lackman
7 Revealing the Potential for Historically Black Colleges and
Universities to be Liberatory Environments for Queer
Students: (Re)Centering the Narrative 99
Steve D. Mobley, Trinice McNally, and Gretchen T. Moore
8 LGBTQ+ Matters and the Community College: Policy and
Program Considerations for Students, Faculty, and Staff 120
Melvin Whitehead and Needham Yancey Gulley
PARTIII
Rethinking Policies and Possibilities 135
9 Challenging Complicity and Institutional Racism: The Role
of Critical White Queer Academics 137
Paul W. Eaton
10 Trickle Up Policy-Building: Envisioning Possibilities for
Trans*formative Change in Postsecondary Education 153
Kari Dockendorff, Megan Nanney, and Z Nicolazzo
11 Trans QuantCrit: An Invitation to a ThirdSpace for Higher
Education Quantitative Researchers 169
Kate Curley
12 Ending Allies through the Eradication of the Ally (Industrial)
Complex 186
Dian D. Squire
Afterword 204
D-L Stewart
Contributors 208
Index 216
FOREWORD
It is a pivotal moment for LGBTQIA college students, the educators who work
with them, and the scholars who conduct write about them. In the 1980s and
1990s, student activists paved the way for increased visibility, LGBT campus
resource centers, and more inclusive policies (Marine, 2011). Related movements
offcampushavecontributedtosubstantialadvancesinpublicpolicyincludingnon-
discrimination laws, hate crimes protection,and marriage equality. Campus climate
and societal attitudes about LGBTQIA people have improved over time as well
(Garvey, Sanders, & Flint, 2017; Smith, Son, & Kim, 2014). Overall, the experi-
ence of LGBTQIA college students is likely to be better now than it was 30 years
ago. Yet, progress has not been uniform across all institutions, regions, or identity
groups within the LGBTQIA student population. Homophobia, transphobia,
racism,sexism,ableism,andotherformsofoppression,discrimination,andviolence
act differently across the diversity of LGBTQIA college students. For some
LGBTQIA students,itmightaswellstill be1990 – or1950.Paradoxically,college
isbothbetterthaneverandasbadas,insomecasesworse,thanithaseverbeenfor
LGBTQIA college students.
How did higher education get to this place? Ten years ago, I summarized the
state and status of LGBT research in higher education and concluded that there
was a solid foundation of campus climate literature, narrative exposition of a
variety of LGBT student experiences, and theoretical explorations of sexual
orientation identity development (Renn, 2010). The visibility and campus cli-
mateliteratureswereessentialinprovidingsupportforcampusactivists,educators,
and leaders to establish the kinds of LGBTQIA-friendly policies, programs, and
services that now exist on many campuses. Many a “blue ribbon report” on
LGBT campus climate ended with a recommendation to establish an LGBT
campus resource center, for example (Marine, 2011), and provision of other
viii Foreword
forms of support evolved out of student visibility actions and national campaigns
to improve campus climate. Following the emergence of this work in the 1990s
and early 2000s, media, social media, and digital information sources have accel-
erated changes in public opinion about LGBT rights (Ayoub & Garretson, 2017),
which in turn advance campus efforts to improve climate.
In2010,Ialsocalledforadditionalresearch withandaboutdiversepopulations
within LGBTQIA communities of students minoritized by sexual orientation and
gender identity. Following a trend in research on college student identities and
experiences, personal narratives and studies of intersecting identities have explo-
ded and brought into focus the richness, complexity, contradictions, and cultural
wealth of LGBTQIA students’ lives (for a review of some of this literature, see
Duran, 2018). Certainly there is evidence of thriving across communities of
LGBTQIA students who hold multiple minoritized identities, but the combined
effects of multiple oppressive systems can amplify marginalization in ways that are
especially harmful tostudent learning,well-being, psychosocial development, and
college success. For these LGBTQIA students, the college experience today is as
alienating as it was when studies of campus climate were just beginning.
Thebookyouholdprovidessomeinsightanddirectionintohowpostsecondary
educators, scholars, and students might understand this moment in the history of
LGBTQIAstudents inhighereducation. Inityoucanreadabouttheexperiences
ofstudentswhohaveuntilnowbeenmadetoremainlargelyinvisible:LGBTQIA
students with disabilities, asexual students, intersex students, and LGBTQIA stu-
dents at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and community
colleges. You can also read about how educators, researchers, and policy makers
candosomethingtoimprovethecollegeexperienceforLGBTQIAstudentsinthe
classroom, through research,andthroughpolicyatcommunitycollegesandother
institutions. This book both helps explain this paradoxical moment in LGBTQIA
student experiences in higher education and helps move the research and practice
furtherintoanewmoment.
What might a new moment for LGBTQIA students in higher education look
like? I suggest that it could look like educators and researchers taking seriously the
individuality and the collectivity of LGBTQIA students, embedded in local and
societalcontextsofsupport,love,and care.Itcouldlooklikefacingdownanddis-
mantling the forces within and outside higher education that continue to assemble
againsttransandnon-binarystudents.Itcouldlooklikeidentifyingandstandingup
toracismandwhitesupremacyandthewaysthattheyacttodehumanizeLGBTQIA
peopleofcolor.Itcould looklikeprovidingbasicneeds–healthcare,housing,and
food security – to all students because there is clear evidence that trans people and
students of color are among the most likely to lack them and thus be dis-
proportionately affected (Gates, 2014). By taking a comprehensive approach that
addressesacademic,social,andpersonalwellbeing,postsecondaryeducatorscantake
aleadincreatingthisnewmomentforLGBTQIAstudents.Thereisnoneedtowait
another 10 or 20 or 30 years to get to a place where all LGBTQIA students can
Foreword ix
thrive; students like those described throughout this book need a more equitable
higher education today. It is time, as the book title indicates, to rethink who
LGBTQIA college students are and how higher education can structure itself to
supportthem.Aseducatorsandresearchers,weknowenoughtodobetter.Iurgeus
tobeginnow.
Kristen A. Renn
Michigan State University
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