Proudly Proactive: supporting and celebrating LGBTQ+ students at a university in Scotland

1. Proudly Proactive: supporting and celebrating LGBTQ+ students at a university in Scotland Hazel Marzetti Hazel.Marzetti@ed.ac.uk

2. What inspired this? • Lack of systematic data about LGBTQ+ students at university (UCAS 2015) • Presumption therefore that everyone was having a lovely time (Rhoads 1994; Taulke-Johnson 2008) • Limited ‘campus climate’ research (Ellis 2009; Formby 2015; Valentine et al. 2009) • Colloquially knowing that LGBTQ+ students were not having the best time

3. The questions: • What are the experiences of students studying at this university? • Could any further provisions be made to support and celebrate students studying at this university, and if so what would they look like?

4. What I did • Recruited using social media • 7 in-depth, semi-structured interviews (45 minutes – 2 hours) • Audio recorded, transcribed in full • Content thematic analysis

5. Findings 1: cisheteronormativity I go by she/her pronouns but it’s [her gender identity’s] not that cut and dry…It [the comments] didn’t make me uncomfortable in the sense that I wasn’t welcome in the room, but it did kind of reinforce the norm where you’re like ‘oh fuck, I’m an aberration!’, and in a way I was uncomfortable… Anything that is done, or not done, is a massive sort of ripple and shows people that this isn’t necessarily their space as much as it is other peoples in a way – Purple.

6. Findings 2: queerphobia at university Initially when I moved to university it was very negative. I received homophobic bullying within my student halls accommodation that wasn’t dealt with in the most efficient way and therefore my first impression of being an LGBT student here [at her university] was very negative - Red.

7. Findings 3: multiply marginalised “All the little differences kind of can stack up I think and make people feel less welcome” – Purple “When I first went to the first [student-led LGBT+ group’s] Freshers’ Week event I was quite nervous because I didn’t really expect there to be any other people of colour there and I was quite nervous of being just the only person there… I would say anything but white, gay men are under-represented” - Pink.

8. Findings 3: multiple marginalised I’ve had men touch me inappropriately, or put their hand up my skirt for example, on a dance floor because they think that they can. With a partner I’ve had abuse, or the opposite where people have been like “oh yeah that’s what I want to see!” if I’ve been showing any kind of affection to a partner - Red.

9. Findings 4: indirect queerphobia They [his parents] decided to pull his funding and because he could not provide the funding himself, that meant his visa was going to run out and he had to go backto [his country of origin]… the whole experience was very distressing – Red. There was someone who was using slurs against someone who identified as transgender and there were no consequences for that person at all - Pink.

10. Findings 5: safe spaces “To me a safe space means a space where you can express yourself on the basis of your sexual, romantic and gender identity without having anyone question your identity, or try to invalidate it or to flat out refuse it or be against you as a person” – Green. “I think it [the student-led LGBT+ group] is really important because it’s somewhere where you don’t feel like you’re the only LGBT+ person because if you usually go to class or are hanging out with the people you usually socialise with, usually you’re going to be the only one [LGBT+ person] and it’s nice to have people that you can, you know just be yourself around and not have to worry” – Pink.

11. Suggestions for improvement What we can do: What we’re currently doing: Lecturers for medics and vet medics on including LGBTQ+ colleagues and clients/patients Bringing staff and student LGBTQ+ groups together for LGBT History Month Introducing gender-neutral toilets where possible Reviewing gender and sexualities monitoring on university forms. • Consultation and training • Support • Proudly Proactive

12. Appendix 1: Participants Red: white, cisgender, lesbian, woman student. She/her Orange: white, disabled, homoromantic, grey-asexual, gender-queer student. They/them. Yellow: white, cisgender, pansexual, woman student. She/her Green: white, cisgender, lesbian, aromantic spectrum, woman student. She/her. Blue: white, queer-romantic, pansexual woman student. She/her/they/them. Purple: bisexual, BME, woman student who experienced mental health problems, but explicitly did not define as disabled. She/her. Pink: cisgender, disabled, BME, lesbian, woman student. She/her.