Covid-19 Sent LGBTQ Students Back to Unsupportive Homes. That Raises the Risk They Won’t Return.

When one Stanford University senior left campus last month, the student could count plenty of stressors: the Covid-19 pandemic, the sudden transition to online classes, the abrupt loss of a campus community. But the student also had a secret.

The student identifies as nonbinary and transgender, and, when they moved back home on March 14, their family didn’t know that.

The student uses the pronouns “they” and “them,” and asked to be identified by their initials, A.R., because they haven’t shared their gender identity with everyone in their life. So as they adjusted to their new living environment, A.R. faced a choice: “Either I’d have to be dealing with being misgendered for an indefinite amount of time, or all of a sudden come out to my family.”

A.R.'s predicament was just one of the uncomfortable — and in some cases, even unsafe — situations facing LGBTQ college students who had to leave campus abruptly amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

College campuses can be crucial safe havens for students who spend their childhoods in the closet, secretive about their sexual orientation or gender identity because they live and learn in unsupportive places. Most LGBTQ students report that they feel safer and more included in college than they did in high school. They often come out in college once they find a safe environment to explore their identity, but they might continue to hide it from their families.

Given the crisis at hand, LGBTQ students are among the most vulnerable, and at high risk of dropping out, faculty members and administrators told The Chronicle.

Nearly one-fifth of undergraduate students identified as something other than heterosexual in the latest national survey conducted by the American College Health Association, which included about 30,000 respondents. About 2 percent identified as transgender, nonbinary, or another non-cisgender identity.

Nearly half of all high-school-age LGBTQ youth who had disclosed their identity at home said their families made them feel bad for their sexual orientation or gender identity, according to a report from the Human Rights Campaign. Just one-fourth said they could “definitely” be themselves at home.

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Sexuality and gender-studies classes can be a critical refuge for students who aren’t out at home, said Qwo-Li Driskill, an associate professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies and queer studies at Oregon State University. Sometimes students’ families don’t even know they’re taking those classes, Driskill said. That could be a problem when family members can see textbooks and overhear class discussions through a bedroom wall.

Driskill paused, overwhelmed with emotion. “We have students who take our courses because they’re trying to find the language for their own gender and sexual identities,” Driskill said. What if being at home prevents some students from continuing their major or minor?

It’s crucial, advocates said, to make investments in LGBTQ programs and mental-health resources to support these students remotely, when they can’t access safe campus spaces.

The LGBTQ community is more likely than the general population to face financial difficulties and health problems, especially if they lack support from their families, which could disadvantage them during the pandemic — and compound the risk that they’ll drop out.

A Stressful Limbo

Nationwide, campus LGBTQ centers and groups are trying to stay open for business virtually. Research has shown that such groups serve as crucial sources of support for students and signal that their colleges care about their well-being. Students who are engaged in campus activities and feel a sense of community are also more likely to earn degrees.

Recently, the Stonewall Center at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst held a videoconference check-in for queer and transgender students of color in lieu of the usual monthly dinners the center hosts for them. For now, said Genny Beemyn, the director, “it’s all we’ve got.”

Coronavirus Hits Campus

As colleges and universities have struggled to devise policies to respond to the quickly evolving situation, here are links to The Chronicle’s key coverage of how this worldwide health crisis is affecting campuses.

• Here’s Our List of Colleges’ Reopening Models
• Fall-Enrollment Trends in Distance Education: a Snapshot
• Why Is Gettysburg College Giving Up on ‘The Gettysburg Review’?

Rochelle Rowley is still holding regular meetings of Pride, Emporia State University’s LGBTQ student group, even if they don’t have any formal business to go over. She’s trying to remind students that they still have a community.

Rowley, an associate professor of sociology, anthropology, and crime and delinquency studies at the Kansas institution, is worried about the LGBTQ students she’s encouraged to come out of their shells and find friends. Now they’re isolated, perhaps in places where they can’t be open about their identities. (The vast majority of Emporia State students are from Kansas, a politically conservative state.)

“It’s like removing all of the progress from what they’ve been working on,” she said.

Rowley helped one queer student find alternative housing because they didn’t feel safe going home. Another was recently admitted to a mental-health facility.

LGBTQ students are more likely than other students to have depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. The pandemic is exacerbating those issues, said Shane Windmeyer, executive director of Campus Pride, a national LGBTQ advocacy group. Vacillating between being out of the closet around their classmates and going back into hiding in their hometowns puts students in a stressful limbo, he said, that can worsen their mental health.

A spokeswoman for the Trevor Project, which focuses on LGBTQ youth and mental health, said the number of young people reaching out to the group’s crisis-services programs has more than doubled since the pandemic began.

“The bottom line is, trans and queer students’ lives are literally on the line,” said Michael Floyd, an instructor of women, gender, and sexuality studies and queer studies at Oregon State.

Floyd has started blocking out an additional 30 to 45 minutes at the end of remote classes for students to hang out on Zoom. Floyd’s goal is to create a space for students to share what’s on their minds, but the professor is also trying to be more vulnerable, talking about personal struggles and resilience.

That work shouldn’t fall entirely to faculty members, Floyd said, calling on colleges to “vastly increase the money that they spend on counselors,” given the ripple effects of Covid-19-related stress that many students will struggle with.

“There’s been a mental-health crisis on our campuses for such a long time,” the professor continued. “This is pushing it further to the brink.”

At some institutions, transgender and nonbinary students now have to log into online courses and discussion forums that display legal names they no longer use. That’s the case at Lansing Community College, according to one faculty member. Plans for a preferred-name policy — which would allow students to use a name other than their legal one in campus directories and online systems — have been put temporarily on hold, a spokeswoman for the college said.

Wayne State University, in Detroit, tried to salvage parts of campus Pride Week, an LGBTQ-awareness event with iterations across the country. That week, typically in April, holds special significance for Stuart Baum, Wayne State’s student-body president: At the 2019 event, Baum came out as gay. This year, after the senior spent many hours helping to plan Pride Week, it couldn’t happen. The institution did host virtual drag-queen bingo, and more than 80 students tuned in.

Many Wayne State students already lived with their families and commuted to campus before the pandemic began, but the university was their place to be out and proud, Baum said. “The ability to go into a supportive community is kind of the Band-Aid that all of these students have,” he said. “Now the Band-Aid has been ripped off.”

Wayne State doesn’t have an LGBTQ resource center or full-time staff members devoted to supporting queer students, Baum said, so the student activities that take place are organized by volunteers on a shoestring budget. He worries that the pandemic will stall institutional investment in the LGBTQ community.

David Strauss, Wayne State’s dean of students, said he and other officials are moving forward with existing staff and resources to bolster LGBTQ programs and academic offerings. Finances are tight, but colleges need to get creative, Strauss said. “If you don’t, students will check out.”

‘I’m Still Uncomfortable’

Still, colleges’ best efforts to connect with students remotely can’t replicate what they’ve lost by leaving campus.

Stanford’s Queer Student Resources center holds daily virtual office hours for LGBTQ students. They also offer virtual yoga classes, mixers, and trivia nights. A campus initiative focused on LGBTQ mental health provides individual therapy via Zoom to California students, and brief sessions for students elsewhere to connect them with local providers.

A.R., the senior, appreciates the support. But for them, the magic of the center is the physical space, called the QSpot, where they can sit among friends, have a snack, do their homework — and just be themselves. A videoconference isn’t the same.

At first, A.R. hadn’t wanted to leave Stanford. They felt safest there, and they didn’t want to burden their dad and two brothers in a small apartment. The senior applied to stay in campus housing, and Stanford officials approved the request.

Then A.R. realized how miserable they’d be on campus. They’d mostly be confined to a single room. Their friends would be gone. At the same time, their anxiety about Covid-19 was growing, and they were talking with doctors about gender-affirming surgery. For mental-health reasons, being alone didn’t seem like a good idea.

Back at home, A.R. tried to hunker down and focus on classes. They stayed in touch with fellow students and a trusted faculty member. They met virtually with their therapist.

But they couldn’t shake the feeling of being perceived as someone they weren’t. In the past, they’d only come home for a day or two at a time. When, for instance, someone at the supermarket called A.R. a woman, the discomfort didn’t linger, because they knew they’d be able to return to campus. This time, the discomfort stuck.

After a couple of weeks, with Covid-19 shutting down much of the country, A.R. realized that they might be at home for months. The thought was overwhelming.

Every evening, A.R.’s family had been gathering at the kitchen table to hang out and catch up. A.R. had been thinking a lot about the conversation. The one where they’d come out.

They’d talked to their dad and brothers about their identity once before, last year, when they came out as lesbian. Still, that was about sexual orientation. This time, they were talking about their gender identity — the fact that they rejected the traditional male-female dichotomy. That might be a more significant change to understand.

One day in April, it just happened.

In an ideal world, A.R. would’ve talked about how being addressed with the pronouns “she” and “her” made them feel. Instead, they kept it short: “I was just like, ‘Hey guys, I’m nonbinary and I use they/them pronouns.’”

The family accepted it: That’s fine. We support you. Of course we’ll use your pronouns. Dad even offered to help tell other family members who might be less accepting.

The affirmation was a relief. A.R. had moved past one major stressor.

Now there are others. The student hasn’t yet told their family about plans to get surgery. “They don’t know that I’m still uncomfortable,” they said.

Because many health-care facilities have postponed elective procedures to devote more resources to fighting the pandemic, the wait list at the local transgender clinic is already growing. A.R. is starting their Ph.D. this fall and hopes to become a professor. They want to finish their surgery and recovery — which takes several months — before they have to network and build an academic career.

Meanwhile, they’ve got classes to finish. And they’re talking with doctors at the transgender clinic while their dad is in the room next door.