Louisiana College Essay

Picture a young teenager on a date: she is around 16 and extremely excited about the prospect of an outing with another young woman that night. They decide to go see a new movie and have dinner after. Walking out of the theater that night, the young women are hand in hand and oblivious to what is about to happen. A stranger decided that what he saw between these two girls was offensive to him. The teenagers’ budding romance was so incredibly offensive that he attacked one of them at her car. This wasn’t the first or last time I have been attacked in my life. The only saving grace I had after these events was my community – other queer people like me.
Now, as a college student in my mid-twenties, it has been increasingly difficult to find and

However, in our community, a neighboring campus, Louisiana College, has been named as one of the most homophobic campuses in the United States, per CampusPride.org. Louisiana College, along with two other Louisiana campuses, have petitioned and won multiple Title IX exemptions (Office of Civil Rights). Title IX protects any person from sex-based discrimination, regardless of their real or perceived sex, gender identity, and/or gender expression. In other words, Louisiana College has the freedom to discriminate against someone who identifies as being of the opposite sex from their birth gender and who expresses that identification either through behavior or dress. Title IX does not just protect gay, lesbian, and transgender people in education, it also protects pregnant women and anyone susceptible to sexual harassment. The fact that that a college campus a mere twelve miles away has this ability should be scary. Queer LSUA students are incredibly lucky that no harassment has been reported on campus. To be clear, not reported does not mean has not happened. These students should not have to wait until something happens to have support. Support should be in place already for them. The effects of school-based support on sexual minority youth are well documented, notably, a recent study by Dr. Carol Goodenow, a Director of School Health Programs, suggests that perceived staff support lowered suicidality in LGBT youth (588). This means that schools that had some staff support had lower student suicide rates than schools that did not have staff