2. Best practices: Serving LGBTQ+ students
ASRR 2017
Best practices: Serving LGBTQ+ students
Katherine Charek Briggs, MA, MSIS
LGBT Campus Center, Division of Student Life
lgbt.wisc.edu
Intros/welcome/set the space
Access, space, A/V,
Self, LGBTCC, who’s in the room
Overview of the session
Look at facility access in higher ed
Nationally, in Wisconsin, and at UW
Assess your own services and practices, then close

3. Materials Google Drive go.wisc.edu/a8tkvj LGBTCC site lgbt.wisc.edu
Handouts
National data
Welcoming spaces guides
Pronoun guide
Language guide
LGBTCC site lgbt.wisc.edu
Glossaries
Bisexuality, asexuality, intersex info
Local organizations
Materials, incl digital use [site]
Google Drive go.wisc.edu/48h0df
Higher ed reports
OSHA statements
EEOC & Title VII
Peer institution policies
Slides
Equal employment opportunity commission
LGBTCC site lgbt.wisc.edu
Glossaries
Bisexuality, asexuality, intersex info
Welcoming spaces guide
Trans allyship tips
Pronoun guide
Title vii
Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

4. Framing inclusion Working assumption: all teachers & learners
Meet LGBTQ+ students’ needs
Highly represented in returning student population
Opportunity to build positive educational experience
Consider other students
Not alienate with language
Set a norm/expectation of respect
Trans identities: shared struggle and specific needs
Sex, gender, expression, & orientation separate but related
Binary and non-binary trans experiences
Facilities access
Restrooms, locker and changing rooms
All-gender and gender-segregated
National and local issue
Trending in higher education

5. Sex, gender, and attraction
Sex assigned at birth
Based on physical characteristics; limited
each of these elements are independent of each other and no one defines another
each of these elements exists on a continuum or spectrum
self-determination is the priority
Gender
Internal sense of self
Expression
Presentation of gender to outside world
Orientation
Who we are attracted to

6. Notes on language & labels
Variety of terms
Higher percentage of POC identify as LGBTQ+
Trans folks coming out later in life
Not about memorizing
Reflecting language: learners as co-creators of knowledge
Frame for audience
Readiness to learn based on a need to know or do
Not a chore, but a need to know for growing global workforce
Please use “she” and “her” to refer to me in class!

7. Aligning student needs
Institutional flexibility
Transitioning, dating, building families later in life
Advising supportive of life and career goals
What are the markers of support? Who can you refer to?
Specialized programs, cohort models, mentoring
How are staff trained?
Identity-conscious matching?

8. Online spaces Discuss with a partner: First things first: access
How do your online learning and/or data collection systems deal with names?
What have your strategies been with names in the past?
First things first: access
How are names collected & displayed? Nickname capacity?
Set standards at the beginning
Set nickname & behavior conventions with full class
Reach out/offer additional space to disclose
Secondary systems
Conference calls- be aware of voices
Printouts and rosters in hard copy
What are three buildings you go to? Tell the person next to you where the closest single-stall restrooms are.
Lack of official policy- facilities or use
Buildings vary across age, size, type
Signage varies across campus
LGBTCC map- not yet on official campus map
Independent unit/ department adoption
Multi-stall conversion: GWS/Sterling, Memorial Library
Single-stall relabeling: broad & shallow adoption
Other interventions to improve TGQ experiences

9. Building curricula Normalizing Recognition of life and work experience
Look to you for modeling
Language, relevant examples
Recognition of life and work experience
Bring own experience into classroom, all welcome- model this
Cognizant of asking/assuming about life & families

10. Alan turing father of computers was gay

11. Bystander/model behavior
Community guidelines
Help address additional classroom anxieties
Include convo on ’unwritten rules’ or ‘user’s guide’
Feeds into continual ed & peer accountability
Gentle and consistent correction
Practice your own corrections in the moment
Climate and retention: neutral is the status quo

12. Physical/ digital space
Legible inclusion
Physical/ digital space
Referrals &
resources
Confidence
Vocab
Syllabus
Discuss with a colleague/small group:
What feels implementable?
What next steps could you take?
Health & wellbeing: physical bodies in a space and how we care for them
Safety & anonymity: not feeling constantly put on display, not subject to others’ violence if it comes to that- basically a controllable space
Universal access: What are all the reasons someone might want to use a single-stall restroom?
Indicates support: an institution or department making the effort is one of many markers to students that they have trans access in mind; one opening to ask questions, find support
Belonging: literally fitting into a space and feeling like it is also for you. Like being invited to use this space how you need, perhaps

13. Contact us lgbt.wisc.edu lgbt@studentlife.wisc.edu
716 Langdon St., Red Gym 123