I’m embarking on my college selection journey (as a junior) and I’d like to know a little more information before I truly start to narrow down my list, especially regarding LGBTQ treatment. Are there any top schools that are bad places for LGBTQ students? I don’t want to discuss any stats or data or likelihood of acceptance, I would just like to be forewarned of any possible schools that I should avoid as I go forward, for example, Notre Dame is one school that I’m very concerned with because of this issue, but I would love to be able to attend this school otherwise (I don’t know the extent of the problem there).
Have you looked at the Campus Pride top LGBTQ friendly colleges list? It doesn’t cover everyone (heard it’s a time consuming processes to get on their list,) but it and their list of “colleges that have LGBTQ housing” helped. Niche has been really useful too. Look under the category of Diversity. We started with the Campus Pride list and eliminated anything that wasn’t in the Northeast. (The region our son wanted.) We also looked for towns and areas that were LGBTQ friendly. Is any place 100% safe? No. But we also didn’t want our son and his future bf beaten up for daring to hold hands as they walked to the movies or a local eatery. Some colleges don’t offer LGBTQ or gender neutral housing for for freshman, but we figure it would be an option if our son got harassed in the regular dorms. A graduate at one college told our son that if he has any problems with a homophobic roommate to contact the school’s LGBTQ org if housing starts taking forever to get him switched to another room. The housing is really important if you’re genderqueer or transgender. (A concern for my son’s younger best friend who is watching his college search closely.)
I hope that helps a little. I’m so glad there’s another thread on this as there aren’t many. Our kids simply can’t rely on “Well see if there’s an LGBTQ club on campus, and if there’s not you can start one!” If a campus is known for their homophobia and/or transphobia, then it’s not going to be a safe and welcoming place. We eliminated one school because while their organization was very active and making serious strides in making the campus more safe for LGBTQ students, the campus still had a number of homophobic hate crimes and there are news articles about how it used to be one of the most homophobic campuses. (It was in the Northeast too.)
Oh, and for every school, we also googled “is ____ university/college LGBTQ friendly.” You could do the reverse with “is ____ college homophobic.”
HTH and good luck. 
The evaluation of schools may differ for L, G, B, and especially T students, since the types of things that each may be concerned about may differ.
It depends what you mean by ‘bad’. Seriously: what does that mean to you? are comfortable being quiet and private about your sexuality and relationships? then very few universities (though I wouldn’t recommend BYU or Liberty) will be a problem. Are LGBTQ? politically active groups a central part of your life? then you will want to look for more liberal student bodies, which typically correlate with high levels of expectations that each student is simply accepted for who they are.
The thing about Notre Dame is that it is Catholic and it takes that seriously. They (like Georgetown) are trying: there is a [url=<a href=“http://www.grc.nd.edu/lgbtq-allies/%5Dclub%5B/url”>http://www.grc.nd.edu/lgbtq-allies/]club[/url] and a campus [url=<a href=“http://friendsandallies.nd.edu/%5Dinitiative%5B/url”>http://friendsandallies.nd.edu/]initiative[/url]. But the people who choose to go to a staunchly Catholic university typically have been raised in an ethos that sees anything but binary gendered heterosexuality as de facto less than God’s plan. The proportion of the campus population that is genuinely comfortable with people on other paths is going to be smaller than at a more liberal school. The question is: how important is that to you?
If academics are your focus, choose that way. LBGT will only be an issue in religious universities. Avoid universities in the Middle East , S American, some parts of eastern Europe (e.g. Russia) and Asia too. You may also favor a more urban environment. For most students it isn’t a big deal, and the older you are, the less you will care about it too.
Really appreciate all the help, I’ll definitely be going into a lot more research (just browsed the rankings etc. so far) but I’ll start thinking more about what I’ll want from my college experience with regards to being more open or being more subdued about it at all. Thanks for all the insight so far! @FarscapeFan @ucbalumnus @collegemom3717 @TooOld4School
TG can be a little weird with housing and roommates. You will need to check with each university’s housing office on that. Otherwise not an issue. You can usually express your preference on the housing forms if just L or G.
I should probably have specified earlier, but I’m gay, just so you guys know so you can maybe have a better idea of what I’d be experiencing Obviously any advice to other LGBT community members is completely welcome here though!
If looking at schools internationally, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory can give you an idea of general social and governmental attitudes as reflected by the legal environment, although specific regions, cities, and universities may vary from the prevalent attitude in the country.
The biggest and most interesting change I’ve heard about on campuses recently - and I’m talking about the most liberal ones - is that no one cares about your gender, gender identify, gender expression or sexual orientation any more. D says ‘You are who you are, and you love who you love. Use whatever bathroom has the shortest line.’ She says there is much experimenting, much fluidity between what used to be boundaries, and very little judgement. The only issue is how much political activitism there is on campus around the issue and push into the surrounding community (where safety issues do indeed become a factor.)
That’s a very different reality from the one that existed even a decade ago. Not sure that this is the reality campus-wide, but it is her reality and I couldn’t be more delighted.