<p>so im most likely going to umd and I'm gay. I am a little nervous about having a roommate and stuff considering i don't know if they will be comfortable with me and what not. When people meet me, it's not obvious that I'm gay so I'm not flamboyant or anything. Having a roommate that's gay would be a lot easier, but I'm not sure where to find one ha. Also, anyone know how the gay scene is at maryland?</p>
<p>It wasn’t an issue there 28 years ago when I first walked through the university. I credit the culture there with helping me come of age and accepting the LGBT community. Now that it is 28 years later, I can’t imagine how much further the environment has progressed. Must be even better. Can’t wait to read the updates.</p>
<p>My son seemed to have no problems finding gay and lesbian and straight friends and room-mates. He’s straight, but there seemed to be an easy give and take between his friends and room-mates. I never heard of any abuse directed at his friends or gay terps, but maybe he just never told me of any. One room-mate was in student government and another was on the bike team with him. But that’s more about gay-straight relations that I know of than the gay scene at UMD. So I googled LGBT UMD and found an interesting site:</p>
<p><a href=“Home | LGBTQ+ Equity Center”>The University of Maryland | A Preeminent Public Research University;
<p>And I found a Baltimore Sun article on UMD as one of the top 25 “gay friendly” campuses:</p>
<p><a href=“U. of Md. makes Campus Pride's list of top 25 LGBT-friendly schools”>U. of Md. makes Campus Pride's list of top 25 LGBT-friendly schools;
<p>I have a couple of very good colleagues in the English Department who are out, and you can find an official website of staff and faculty who are out if you want.</p>
<p>I hope this helps. It’s awfully hard for me to make a broad statement about gay terps, but I hope some of this helps. DC has a vibrant LGBT community with a broad socioeconomic and racial diversity. Maryland’s a pretty liberal state, but if you venture outside of Montgomery and Prince George’s (where UMD is) counties, you’ll find plenty of rural and religious opposition.</p>
<p>One thing I noticed when helping my son complete the housing form is they have a “gender inclusive” option. They also allow special requests. I believe this was created to address the types of concerns you have.</p>
<p>Hey there! I’m a senior at UMD and have been involved in the LGBT+ community on campus since I got here. There is a sizeable and very diverse community on campus and I think it’s pretty easy to meet people. We have been ranked as a Top 25 LGBT Friendly school multiple times now and I think that’s well deserved. With such a large campus yes, you do get people who are disrespectful or throw slurs around, but I’ve never had a major issue with anyone here in four years and I VERY rarely feel unsafe as a queer person.
The LGBT Equity Center (which jkeil911 linked) is a good place to start. If you click on Undergraduate Students under the Get Involved tab they have links to all the major organizations and programs on campus. To cover two of them:
The One Project is a good resource for freshmen. They have their own section of UNIV100 (which is kind of like a one-credit “welcome to college” course, it runs only half a semester and gets you a good introduction to other people and all the resources here, I’d really recommend it), and they have regular events throughout the year, like trips to DC and discussions focused on various parts of the community.
Pride Alliance is the largest student LGBT organization at UMD. As a single organization it hosts mostly social events (we have a big Halloween “party” every year for example), but it’s also made up of what we call the small groups, which are weekly discussion groups for different identities. Currently we have groups running for men who like men, women who like women, bisexual people, and transgender/genderqueer people. These are pretty casual safe spaces and they’re run by some awesome people (though I may be biased…I run one of them).
It was difficult to find information when I was an incoming freshman, so if there’s anything in particular you’re wondering about, I’d be happy to help.</p>