JHU is definitely one of my options right now, and one fairly important factor in my decision is the LGBT community at whatever school I plan to go to. So: How accepting would you say the majority of students are? Are any LGBT organizations fairly prominent on campus?
The majority of students are very accepting (really liberal student body despite being an expensive private) and there are many LBGT/diversity organizations on campus!
I think that Hopkins is a pretty accepting campus (I too would consider it very liberal), and the administration is currently doing a lot of work to educate students about LGBT+ issues and make the campus a more inclusive and accessible place (through things like gender-inclusive housing and all-gender bathrooms, the new LGBT Life office, and bringing in LGBT speakers). There are especially a lot of discussions on LGBT and intersectionality (with race, religion, etc.).
The main student organization is the Diverse Sexuality and Gender Alliance (DSAGA), and there are also organizations at sister campuses and oSTEM (as in, “out in STEM”) for students, alumni, faculty, and professionals in those fields. I have heard from students that they feel like the LGBT community is not as cohesive as they’d like to be (and particularly for LGBT students of color), and that there isn’t a lot of participation in DSAGA. I’ve heard this is because different students want different things (some want a social network, some want to focus on politics, or education, or advocacy).
But I’ve also heard that DSAGA is combating this through setting up smaller “families” of students who can meet on their own time and talk about what they want to, as well as hold larger events. I’m not part of the community, so I don’t fully know the dynamic, but I think that while it isn’t perfect, Hopkins has a lot of potential and is great for students who really want to take an active role in leading and shaping the course of LGBT life on campus / in Baltimore.
I’m not a student there but I visited the campus today and I saw a statue painted with transgender flag colors and with the words “trans day of visibility” written on it!
I don’t really know how well this speaks to the school’s LGBTQ+ friendliness overall, but this definitely made it a lot more attractive in my eyes.
Yeah, all kinds of stuff gets painted on it (less inappropriate stuff lately, which is nice). Mostly school pride things or random things about issues going on in the world (and someone keeps painting a mysterious Egyptian eye on things around campus), but someone (I’m assuming DSAGA) painted both that and “Trans Lives Matter” earlier in the year, so it’s both recognized and acknowledged on campus.