Hi. Just wondering if lgbt people are accepted in Notre Dame. I know it’s a Catholic school, so, is there an lgbt community?
There are some 12,000 total students on campus. Let’s say the student body is half as likely as the general population to be LGBTQ – that means there’d still be a few hundred LGBTQ students. Opinions are like you-know-whats, but probably it is at least a physically safe environment for everyone, LGBTQ included. I found these with a simple search:
https://friendsandallies.nd.edu
https://www.tfpstudentaction.org/news/notre-dame-endorses-pro-lgbt-film-festival
I am not too sure, but in my opinion, while there is an LGBTQ community, some students and university policies seem to hurt LGBTQ students.
A lot of people at Notre Dame accept and try to be allies to the LGBTQ community. When walking around campus, there are numerous pride flags hanging from dorms and other buildings. Also, during my Moreau class, the university was trying to make everyone more understanding and accepting of others. There is also Ally Week, which I think was supposed to raise awareness of the LGBTQ issues.
On the other hand, as a Catholic university, Notre Dame has some policies which may not align with LGBTQ views. For example, in “Beloved Friends and Allies: A Pastoral Plan for the Support and Holistic Development of GLBTQ and Heterosexual Students at the University of Notre Dame”, which was a required reading for Moreau class, the university states that “With the Church, the University continues to note ‘the distinction commonly drawn between the homosexual condition or tendency and individual homosexual actions’”. So basically, the university promotes the acceptance of LGBTQ students, but does not condone “homosexual actions”. However, this policy aligns with their outdate “no sex before marriage” policy as the Catholic church does not allow same-sex partners to marry.
In addition, there are some groups and students on campus that have views that do not align with the LGBTQ community. For example, the group, Students for Child-Oriented Policy basically promotes the idea that same-sex couples should not be able to adopt children, stating “SCOP holds the union of a man and woman together that is inherently oriented toward family life”.
So while there are some unfriendly policies, I would say that the majority of the students at Notre Dame are very accepting of the LGBTQ community. In any environment, there are going to be those who disagree. One of my best friends at Notre Dame is gay, and I think she would say that she has had a good experience at Notre Dame so far.
btw, here are the links that I pulled the quotes above from:
https://friendsandallies.nd.edu/
https://scop.nd.edu/about.html
I forgot to mention, but some of the people that I have talked to think that the 3 year requirement to live on campus alienates the LGBTQ community. I heard that the university is working on a waiver program, but I am not sure how much that would help the situation.
D has at least two friends there who are gay. They’ve had no problems, and D says the students are accepting of gay kids. I do think that the dating pool is likely to be smaller there.
I just asked my daughter about this. For whatever it’s worth, she reacted very strongly and said she can’t imagine anyone at Notre Dame not being accepting of LGBTQ students. She feels the students there are very accepting of others. I agree with girish 21 that some of what the university publishes may not be completely in sync with the views of its student body. Also agree with Suzy100 that the dating pool might be smaller, so I would take some time to consider that. Below are some local South Bend links that might be of interest to you. Good luck with your college search 
https://sites.google.com/thelgbtqcenter.org/home/our-story/about-us?authuser=0
https://visitsouthbend.com/events/south-bend-pride-2018/
http://www.newnownext.com/pete-buttigieg-wedding-south-bend-indiana/06/2018/
I’m a gay sophomore, and I absolutely love Notre Dame – there is not a better college community or nicer people anywhere. For LGBT students, there are not as many people out, so that means it is harder to find things going on. Yes, there are dating apps (it’s 2018), but I encourage more openly LGBT students to attend so we become more common.
@girish21 I think you need to distinguish between the Church’s dogma and doctrines and the practices of Catholics. The church’s teachings on LGBT are changing but it does not officially embrace them. However, students and faculty at the university are very different. The same goes for contraception. You cannot buy contraceptives at student health or the ND bookstore, but students easily get them nearby. ND isn’t a seminary.