LGBT Friendly Colleges in the Southeast

I’m a junior who is beginning my college search. I’m thinking that I would prefer to go to a small to medium sized college in the southeast because it is closer to home and I don’t really like cold weather. However, I am a bisexual girl, and I really don’t want to go to a super homophobic campus. I was wondering if anybody has any thoughts on schools that are good in that regard. I’m not even sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I figure somebody may be able to help :slight_smile:

Emory, according to a relative who went there. Not sure if it fits you size-wise.

This may be useful: https://www.campusprideindex.org - you can search by region and size, among other filters.

Rice is very accepting of LGBTQ students. Rice has about 4000 undergrads, and the weather is warm most of the time. http://pride.rice.edu

One of my daughter’s suite mates freshman year was a lesbian, and it was no big deal for the rest of the 5 heterosexual girls in the suite. None of them were homophobic.

Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. They have an office of advocacy and gender justice. Very open and welcoming campus.

New College in Sarasota FL.

Campus Pride is a good suggestion. Anecdotally, I hear good things about Elon.

Unlversity of Richmond
Agnes Scott (++++)
UNC Asheville
Warren Wilson

Then there are the Princeton Review Rankings: https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings?rankings=lgbtq-friendly

Most secular colleges, including those in the South, are pretty queer-friendly these days. We can list plenty of colleges, but that’s a very slipshod method of college selection.

I recommend beginning with the major criteria - size, location (rural? college town? big city?), selectivity, cost, etc. LGB life on campus can be a limiting factor once you’ve drawn up a preliminary list based on those criteria.

If you want a bigger “out” dating pool, you might consider expanding your geographic range, though. One of my LGBTQ kids attended a college in a more liberal area, and found lots of dating options. Her experience as a grad school student in a more conservative area of the country has been less optimal.

William and Mary

Seconding New College of Florida. 40% of students identify as LGBT. I am gay, I graduated from 2016 and I felt more than comfortable on campus. I actually genuinely enjoyed the LGBT community at NCF because it really felt like it was just the entire school.

Elon recently made a top LGBTQ list and I know a trans student there who’s thriving.

Agree with UNC Asheville and Warren Wilson – the latter is very small.