Coming out is the process of acknowledging same-sex attractions to oneself and to others. It is both a personal and a public process. For many gay and bisexual students, college marks a pivotal point where for the first time they feel free to explore their same-sex attractions. This book is about the struggles students face in coming out. The focus is twofold: the experiences individuals face in coming to terms with their sexual identity and the process of developing a group identity. The development of a group identity involves a degree of political investment. For some students, becoming political means adopting a queer persona. As one student noted, Queer is kind of an `in your face' attitude toward heterosexism and homophobia. A primary focus of this book revolves around the notion of queer identity and how students engage as cultural workers seeking both campus and societal change.
Personal Accounts by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender College Students This inspiring collection of first-person accounts on coming out, being out, and staying out presents the courageous voices of 28 remarkable individuals who offer comfort, insight and hope to the many young students who will have to grapple with their sexuality in addition to the woes of jobs, grades and student loans as they enter college life.
Addresses the experiences of trans college students, faculty, and staff in a single volume for the first time. While more trans students, faculty, and staff have come out on US college campuses today than ever before, many still report enduring harassment and discrimination. Others avoid disclosing their gender identity because they do not feel safe or comfortable at their schools. This groundbreaking book is the first to address their experiences in a single volume. Genny Beemyn brings together personal narratives and original research to give readers both individual and large-scale perspectives, which provide unprecedented insight into the experiences of trans people in higher education. These contributions reveal that despite an improving environment, trans people continue to face widespread interpersonal and institutional opposition on campuses across the country. Some of the first published research focusing on nonbinary trans undergraduates and trans graduate students is included here, in addition to the most comprehensive research to date of trans students at womens colleges and of trans academics. Trans People in Higher Education also examines the sexual health of trans students, the treatment of trans people by individuals with institutional authority, and the strategies and lessons learned from one college that successfully became more trans inclusive. Weaving personal narratives and research studies together in ways that highlight the full diversity of trans individuals, Trans People in Higher Education serves as an urgent call to action for higher education to play a leadership role in catalyzing broad social change around trans rights. In the process, Beemyn offers an invaluable resource for creating a trans-welcoming and trans-supportive environment on college and university campuses. Lynn Pasquerella, President, Association of American Colleges and Universities PRAISE FOR TRANS PEOPLE IN HIGHER EDUCATION Beemyns advocacy and research on trans people in higher education is groundbreaking, and this edited volume is no exception. Through a mix of narratives and personal accounts, as well as the findings of research studies by major scholars in the field, the book paints a rich portrait of the variety of trans identities and experiences on college campuses today, along with recommendations for how campuses can create a more inclusive environment. The volume is an extraordinary resource for all who are committed to creating campus communities that are welcoming and affirming for trans students, faculty, and staff, and for those who simply want to learn more about the experiences of trans people on college campuses today. Kristin G. Esterberg, President, State University of New York at Potsdam For more than two decades, Genny Beemyn has been at the forefront of higher education research and policy advocacy regarding trans issues. Beemyn has given us yet another stellar contribution to those fields with this new anthology,which showcases an impressive cohort of emerging voices as well as a burgeoning body of high-quality scholarship. Its the best, most comprehensive overview to date on the timely topics it addresses. Susan Stryker, author of Transgender History, Revised Edition: The Roots of Todays Revolution Trans People in Higher Education combines the powerful accessibility of compelling personal stories with the complex and often harsh findings of qualitative and quantitative research to demonstrate the continued need for trans-affirming campuses, from policy to classroom engagement. Despite more than two decades of positive changes in academic institutions, trans and nonbinary students, faculty, and staff continue to struggle for acceptance and equal access. This timely book shows that, in challenging the constricts of the binary gender system, helping others develop skills for culturally competent interactions, and expanding campus-wide policies, these individuals offer academia the best gift of all: learning opportunities and the inspiration to do better. Willy Wilkinson, author of Born on the Edge of Race and Gender: A Voice for Cultural Competency
Let the College Essay Guy take the stress out of writing your college admission essay. Packed with brainstorming activities, college personal statement samples and more, this book provides a clear, stress-free roadmap to writing your best admission essay. Writing a college admission essay doesn't have to be stressful. College counselor Ethan Sawyer (aka The College Essay Guy) will show you that there are only four (really, four!) types of college admission essays. And all you have to do to figure out which type is best for you is answer two simple questions: 1. Have you experienced significant challenges in your life? 2. Do you know what you want to be or do in the future? With these questions providing the building blocks for your essay, Sawyer guides you through the rest of the process, from choosing a structure to revising your essay, and answers the big questions that have probably been keeping you up at night: How do I brag in a way that doesn't sound like bragging? and How do I make my essay, like, deep? College Essay Essentials will help you with: The best brainstorming exercises Choosing an essay structure The all-important editing and revisions Exercises and tools to help you get started or get unstuck College admission essay examples Packed with tips, tricks, exercises, and sample essays from real students who got into their dream schools, College Essay Essentials is the only college essay guide to make this complicated process logical, simple, and (dare we say it?) a little bit fun. The perfect companion to The Fiske Guide To Colleges 2020/2021. For high school counselors and college admission coaches, this is an essential book to help walk your students through writing a stellar, authentic college essay.
Froma Glee ato gay marriage, from lesbian senators to out gay Marines, we have undoubtedly experienced a seismic shift in attitudes about gays in American politics and culture. Our reigning national story is that a new era of rainbow acceptance is at hand. But dig a bit deeper, and this seemingly brave new gay world is disappointing. For all of the undeniable changes, the plea for tolerance has sabotaged the full integration of gays into American life. Same-sex marriage is unrecognized and unpopular in the vast majority of states, hate crimes proliferate, and even in the much vaunted gay friendly world of Hollywood and celebrity culture, precious few stars are openly gay. Ina The Tolerance Trap, Suzanna Walters takes on received wisdom about gay identities and gay rights, arguing that we are not almost there, but on the contrary have settled for a watered-down goal of tolerance and acceptance rather than a robust claim to full civil rights. After all, wea tolerate aunpleasant realities: medicine with strong side effects, a long commute, an annoying relative. Drawing on a vast array of sources and sharing her own personal journey, Walters shows how the low bar of tolerance demeans rather than ennobles both gays and straights alike. Her fascinating examination covers the gains in political inclusion and the persistence of anti-gay laws, the easy-out sexual freedom of queer youth and the suicides and murders of those in decidedly intolerant environments. She challenges both born that way storylines that root civil rights in biology, and god made me that way arguments that similarly situate sexuality as innate and impervious to decisions we make to shape it. A sharp and provocative cultural critique, this book deftly argues that a too-soon declaration of victory short-circuits full equality and deprives us all of the transformative possibilities of full integration.Tolerance is not the end goal, but a dead end. Ina The Tolerance Trap, Walters presents a complicated snapshot of a world-shifting moment in American historyOCoone that is both a wake-up call and a call to arms for anyone seeking true equality."
It’s hard enough coming out, but playing basketball for a nationally ranked school and trying to figure out your sexual identity in the closeted and paranoid world of big-time college sports—that’s a challenge. Kate Fagan’s love for basketball and for her religious teammates at the University of Colorado was tested by the gut-wrenching realization that she could no longer ignore the feelings of otherness inside her. In trying to blend in, Kate had created a hilariously incongruous world for herself in Boulder. Her best friends were part of Colorado’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes, where they ran weekly Bible studies and attended an Evangelical Free Church. For nearly a year, Kate joined them and learned all she could about Christianity—even holding their hands as they prayed for others “living a sinful lifestyle.” Each time the issue of homosexuality arose, she felt as if a neon sign appeared over her head, with a giant arrow pointed downward. During these prayer sessions, she would often keep her eyes open, looking around the circle at the closed eyelids of her friends, listening to the earnestness of their words. Kate didn’t have a vocabulary for discussing who she really was and what she felt when she was younger; all she knew was that she had a secret. In The Reappearing Act, she brings the reader along for the ride as she slowly accepts her new reality and takes the first steps toward embracing her true self.
WINNER of 2017 AERA DIVISION J OUTSTANDING PUBLICATION AWARDCHOICE 2017 Outstanding Academic TitleThis is both a personal book that offers an account of the author’s own trans* identity and a deeply engaged study of trans* collegians that reveals the complexities of trans* identities, and how these students navigate the trans* oppression present throughout society and their institutions, create community and resilience, and establish meaning and control in a world that assumes binary genders. This book is addressed as much to trans* students themselves – offering them a frame to understand the genders that mark them as different and to address the feelings brought on by the weight of that difference – as it is to faculty, student affairs professionals, and college administrators, opening up the implications for the classroom and the wider campus.This book not only remedies the paucity of literature on trans* college students, but does so from a perspective of resiliency and agency. Rather than situating trans* students as problems requiring accommodation, this book problematizes the college environment and frames trans* students as resilient individuals capable of participating in supportive communities and kinship networks, and of developing strategies to promote their own success. Z Nicolazzo provides the reader with a nuanced and illuminating review of the literature on gender and sexuality that sheds light on the multiplicity of potential expressions and outward representations of trans* identity as a prelude to the ethnography ze conducted with nine trans* collegians that richly documents their interactions with, and responses to, environments ranging from the unwittingly offensive to explicitly antagonistic.The book concludes by giving space to the study’s participants to themselves share what they want college faculty, staff, and students to know about their lived experiences. Two appendices respectively provide a glossary of vocabulary and terms to address commonly asked questions, and a description of the study design, offered as guide for others considering working alongside marginalized population in a manner that foregrounds ethics, care, and reciprocity.
An NPR Favorite Book of the Year “Breaks new ground on social and educational questions of great import.” —Washington Post “An essential work, humane and candid, that challenges and expands our understanding of the lives of contemporary college students.” —Paul Tough, author of Helping Children Succeed “Eye-opening...Brings home the pain and reality of on-campus poverty and puts the blame squarely on elite institutions.” —Washington Post “Jack’s investigation redirects attention from the matter of access to the matter of inclusion...His book challenges universities to support the diversity they indulge in advertising.” —New Yorker The Ivy League looks different than it used to. College presidents and deans of admission have opened their doors—and their coffers—to support a more diverse student body. But is it enough just to admit these students? In this bracing exposé, Anthony Jack shows that many students’ struggles continue long after they’ve settled in their dorms. Admission, they quickly learn, is not the same as acceptance. This powerfully argued book documents how university policies and campus culture can exacerbate preexisting inequalities and reveals why some students are harder hit than others.
PARENTING NEVER ENDS. From the founders of the #1 site for parents of teens and young adults comes an essential guide for building strong relationships with your teens and preparing them to successfully launch into adulthood The high school and college years: an extended roller coaster of academics, friends, first loves, first break-ups, driver’s ed, jobs, and everything in between. Kids are constantly changing and how we parent them must change, too. But how do we stay close as a family as our lives move apart? Enter the co-founders of Grown and Flown, Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington. In the midst of guiding their own kids through this transition, they launched what has become the largest website and online community for parents of fifteen to twenty-five year olds. Now they’ve compiled new takeaways and fresh insights from all that they’ve learned into this handy, must-have guide. Grown and Flown is a one-stop resource for parenting teenagers, leading up to—and through—high school and those first years of independence. It covers everything from the monumental (how to let your kids go) to the mundane (how to shop for a dorm room). Organized by topic—such as academics, anxiety and mental health, college life—it features a combination of stories, advice from professionals, and practical sidebars. Consider this your parenting lifeline: an easy-to-use manual that offers support and perspective. Grown and Flown is required reading for anyone looking to raise an adult with whom you have an enduring, profound connection.
