Dedicated to fostering thriving among 2SLGBTQ+ students on college and university campuses, this comprehensive collection brings together pioneering research, rich theoretical discussions, and practice-informed insights aimed at enhancing inclusion, academic development, and wellbeing for 2SLGBTQ+ students.
This book addresses crucial gaps in understanding campus climate and academic and wellbeing outcomes for diverse 2SLGBTQ+ students. It also provides examples of campus-based initiatives to foster students’ belonging and flourishing. It highlights the experiences of often-overlooked subgroups, including asexual and nonbinary students, and those with multiple marginalized identities, such as students of color and disabled students. Alongside exploring experiences of exclusion, the book emphasizes students’ strengths and resilience, offering insights for developing socially responsive institutional policies and programs. Uniquely, to inform meaningful change on campuses, the book presents illustrations of campus-based 2SLGBTQ+ initiatives, with several focusing on students often excluded from dominant “LGBT” narratives and student services. Chapters cover a range of topics including mental health and wellbeing support, academic engagement, community building, advocacy, and institutional change efforts.
Thriving On Campus amplifies diverse voices and experiences and showcases innovative practices, offering essential guidance to create inclusive, supportive environments for all 2SLGBTQ+ students in higher education. The chapters in this book were originally published in 2024 as a special issue of the Journal of LGBT Youth. Later in 2024 the journal’s name changed to the International Journal of LGBTQ+ Youth Studies.
Table of Contents:
Foreword: Toward queer thriving Editors’ Introduction – Thriving on campus: Promoting the inclusion, academic development, and wellbeing of diverse 2SLGBTQ+ university and college students 1. Queer crip enrollments: 2SLGBTQ mad, mentally ill, neurodivergent, and/or disabled college students 2. They don’t owe you their story: conceptualizing racialized queer care through protective spaces 3. Queering racialized designations: centering queer and trans Latine students at an emerging Hispanic serving institution (eHSI) 4. Identifying stressors inhibiting belonging, visibility, and peer inclusion for college students with MIoSG in STEM 5. The mental health needs of sexual and gender minority collegiate clients at university counseling centers 6. Examining campus support systems for LGBQ+ college students’ mental health and well-being 7. ‘I have had several providers who recognize my humanity’: exploring the overall health and positive healthcare interactions of transgender and gender diverse college students 8. Environmental and individual predictors of resilience for queer-spectrum college students 9. Belongingness, connectedness & engagement: the impacts of an LGBTQ + residential learning community 10. Students’ perceptions of all-gender restrooms after implementation 11. Practical insights from the Human Rights Campaign’s HBCU PrEP peer educator program 12. Queer and trans Black, Indigenous, and people of color (QTBIPOC): the sun of LGBTQ + rainbow 13. Queer umbrella: a student-employee collaboration to enhance 2SLGBTQ+ well-being and belonging 14. School of social welfare transgender justice group: student-led advocacy to promote justice and equity for gender diverse college students 15. Three years of Camp Qmunity: an interdisciplinary LGBTQIA + summer intensive program 16. Beyond gender inclusive housing: building a trans and nonbinary residential experience 17. The misgendering and deadnaming survey: an innovative, co-designed campus change project to catalyze improvement
About the Author :
Michael R. Woodford (he/him/his), PhD, Professor, Lyle S. Hallman Faculty of Social Work, Wilfrid Laurier University. Michael’s research centers on the inclusion and wellbeing of 2SLGBTQ+ communities, primarily focusing on campus climate, microaggressions, and resilience. Recently, he led the Thriving On Campus project, engaging nearly 3900 2SLGBTQ+ students across Ontario. Committed to social justice, Michael’s research prioritizes identifying actionable change to foster students’ belonging and flourishing.
Antonio Duran (he/him/his), PhD, Associate Professor, Higher and Postsecondary Education, Arizona State University. Antonio’s research involves understanding how historical and contemporary legacies of oppression influence college student development, experiences, and success. In particular, he is passionate about uplifting the perspectives of queer and trans communities of color, as well as theories and frameworks grounded in these experiences.
Tin D. Vo (he/they), PhD, Assistant Professor, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto. Tin’s interdisciplinary, equity-focused research centers on social climate and exclusion as determinants of health. Using a critical lens, his research evaluates policies and systems and explores intersectional lived experiences of historically marginalized communities to enhance their belonging and wellbeing in various contexts, including 2SLGBTQ+ leisure spaces and higher education institutions.
Corey W. Johnson (he/him/his), PhD, Karla Henderson Distinguished Professor of Social Justice, Department of Park, Recreation and Tourism Management, College of Natural Resources, North Carolina State University. Corey’s scholarship focuses on power relations between dominant and non-dominant populations. He has received substantial support to create safer environments for 2SLGBTQ+ youth in camps, secondary schools, universities, and detention centers. He is also a qualitative methodologist with several books on the subject, including Fostering Social Justice through Qualitative Inquiry.
Lee Airton (they/them), PhD, Associate Professor, Gender and Sexuality Studies in Education, Faculty of Education, Queen’s University. Lee’s research explores how Canadian schools and teacher education integrate gender identity and gender expression human rights. The second edition of their book Gender: Your Guide – The Gender-Friendly Primer on What to Know, What to Say and What to Do in the New Gender Culture was released in 2024.
Simon Coulombe (he/him/his), PhD, Associate Professor, Industrial Relations Department, Université Laval. Intersecting several fields of psychology, Simon’s research aims to explore factors that could be leveraged to promote the positive wellbeing of people, particularly those from marginalized groups, including 2SLGBTQ+ students. At Laval, he holds the Relief Research Chair in Mental Health, Self-Management, and Work.
Review :
Despite the unwelcoming climate for 2SLGBTQ+ students at many colleges and in about half of US states, they can flourish, and Thriving on Campus provides valuable insights into how 2SLGBTQ+ students can succeed and how faculty and staff can support their wellbeing and academic achievement. The impressive breadth and depth of this book—with articles focused on areas like racialized queer spaces, campus housing, all-gender restrooms, misgendering and deadnaming, STEM programs, and counseling centers—make it a must-read for people in higher education.
Genny Beemyn, PhD, editor, Trans People in Higher Education, Director, the Stonewall Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
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This book offers an important and timely contribution to the literature about 2SLGBTQ+ college students. The chapters center wellness and resilience for 2SLGBTQ+ communities, which is a welcome disruption to the anti-trans and anti-queer narratives saturating political discourse. I was inspired by the breadth of experiences, identities, and perspectives within the book that challenge assumptions about 2SLGBTQ+ students and nuance how we engage in transformative practice. Analyses are informed by critical frameworks and counternarratives that illustrate how institutions frequently harm rather than heal. Higher education administrators, practitioners, mental health providers, and faculty will find insightful guidance for policy and practice from this text.
Melvin A. Whitehead, PhD, Assistant Professor, Higher Education and Student Affairs, College of Community and Public Affairs, Binghamton University
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Woodford, Duran, Vo, Johnson, Airton, Coulombe, and the authors have produced an impactful collection that will make meaningful and sustaining waves across colleges and universities for 2SLGBTQ+ students. Rarely does a volume of work speak so strongly across sectors, including policy, advocacy and solidarity, and student success. What I find particularly remarkable is the collective focus on thriving, encouraging me and other readers to center joy, opportunity, and liberation among 2SLGBTQ+ people and communities. I am grateful for both the process and product of their collaboration and will be sure to share widely among stakeholders in higher education with solidarity, appreciation, and love.
Jason C. Garvey, PhD, Executive Director, Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, Friedman-Hipps Green and Gold Associate Professor of Education, University of Vermont
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Thriving on Campus serves as an essential resource for all who care about improving the conditions of 2SLGBTQ+ student livingness. Taking an expansive perspective as to who 2SLGBTQ+ students are and an affirmative approach to the places, spaces, practices, and resistant modes of collective worldbuilding, this book is a critical text. Kudos must go to the editors and authors who collaborated on this project; may we all be steadfast in enacting the policies and practices that aid in 2SLGBTQ+ students continuing to thrive as a result of their tremendous efforts.
Z Nicolazzo, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Arizona
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As a scholar-practitioner, this is the book I have been waiting for! Thriving on Campus: Promoting the Inclusion, Academic Development, and Wellbeing of Diverse 2SLGBTQ+ University and College Students centers the lives and stories of 2SLGBTQ+ students at the margins of the margins and offers actionable insights for how to serve and support their flourishing. I am excited to use this text in my practice and share it with my team and campus partners as we strive for a more just and equitable campus. With chapters from some of the most brilliant and trusted voices in the field, I believe this book has the potential to significantly shift both research and practice.
Jesse L. Beal, MA, Director, Spectrum Center, University of Michigan, PhD Candidate, Michigan State University
