The progress narrative that has developed on college campuses over the past decade would suggest that those campuses are becoming safe havens for marginalized students. Specifically, the growing body of research on transgender college students (Lange, 2019; Nicolazzo, 2017), the increase in the number of conversations about gender and sexuality on campus, and attempts to provide adequate housing options would seem to signal that trans students are accepted, making campuses inclusive spaces. This progress narrative, however, leaves out the reality that although change may be happening with regard to trans and queer issues, a student’s gender and sexuality are often framed as a singular identity, ignoring the ways that race and racialization impact a student’s experience. Furthermore, this narrative leaves out any examination of the way white supremacy and settler colonialism exists as undercurrents in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) spaces. This creates a predicament for trans students of color, who are having to navigate multiple marginalized identities as they attempt to participate in college life. How might trans students of color navigate campuses if they cannot find refuge in the spaces designated to support them? Looking at how trans students of color use digital spaces reveals how they negotiate life on campus and what this might mean for the work of LGBT resource centers.
In an article published in the Journal of Diversity in Higher Educationopens in new window, Sy Simms, PhD, Z Nicolazzo, PhD, and Alden Jones, PhD focus on the interview data of seven trans students of color who participated in a larger ethnographic project called Digital Me, which explored transgender college students’ use of digital spaces. In their study, the authors used narrative inquiry to paint the fullest picture of these trans students’ experiences. During the secondary analysis of the data, the authors came to understand some of the ways trans students of color created their own strategies to navigate the racism and transphobia they experienced in their everyday lives. Being online allowed trans students of color to develop various practices of disidentification (Muñoz, 1999, endure the tension of navigating racialized and gendered spaces, and find possibilities for their current and future lives. These students’ narratives also helped point out the ways that whiteness governs and shapes LGBT resource centers, confirming the stereotype of these resources being primarily white spaces (Nicolazzo, 2017).
Although the internet is not a utopia for trans students of color, it does provide a place in which they can experience belonging and understanding in ways not always accessible on campus. The insights shared in the article can not only change how people in higher education understand campus cultural centers but also invite practitioners to think critically about what it means to support multiply marginalized students. The article asks readers to question what having a safe and inclusive space actually means and to examine the ways systems of oppression have embedded themselves in institutions of higher education.
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