InQUEERies

We encourage you to use whichever bathroom is most affirming for you. This will, of course, depend on your comfort level in a given situation. The gender-neutral restrooms are definitely a great option to have!

To report an incident of discrimination, please visit concern.kennesaw.edu. For immediate assistance, please contact the KSU Police department through the dispatch phone number: 470-578-6666. 

Kennesaw State University defines discrimination as "Unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, color, sex (including sexual harassment and pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, ethnicity or national origin, religion, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status." (from concern.kennesaw.edu) 

Because the Stonewall Housing Community is gender-inclusive, rooms will not be assigned based on a person's sex marker, gender identity, or gender expression. This means that residents of the community may have roommates that identify as a different gender than themselves. 

The LGBTQ Resource Center does not look at legal markers when assigning rooms. The application does ask for your pronouns so we can address you respectfully, however. 

Here are some resources collected from outside sources. These resources are not affiliated with Kennesaw State University in any way.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) publishes a Standards of Care guide that medical professionals are encouraged to abide by. The most recent publication can be found here. This document outlines the medical steps one can take as a part of their transition. 

Hormone replacement therapy can be accessed with the ongoing support of a doctor or through the informed consent model. A therapist is often required to write a recommendation letter for hormone replacement therapy. Trans in the South has a list of providers and is very helpful. QMed, Someone Cares Inc., and InTown Primary Care are in the Atlanta area and have been utilized by KSU students in the past.

To find more information about legal name changes, check out the National Center for Transgender Equality's ID Documents Center! They have a search engine to learn name change requirements by the state as well as information on laws and policies.

Just remember: there is no checklist of steps you must take nor a correct timeline of when to do anything. Transition is an individual journey.

Kennesaw State University fosters an inclusive and welcoming campus community through a variety of programs, services, and policies that support all students, staff, and faculty. You may see others across campus and in your classroom displaying their pride, as well.

To report an incident of discrimination, please visit concern.kennesaw.edu. For immediate assistance, please contact the KSU Police department through the dispatch phone number: 470-578-6666. 

Kennesaw State University defines discrimination as "Unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, color, sex (including sexual harassment and pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, ethnicity or national origin, religion, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status." From concern.kennesaw.edu

For specific questions or concerns, feel free to contact us via email at lgbtq@kennesaw.edu, by phone at 470-578-7926, or to stop by the LGBTQ Resource Center located in suite 253 in the Carmichael Student Center.

Here are some resources collected from outside sources. As of May 2021, these websites and programs are still active. These resources are not affiliated with Kennesaw State University in any way.

General Resources

• Hudson's FTM Resource Guide 

• Includes general tips, binding methods, free binder programs, binder reviews, and how to find your size.

Free & Low-Cost Binder Programs

• FTM Essentials Free Youth Binder Program

• Designed for those 24 and under who are unable to purchase a binder on their own due to financial circumstances. They offer a limited number of free binders to qualifying individuals.

• Point of Pride Free Chest Binder Program

• Point of Pride provides new or gently-used chest binders to any trans person who is in need and cannot afford or safely obtain one.

We also have two student-led community groups that may help you meet others in the same situation: TRANScend and QMen. Your fellow students may have some tips and resources to share! 

Thank you for your question. Within your InQUEERy, it seems as though there are really two questions: (a) current HIV rates among queer men of color, and (b) strategies to prevent HIV transmission. To help answer these questions and provide more in-depth information about HIV, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has established a myriad of online resources.

Here are a few you may want to start with:

• HIV and African American Gay and Bisexual Men 
• HIV and Hispanic/Latino Gay and Bisexual Men 
• Start Talking. Stop HIV. 
• Project PrIDE

In addition to these online resources, KSU offers two departments that can assist in providing resources to students in relation to HIV and STIs:

• Student Health Services is the campus health clinic and is available to discuss specific concerns, offer STI testing, discuss PrEP and whether it is right for you, and other resources on how to mitigate risk via safer sexual health practices. To request an appointment, please call 470-578-6644.
• Health Promotion and Wellness offers a Condom Concierge service, peer health education, and HIV and STI testing.

Kennesaw State University has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars from the Campus Pride Index. KSU has earned this designation through a variety of programs, services, and policies that support all students of Kennesaw State University and fosters an inclusive and welcoming campus community.

A few programs, services, and policies that may be of particular interest to you are:

• TRANScend Community Group
• Stonewall Housing
• Kennesaw Pride Alliance
• LGBT Counseling Group and TransSupport Group
• Safe Space Initiative
• Non-Discrimination Statement
• Restroom Access Policy
• Unisex Restroom Map, Kennesaw Campus
• Unisex Restroom Map, Marietta Campus
• Preferred Name Policy

To learn more about what KSU has to offer, please feel free to schedule a meeting with LGBTQ Resource Center staff. We would be happy to give you a tour of the LGBTQ Resource Center and answer any questions you may have. You can schedule an appointment with us by emailing us at lgbtq@kennesaw.edu or calling us at 470-578-7926.

Kennesaw Pride Alliance, or KPA, is a registered student organization at KSU that offers a variety of opportunities for students to meet other students. KPA’s mission is to “promote awareness, understanding, and tolerance of gay, lesbian, bisexual, intersex, questioning, and transgender issues through advocacy, social activities, and community service. Kennesaw Pride Alliance seeks to provide a support network for the students of Kennesaw State University as well as educate others to challenge stereotypes associated with LGBTIQ lifestyles.”

To learn more about KPA, including how to get involved, please visit their Owl Life page.

The LGBTQ Resource Center respects the privacy of our students and understands that not all students are comfortable being photographed. It is our practice to ask students to complete photographic release forms prior to taking pictures of students in the LGBTQ Resource Center.  Photos taken during campus-wide and/or public events do not require a photographic release; however, we do make our best effort to inform students if we are taking pictures. This allows students to decide for themselves if they want to be included in the photo.

If a student has a concern about a particular image, please contact us at lgbtq@kennesaw.edu and we will work to resolve the concern.

The decision of whether or not to start a PrEP protocol is best discussed between you and your medical provider. For basic information on PrEP, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention offers the following resource: prep

If you would like to make an appointment with KSU’s Student Health Services to speak with a medical provider about PrEP, please visit Student Health Services or call 470-578-6644 to request an appointment.

The LGBTQ Resource Center (called the GLBTIQ Resource Center at the time) opened in January 2013 and was located in room 164 of the Carmichael Student Center on the Kennesaw Campus. We are now located in suite 253. 

The first LGBTQ student organization at KSU, which would later become Kennesaw Pride Alliance, was GLUE (Gays and Lesbians United for Equality) and started in 1991. GLUE eventually evolved into GLSA (Gay and Lesbian Student Alliance) and in 2004, GLSA became Kennesaw Pride Alliance.

Campus Allies are KSU staff and faculty members who have elected to have their contact information shared online as a part of a network of individuals on campus who have participated in Safe Space training. KSU students can expect Campus Allies to be supportive of the right of all KSU students to participate fully, equally, and openly in the life of the campus community where all students can be academically successful and graduate on time.

The mission statement of the Kennesaw Pride Alliance (KPA) states, “the purpose of [Kennesaw Pride Alliance] is to promote awareness, understanding, and tolerance of gay, lesbian, bisexual, intersex, questioning, and transgender issues through advocacy, social activities, and community service. Kennesaw Pride Alliance seeks to provide a support network for the students of Kennesaw State University as well as educate others to challenge stereotypes associated with LGBTIQ lifestyles.”

Students wanting to learn more about KPA, including how to get involved, can visit their Owl Life page.

After completing the Preferred Name Change Form and it being approved (see below), you may request a new KSU ID card with your Preferred Name. Your preferred name will be listed on the front of your ID and your legal name will be printed on the back. There will be a $25 fee to order a replacement KSU ID card. For this and other information related to preferred name change questions, please visit the Preferred Name Change FAQ page.

Our apologies! Over the summer we had the opportunity to rebuild our website and in the process forgot to upload/publish the file. The file has been uploaded and published and is now working. Thank you for bringing this to our attention! Maps can be found on the Facilities website for Kennesaw and Marietta.

Registration for Atlanta Pride will open after the start of the Fall Semester in August. We will be sure to share links to registration forms via email, our website, Owl Life, and social media.

We look forward to seeing you at Pride!

With an average of 250,000 people attending Atlanta Pride over the course of the weekend, Atlanta Pride can be an incredible experience to be a part of. KSU supports students who wish to go by providing transportation and participating as a university in the Pride Parade. In the past, students have had similar concerns and an option they took advantage of was to remain on the bus during the parade. This provided them privacy while also allowing them to experience what it is like to walk in the Atlanta Pride Parade. The Atlanta Pride Parade is televised, filmed, and photographed with photographers and camera crews along and within the parade route. Ultimately, it is up to each individual student to decide with what they are most comfortable.

The staff of the LGBTQ Resource Center are happy to meet with students who have questions or concerns about Atlanta Pride and work to find solutions that will work for each student.

Hello! An option that may be a good fit for you would be Stonewall Housing. Rooms within Stonewall are not determined based on assigned sex or gender identity. Stonewall Housing is an LGBTQ-affirming and gender-inclusive housing community on campus; this means you may be placed in an apartment with a folks with variety of gender identities and sex assigned at birth.

Also, it is important to note that “Stonewall Housing” does not appear on lease documents nor within payment options; this is to maintain student privacy. Leases and rental payments will only reference your room and building assignment within the Austin Residence Complex.

To learn more about Stonewall Housing, visit our Stonewall Housing page.

If you are interested in applying to Stonewall Housing, please complete our Stonewall Housing Interest Form on OwlLife.

The Marietta Campus already has a resource center available to students, the UNITY Center! The UNITY Center, located on the Marietta Campus, provides diversity services and programs for students; including LGBTQ, women, international, and multicultural identities. The UNITY Center focuses on the intersections of identity and works to facilitate dialogue within and between various student groups on the Marietta Campus. The UNITY Center is located in the Student Affairs Suite of the Wilson Student Center, room 230F.

Additionally, students who are primarily based on the Marietta Campus are invited and encouraged to visit the LGBTQ Resource Center on the Kennesaw Campus as well as participate in all LGBTQ-related programs hosted on the Marietta Campus.

Yes, any mail received from KSU would reflect the preferred name on file. Once a preferred name change is requested and approved, your preferred name will override your given/legal name in most software systems used on campus. While there are exceptions to which systems will make use of preferred names, most campus communication will only refer to your preferred name. There is not an option for you to limit or select which systems will use preferred or legal/given name.

For a complete list of which systems use preferred name and which systems use legal/given names, please visit preferredname.kennesaw.edu/faqs.

A great way for staff and faculty to get involved with LGBTQ topics and initiatives on campus would be through the Presidential Commission on LGBTQ Initiatives. More information (such as charge, structure, and meeting dates) related to the Presidential Commission on LGBTQ Initiatives can be found on the Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s website.

Absolutely, we are happy to work with GHC students enrolled in classes on the Marietta campus. Please feel free to contact our office and we will be happy to discuss details.

First, in order to begin to answer your question, we must first define who a Millennial is. According to Pew Research Center, a millennial is someone who was born between the years of 1981 and 1996 (Dimock, 2018). With a common understanding of who qualifies as a Millennial established, we can begin to explore what data is available to answer your question.

In a 2017 survey conducted by Harris Poll, on behalf of GLAAD, 20% of Millennial respondents identified as being LGBTQ, whereas 12% of all respondents in the survey identified as LGBTQ. Of the 20% of Millennials who identified as LGBTQ, 8% identified themselves as being cis-gender and 12% identified themselves as being non-cisgender. It is important to note that the sample size for this study was just over 2,000 participants (GLAAD, 2017, p. 3).

In a 2016 survey conducted by Gallup, they found that 4.1% of the overall U.S. population identifies as LGBT and 7.3% of Millennials in the survey identified as LGBT (compared to 5.8% in 2012). This survey included over 1.6 million respondents (Gates, 2017).

If we narrow the focus and look only at college students, we find that 9.7% of respondents to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) identified outside of being straight or heterosexual. Additionally, 1% of respondents in this study identified their gender as not being ‘Man’ or ‘Woman.’ It is important to note that the NSSE survey was conducted across 722 four-year colleges and universities in the US (650) and Canada (72) in 2017 and is administered to first-year and senior students at participating institutions (National Study of Student Engagement, 2017, pp. 6-7).

If we want to narrow it further and only look at KSU, the 2014 Campus Climate Assessment Project for the Kennesaw Campus provides us with some data. In this survey, there were 3,573 students who participated in the survey (Rankin & Associates Consulting, 2014, p. 13). Of the students who participated, 0.64% identified as transgender or genderqueer and just over 19% of students identified as themselves as being non-heterosexual (Rankin & Associates Consulting, 2014, p. 196). This gives us a total percentage of 19.64% of Kennesaw Campus students identifying as LGBTQ. The same survey was distributed to the Marietta Campus in 2015. That survey had 712 student respondents, of which 1.4% identified as genderqueer and 15.5% identified their sexuality as non-heterosexual (Rankin & Associates Consulting, 2015, pp. 14, 148). This gives us a total percentage of 16.9% of students on the Marietta Campus identifying as LGBTQ.

So to answer your question in the best way possible, between 7.3% and 20% of Millennials identify as LGBTQ.

Bibliography
Dimock, M. (2018, March 1). Defining generation: Where Millennials end and post-Millennials begin. Pew Research Center. Retrieved April 16, 2018, from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/defining-generations-where-millennials-end-and-post-millennials-begin/#

Gates, G. (2017, January 11). In U.S., More Adults Identifying as LGBT. Gallup. Retrieved April 16, 2018, from http://news.gallup.com/poll/201731/lgbt-identification-rises.aspx

GLAAD. (2017). Accelerating Acceptance 2017. Retrieved April 16, 2018, from http://www.glaad.org/files/aa/2017_GLAAD_Accelerating_Acceptance.pdf

National Study of Student Engagement. (2017). Engagement Insights: Survey Findings on the Quality of Undergraduate Education, Annual Results 2017. Bloomington, IN, USA. Retrieved April 16, 2018, from http://nsse.indiana.edu/NSSE_2017_Results/pdf/NSSE_2017_Annual_Results.pdf#page=8

Rankin & Associates Consulting. (2014). Campus Climate Assessment Project, Kennesaw Final Report. Kennesaw State University, Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

Rankin & Associates Consulting. (2015). Campus Climate Assessment Project, KSU-Marietta Final Report. Kennesaw State University, Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

The LGBTQ Resource Center realizes the transition to college can be both exciting and challenging. Being engaged with the campus community is an important part of a well-rounded college experience. A few ways to get involved with the LGBTQ Resource Center that may be of particular interest for first-year students are:

• Stonewall Housing, KSU’s gender-inclusive and LGBTQ-affirming housing community.
• The LGBTQ Resource Center, located in the Carmichael Student Center (Kennesaw Campus).
• The LGBTQ Resource Center offers seven Community Groups that focus on specific identities and experienceswithinLGBTQ Communities:
  • Aces and Aros focuses on asexuality and aromonatic identities
  • B+ focuses on non-monosexual identities, such as bisexual, pansexual, and polysexual.
  • QTPoC focuses on the intersections of race, sexuality, and gender.
  • QMen focuses on the experiences of students who identify as GBTQ and as men.
  • QWomen focuses on the experiences of students who identify as LBTQ and as women.
  • TRANScend focuses on transgender, gender non-conforming, and non-binary identities.
  • Queer Spirituality focuses on the experiences of LGBTQ students who identify with a faith and/or spirituality.
• The LGBTQ Resource Center hosts a variety of annual programs including participating in Atlanta Pride, LGBTQ History Month, National Coming Out Day, and much more.

In addition to the programs and initiatives offered by The LGBTQ Resource Center, KSU has an LGBTQ student organization on campus. Kennesaw Pride Alliance (KPA) is a student-led organization that hosts campus-wide events each semester and monthly meetings. To learn more about KPA, visit their OwlLife page.

We hope you take part in some or all of the programs listed. As always, our staff is available to answer any questions you may have. We can be reached via email at lgbtq@kennesaw.edu or by phone at 470-578-7926.

Go Owls!

(updated May 2021)

The LGBTQ Resource Center is a great place for students to learn more about LGBTQ communities and to connect with other students who may identify within the spectrum of LGBTQ communities and identities. The LGBTQ Resource Center is a public space accessible to all students, staff, and faculty at KSU. Because it is a public space expectations of privacy cannot be enforced or guaranteed between students; however, privacy is expected and respected among all staff in the LGBTQ Resource Center.

The LGBTQ Resource Center does not collect or store information on how a student may identify along the spectrum of LGBTQ identities. If students choose to share this information with our staff, we do not share it with others unless the student has given us permission to do so. Our staff respects the privacy of all students and maintains this privacy whenever possible. Some exceptions to this could be:

• If the information shared with professional staff falls under the scope of the Clery Act or Title IX. All professional staff within the office are considered Mandatory Reports and/or Campus Security Authorities under these laws.
• If there is a concern related to a student’s safety or well-being and their LGBTQ identity is relevant information to attend to the concern being reported.

If a student has specific questions or concerns, we encourage them to contact us via email at lgbtq@kennesaw.edu, by phone at 470-578-7926, or to stop by the LGBTQ Resource Center located in suite 253 in the Carmichael Student Center.

InQUEERies is a play on words combining the terms inquiry and queer. Inquiry means to make a request for information and the term queer is sometimes used as an umbrella term for the myriad of identities associated with LGBTQ communities. InQUEERies is meant to reflect how the program provides a space for the campus community to have questions about LGBTQ related topics answered.

Excellent question! LGBTQ is an acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer and/or Questioning. LGBTQ is often used to refer to the larger community of folks who may not identify as straight/heterosexual or cisgender (meaning a person identifies with the sex they were assigned at birth). This broader interpretation of LGBTQ is more inclusive of all the various identities that a person may use outside of the terms lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. It is important to note that LGBTQ is only one of many acronyms that may be used for the community, other common combinations are LGBTQIA (where the 'I' and 'A' stand for intersex and asexual), GLBTIQ, and TLGBQ.

Students wishing to update their preferred name may do so until 5:00pm on the first day of class. Name change forms will be updated three times per year, just prior to the start of the semester. The Preferred Name Change Form is submitted though Owl Express, under the Student Records tab.