LGBT+ Students React to UWM’s Ranking as a Top LGBT+ Friendly University

Oliver Payne is a 20-year-old transgender and pansexual man who has been a film student at UW-Milwaukee for three years now. Upon hearing about his university’s high ranking, his face remained static, yet it was obvious that he was silently reflecting. After a moment, he released his initial thoughts. 

“What makes me feel like UWM is extremely inclusive are the resources,” Payne said, “When I was doing research on changing my name, (I found that) they have an entire website dedicated to giving you all the different steps. I remember when I changed my name on the campus systems it was really easy; it only took a couple of hours to do it. So, in that sense, I could see how [UWM] made it onto that list.” 

For the fourth year in a row, UW-Milwaukee was ranked one of the top 30 LGBTQ-friendly colleges and universities in the nation by the esteemed Campus Pride Index.  

The Campus Pride Index measures and rates institutions’ commitment to LGBTQ-inclusive policies, programs and practices in efforts to assist campuses in becoming more inclusive to students with diverse identities. The organization analyzes items including policy inclusion, institutional commitment and support, student life, housing and residence life, academic life, campus safety, health and counseling and recruitment and retention efforts with specific focuses on gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation. On nearly all these items, UWM scored five out of five stars. 

While the Campus Pride Index’s measurements are thorough and meaningful, none of them are directly based off LGBT+ students’ reported concerns or experiences, which inevitably leaves out many sides of the story. 

Payne’s first statement speaks to some of the items UWM checked off on the Campus Pride Index’s criteria. From having an accessible and simple name-changing process to providing students with the freedom to identify themselves on records…UWM has it covered, according to the Campus Pride Index. However, what’s not so clearly covered is protecting students from seemingly miniscule, yet uncomfortable in-person interactions. Payne connected the previous conversation to some struggles he has faced as a trans student despite outstanding university policies. 

“I’ve had professors who were unnecessarily confused by me. The university has these great systems where my name is one thing on every platform, but because [professors] couldn’t connect in their head what they were seeing to that name, they were constantly weird about things,” Payne said, “It’s not like I came in on Monday and I was Janet and now it’s Tuesday and I’m John; they only knew me as John…but because their eyes didn’t match what they heard, all of a sudden it was weird, which doesn’t make any sense to me,” he said while chuckling. 

Payne went on to talk about his day-to-day thoughts as a member of a typically oppressed community, especially thoughts he has while on campus. 

“I feel like I’m constantly being reminded that I’m trans, and I feel like it’s based on the college environment,” Payne said, “I’m at a point now where I’m passing, I don’t get mis-gendered at all anymore, but because I’m on a college campus and I have ideas of what college students are like, I assume that they are looking at me strangely…all of these different things go through my mind.” 

On another side of UWM’s campus, Zen Johnston studies psychology and biology on a path to medical school. Johnston is a 21-year-old student who identifies as genderfluid and gay. Besides both being members of the LGBT+ community, Payne and Johnston have little in common. One integral difference is the fact that Johnston’s journey started in a far less diverse place. 

Johnston started college at UW-Rock County, which wasn’t on the Campus Pride Index ranking. After earning their associate degree, they decided to make the move to a bigger, more inclusive environment that would provide more opportunities for them. With that move came the realization of the stark differences between the two Wisconsin universities. 

“UWM deserves its recognition,” Johnston said, “It’s definitely better than Rock County, no one asked for my pronouns at Rock. But there’s definitely room for improvements at UWM too.” 

Like Payne, Johnston noted the not-so-great personal experiences they have had on campus. 

“I haven’t had any outwardly hostile experiences, but microaggressions, by their nature, happen a lot,” Johnston said with a sigh. 

While both students praise UWM for its outstanding policies, programs and practices, there’s still concern when it comes to going to a university with a diverse student body, considering some students come from places like Rock County, where members of the LGBT+ community aren’t always celebrated or protected. 

“To me, the idea of having an inclusive university would be: I go to class, nobody has a problem with me and if they do it’s not because of my identity or what I look like, it’s because I f***** them over on a group project,” Payne said. 

Both students agreed that the best thing that UWM could do moving forward would be to stand by what it already claims to stand by and to continue to provide resources, opportunities and support for their LGBT+ students. Payne especially spelled out that consistently standing by all minority students for both the big things, like providing fully-functioning resource centers, and the little things, like ensuring faculty members and students use correct names and pronouns, make an institution truly inclusive. 

If you want to learn more about how the Campus Pride Index calculated UW-Milwaukee’s inclusivity, click here.