Privacy in the residence halls: An unrecognized concern for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students

Questions about privacy were raised to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students at the University of Michigan. The purposes were to learn how LGBT students experience privacy and to discover how a safe atmosphere may be created which is conducive to the growth of these and other students. Students shared their feelings about privacy issues, which included feeling violated in classrooms and residence halls, being the 'token queer', and dating secretly, as well as being unavailable for one another as LGBT people unless there is a crisis. This work looks at issues raised by students and seeks ways in which these issues may be addressed on a large midwest campus.