Campus Sexual Violence and LGBTQ+ College Students during COVID-19: Perspectives of LGBTQ+ Anti-Violence Personnel

Background and Purpose: LGBTQ+ (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, nonbinary, queer) people are often left out of campus sexual violence (CSV) prevention efforts despite experiencing higher rates of SV than cisgender heterosexual people. In March 2020, prevention educators and survivor advocates (hereafter anti-violence personnel) shifted their efforts dramatically due to COVID-19. An increase in minority stress in this time period led to simultaneously increased precarity, and need, to support LGBTQ+ people’s well-being. To chart and learn from these sudden and dynamic changes, we used a practice-to-research approach to aggregate wisdom from LGBTQ+-identified SV prevention educators. We aimed to learn LGBTQ+ anti-violence personnel’s perspectives on (1) how COVID-19 impacted CSV against LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff and (2) how COVID-19 impacted SV prevention with and services for LGBTQ+ college students.

Methods: As part of a larger study, we used purposive and snowball sampling to recruit anti-violence personnel who (1) identified as LGBTQ+, (2) worked closely with LGBTQ+ communities on CSV prevention and/or survivor services efforts, and (3) were based in the United States. The first and second author conducted 32 semi-structured interviews and transcribed them verbatim. They then analyzed the interviews using an iterative thematic content analysis approach as well as negative case analysis, member checking, engagement of a seven-person expert advisory group of LGBTQ+ anti-violence personnel, and triangulation to enhance rigor. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth author then further engaged with COVID-19-specific preliminary findings as LGBTQ+-identifed and -serving researchers and anti-violence personnel.

Results: Themes on the impact of COVID-19 on CSV against LGBTQ+ people on campus included: (1) LGBTQ+ students were often not “safe at home;” (2) surveillance left LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff with limited privacy, which compromised survivor self-determination and safety; (3) LGBTQ+ students and campus employees’ social isolation was exacerbated by social distancing; and (4) LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff were burdened with disproportionate health and safety risks. Participants also shared how COVID-19 suddenly impacted their CSV prevention work with LGBTQ+ students. Key themes they explored included how (1) going remote provided both challenges and new opportunities for engagement, (2) relationship-building needed to shift due to a loss of tangible LGBTQ+ community spaces, and (3) COVID-19 illuminated existing equity and access issues for LGBTQ+ students and personnel and catalyzed some promising innovations.

Conclusion: Although COVID-19 created enhanced challenges for preventing and responding to SV against LGBTQ+ students, there are also key insights to help cultivate a multifaceted approach to ensuring services and prevention programing are equitable and accessible. Additional policy and protocol attention to LGBTQ+ survivor privacy needs is needed. Future research should assess how prevention programming and service delivery modalities (i.e., in-person, virtual, hybrid) impact educational and health outcomes. Qualitative studies on LGBTQ+ student, faculty, and staff acceptance of and engagement with programs and services is needed. Rather than only seeing the challenges presented by COVID-19, researchers and practitioners can take lessons learned and innovations into future research, practice, and policy to support LGBTQ+ people impacted by SV.