LGBTQ+

AUP ensures that any and all incoming students are aware of the efforts AUP is making to be a safe and inclusive environment for the LGBTQ+ community through means such as but not limited to:

• Allowing students who are a part of gender and sexuality inclusion efforts to speak to all new students during orientation
• Providing LGBTQ+ resources to all new students
• Ensuring student advisors are educated on the unique challenges that incoming LGBTQ+ students face in the context of University, France, and globally during their training,

LGBTQ+ students have access to safe living conditions by:

• Allowing LGBTQ+ students to specify if they would prefer living with students of a certain gender identity or other LGBTQ+ students when filling out the first-year housing survey and prioritizing these placements,
• Providing an accessible way for students to report a hostile living situation,
• Taking all instances of homophobia, transphobia, and discrimination seriously and understanding that this can make minorities feel unsafe in their own home,
• Facilitating the removal of a student from a discriminatory housing situation and supporting them through the re-housing process,
• Refusing to work with landlords who are reported to be discriminatory,

Asks that the AUP admissions office is sensitive to the unique challenges and needs of LGBTQ+ students and upholds AUP’s commitment to being a safe place for LGBTQ+ prospective students by working in conjunction with AUP students involved in gender and sexuality inclusion efforts to reformat all forms filled out by prospective and admitted students to be inclusive to all gender identities and presentations through means such as, but not limited to:

• Asking for personal pronouns in an open-ended way
• Understanding that gender and sex assigned at birth/legal sex are two separate things and asking about legal and lived identities can cause distress to many students
• Allowing students to self-describe their gender identity
• Only asking for legal names and sex when absolutely necessary to confirm the identity of a student
• Ensuring that the information that AUP is providing to prospective students affirms AUP’s continued efforts to be an ally to the LGBTQ+ community

Recommends all academic and career advisors educate themselves on the unique challenges of LGBTQ+ individuals in higher education and the workplace by continuing conversations with LGBTQ+ students and professionals to ensure that advising recommendations can be as informed and as accessible as possible to students,

Urges the AUP Athletics Office to be welcoming and supportive of trans and gender non-conforming athletes by:

• Advocating for equal opportunity for trans athletes in sports,
• Allowing students to join sports teams and clubs that affirms their gender identity and feels most comfortable to them,
• Not restricting athletes based on their gender, which includes allowing and encouraging all athletes to train and compete in sports that they care about, regardless of gender,
• De-gendering discussions around sports in a way that doesn’t rely on biology to distinguish the gender of an athlete, what an athlete needs (in terms of nutrition, training, etc.), or an athlete’s capabilities,

AUP’s continued efforts to promote mental health and well-being on campus by ensuring that LGBTQ+ students have access to counseling and other forms of mental health care that is LGBTQ+ informed.

Calls upon the AUP community to normalize personal pronouns while creating a campus that is safe and welcoming to any and all trans or gender non-conforming students by:

• Ensuring that all students and faculty are able to put their pronouns into the University database and other AUP platforms including, but by no means limited to:
  • MyAUP
  • Engage
  • Student and faculty portals
• Giving students and faculty the ability to restrict who has access to their own personal pronouns and allowing them to change this data at any time,
• Ensuring that all forms and applications that ask for student gender provide gender identity options beyond the gender binary, as well as an option to self-describe and include personal pronouns, while only asking for records of legal sex in cases where it is absolutely necessary,
• Putting personal pronouns on all student and staff ID cards,
• Providing professors with the personal pronouns of their students on the student roster,
• Encouraging all students, faculty, and staff to put their pronouns permanently in their email signatures,
• Allowing any student to change how their name appears on school documentation such as:
  • TEAMS name labels
  • AUP student ID cards
  • Classroom rosters
  • Names associated with emails in the AUP server

• Further requests AUP remain committed to affirming individual gender expression and identity through de-gendering all bathrooms on campus, meaning:
  • The creation of a policy that protects students from being policed or harassed for using the bathroom that best affirms their identity,
  • Replacing gendered bathroom signs with inclusive or genderless signs,
  • Ensuring that free menstrual products are accessible to all students across campus regardless of gender identity,

Recognizing that the Trevor Project’s National Survey of LGBTQ Youth Mental Health 2020 reported:

• That transgender and non-binary youth suicide attempt rates decreased by half when their pronouns were respected by most/all of the people in their lives in contrast to those who typically did not have their pronouns respected,
• 40% of LBGTQ youth in America have seriously contemplated suicide in the last year, with more than half of transgender and non-binary youth seriously considering suicide,
• One in three LGBTQ youth report that they have experienced physical violence or intimidation at least once in their life because of their sexuality or gender orientation,
• Over 60% of transgender and non-binary youth report being obstructed or prevented from accessing bathrooms that affirm their gender identity, with schools being the most frequent place where this discrimination occurs,

Recognizing that the 2019 GLSEN survey of school counselors, social workers, and psychologists (SMHPs) found that:

• A majority of SMHPs received little to no competency training in working with the LGBTQ+ community during their graduate programs,
• Over one third of SMHPs had never received any formal training or education throughout their professional careers on working with LGBTQ+ students,
• SMHPs felt least confident in their ability to address transgender specific health and mental health needs,

Requests that the AUP administration work in conjunction with the LGBTQ+ community, GSS academics, AUP student gender and sexuality inclusivity initiatives, and LGBTQ+ mental health professionals to create and implement sensitivity training and provide education for all faculty and staff which would include:

• Information and educational resources about the diversity of gender and sexuality, emphasizing that identity is a completely unique and nuanced experience,
• Data and statistics explaining the very real detriments of not respecting someone’s identity, emphasizing that the attitudes and actions of faculty and staff can have lasting impacts on the mental health and wellbeing of AUP students,
• Learning how to handle the cross-cultural differences that may appear in a way that protects and affirms LGBTQ+ identity,
• Content sensitivity training to ensure that discussions of gender and sexuality are occurring in and outside of classrooms in a way that prioritizes LGBTQ+ voices and feelings while ensuring the safety of LGBTQ+ students,
• Ways to incorporate LGBTQ+ topics into existing curriculum with the understanding that LGBTQ+ history has been systemically erased from mainstream curriculums and histories,
• A focus on how to support and uplift LGBTQ+ youth to ensure that all classrooms and offices at AUP are openly welcome and supportive of LGBTQ+ students,