These LGBTQ Students Say Their School Treats Them Like Second-Class Citizens

For years, students say they’ve faced harassment for their sexuality. At the very least, they want their club for LGBTQ students to have official status on campus.

The Nation | Mary Retta | December 2, 2019

One night in 2018, senior Kyle Deserosiers was walking across campus with his boyfriend. They were holding hands. Another student, seeing them, turned and yelled, “Faggot!”

It was hardly the first time Deserosiers was ridiculed for his sexuality at Baylor University, a private Christian university in Waco, Texas. Administrators, students, and even professors, he said, have made lewd comments and jokes about queer and trans people in front of him, both in and outside of class, during his four years at the school.

Students have gone further to say that this kind of discrimination against the LGBT community is built into the very foundation of the university. Until 2015, same-sex displays of affection were a violation of the student handbook and considered a punishable offense. All residence halls are separated by binary gender. Many students, including Deserosiers, have heard rumors that the school has accepted sponsorships from homophobic companies that support conversion therapy. Students like Desrosiers feel that the school operates in a way that only recognizes the humanity of the cisgender and heterosexual student body. “I have had experiences that make me feel like I don’t belong here, like I’m an outsider, and that this is not the community for me,” Deserosiers said. “This discrimination needs to be investigated.”

One frustrating aspect of this has been that since 2011, the university’s administration has refused to officially recognize Gamma Alpha Upsilon, the school’s unofficial LGBTQ club. According to Anna Conner, a senior at Baylor and the vice president of Gamma Alpha Upsilon, the organization applies every year to be officially chartered; each year, it is rejected. Official recognition would grant the group funding and the ability to officially rent out spaces or bring speakers to campus, among other privileges. “They’ll tell us that something is wrong with the application, or that the organization doesn’t coincide with the student code of conduct,” Conner said. “We’ve reached out to the regents and various faculty and administration, but we haven’t had any luck meeting with anyone about it.”

In July, the club leadership board contacted the Big 12 Conference and the NCAA, asking them to examine the university’s discriminatory policies. As Baylor consistently ranks as one of the top schools in the conference, students believed this would be the best way to garner a large audience for the issues they were facing on campus. The students argued that Baylor’s treatment of LGBTQ students is not compliant with Title IX laws, and that other universities in the Power 5 Athletic Conferences have better resources, protections, and spaces for queer students on campus.

“We write to you as current LGBTQ+ and allied Baylor University students and recent graduates who have been engaged in efforts to ensure that Baylor University’s campus is safe, secure, and hospitable to LGBTQ+ students,” wrote the students. “Having appealed to Baylor University’s leadership on multiple occasions only to still be faced with an unfair, unsafe, and discriminatory campus environment, we now see no other option than to appeal to the broader community of which Baylor is a part, including its athletic association.”

In response, Conner and Hayden Evans, another leader of Gamma Alpha Upsilon, received a letter saying that while the Big 12 stood in solidarity with the club, there was little that representatives from the conference could do to help.

On paper, Baylor’s Title IX mandate reads that the university “does not tolerate discrimination or harassment on the basis of sex or gender,” defining gender-based harassment as “harassment based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.” According to Lori Fogelman, assistant vice president of media and public relations at Baylor, the university works to maintain those standards. “Baylor is committed to providing a loving and caring community for all students, including those who identify as LGBTQ,” she said. “Baylor is fully compliant with Title IX in its approach to LGBTQ issues.”

Students, however, say that the school’s actions toward the members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon signal otherwise. In August, Desrosiers penned an op-ed on the subject for the local newspaper, the Waco Tribune-Herald. “Besides enduring overt harassment and fearing violence, LGBTQ students at Baylor face second-class citizen status as a result of the university policies prohibiting us from forming student organizations and being fully recognized in the campus community,” he wrote. “While some who discriminate against LGBTQ people may seek to justify their discrimination through reference to religious belief, Baylor tellingly has not in recent years sought a religious exemption to the nation’s civil rights laws.”

According to Conner, Baylor administrators have told members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon that because the organization is “not biblical,” it is not in line with the university’s mission. Yet several students have argued that other nonreligious campus groups—such as the Campus Democrats and Campus Republicans—have gained official status from the university.

Religious universities like Baylor are allowed to claim exemption from Title IX regulations if they believe that following Title IX would violate their religious beliefs, a policy that many have found can encourage discrimination against the LGBTQ community. However, as a member of the Big 12 Athletic Conference, Baylor is unable to claim these exemptions. (In 2017, the Trump administration rescinded guidelines that allowed Title IX to apply to discrimination based on “gender identity”—that is, against transgender students.)

According to Conner, however, the university has found other ways to discriminate against queer students, such as upholding traditional heterosexual and cisgendered views of marriage in its human sexuality statement, a part of the campus’s sexual conduct policy. “The University affirms the biblical understanding of sexuality as a gift from God,” it reads. “It is thus expected that Baylor students will not participate in advocacy groups which promote understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.”

Conner’s response: “We are not an advocacy group, and we work very hard to not be considered an advocacy group, but the university still says that we are,” she said on behalf of Gamma Alpha Upsilon. “That way they don’t have to deal with us.”

This is not the only recent incident of Baylor’s attitude toward its queer students. In July 2019, after members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon and progressive Baylor alumni pushed for the university to bring in a speaker to discuss LGBTQ issues to alleviate tensions between queer students and the administration, the university chose to bring in Dr. Janet Dean, who had previously spoken at the college in February. She was asked to perform LGBTQ competency training for the board of regents.

Dean is the author of Listening to Sexual Minorities, a book that discusses three frameworks for how to treat queer students at Christian universities: an “integrity” model that focuses on changing sexual orientation; a “disability” model that treats LGBTQ identities as a health condition; and a “diversity” framework that emphasizes the importance of integrating queer youth into heteronormative society. Although the book does not directly mention conversion therapy, it does make repeated references to “healing” queer sexual orientation through prayer.

After word of this private meeting spread to the student body, Desrosiers sent a six-page letter to the Baylor chairwoman and the Board of Regents arguing that the university chose the wrong person to conduct the training and that her thoughts would contribute to the emotional and spiritual trauma of queer students at Baylor. “I got a response from the chairwoman saying she received my letter and would take it into consideration alongside other perspectives,” Desrosiers recalls. However, that week the university published a press release congratulating the board members for completing Title IX and NCAA sensitivity training. “This reflects the Board’s personal commitment to strengthening the University’s culture of compliance as we continue to do the right thing,” Chair Clements said in the press release.

Similarly, Baylor faced backlash last spring after an on-campus organization, Baylor Young Americans For Freedom—one of the four chartered conservative groups on campus—brought Matt Walsh, a conservative columnist for The Daily Wire, to speak on campus in April. In the weeks leading up to the lecture, a petition was created in opposition of Walsh’s presence on campus that received almost 3,000 signatures from Baylor students, faculty, and alumni. Although the petition did not stop Walsh from speaking at Baylor, this mobilization encouraged members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon to set up a meeting with the university’s board of regents to discuss the organization’s approval. The students quickly received a response from the school saying that as a private institution, Baylor “does not allow outside groups” to address the regents.

“We are literally students at the university,” said Jazz Aurora, a black transgender senior at Baylor who uses they and she pronouns. “We should not be considered an outside organization. That was the moment when we all sort of realized, ‘Oh, they are really not hearing us.’”

“Students have said hateful things about the queer community to my face, and I’ve been harassed while out with my boyfriend on campus,” Desrosiers said. “But I also think it’s important to recognize that there are students of color and transgender and gender nonconforming students who cannot ‘pass’ the way I can, and who have faced experiences that completely erase their humanity at Baylor.”

“Baylor has its own issues with race,” Aurora confirmed. “Being queer and a person of color at Baylor, it’s really hard to find people to connect with or relate to. A lot of times I find myself on the outside of both groups.”

Despite resistance from the university, members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon continue to fight for the club’s official status on campus. The organization applied once more for official status in March and is currently waiting on a response from the school, which can take up to 200 days. Members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon are also continuing to petition and organize, and have recently met with a lawyer to discuss their rights in the matter.

According to Aurora, even if Gamma Alpha Upsilon were to become officially chartered, there is still much work to be done in order for LGBTQ students to feel safe on campus. “We need sensitivity training,” they said. “I’m so tired of having to clarify that I’m transgender and have professors misgender me. If you’re the person at the front of the classroom, I would really appreciate it if you could address me in a way that doesn’t make me super uncomfortable.”

Gaining acceptance for Gamma Alpha Upsilon has been a struggle for almost a decade now, but students are determined to keep fighting. “Recognition would just mean that we exist,” Conner said. “It’s taken a long time for Baylor to recognize that LGBTQ students exist on campus. For them to say that it’s OK for us to be here and that there is a space for us to meet openly—that’s really all we’re looking for.”

Baylor regents meet with LGBTQ student group

Waco Tribune | Rhiannon Saegert | November 10, 2019

While the unofficial LGBTQ student group at Baylor University remains unofficial, a few things have changed.

Members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon got a chance to address the Baylor Board of Regents during the regents’ meeting last week, a first in the school’s history. The students requested a meeting with the regents in a letter sent in July. Vice President Anna Conner addressed the board, along with fellow GAY members Kyle Desrosiers and Charis Merchant. They discussed their own experiences, as well as the experiences of other LGBTQ students on campus.

“We got pretty personal with those stories, and it caused emotions to run high in the room,” Conner said.

The board took no action and the group will continue to seek a charter making it an official student organization, but Conner said the regents seemed receptive. In previous semesters, requests to speak to the regents had been turned down because of the group’s unofficial status.

“I think we really made an impact with them,” Conner said. “It was a panel, so it was just the three of us. We talked for an hour.”

Regents had discussed LGBTQ students during a retreat this summer, and Baylor President Linda Livingstone announced the university’s intentions to better support LGBTQ students in a statement in August. Livingstone also announced a discussion series focused on having civil conversations about difficult topics. The announcements came after a group of students and alumni emailed the Big 12 Conference and the NCAA in August, asking the organizations to re-examine the university’s treatment of LGBTQ students.

A more recent incident drew more criticism. A guest speaker in American sign language senior lecturer Lewis Lummer’s class, Jari Saavalainen with New Life Deaf Community Church, gave a presentation that veered off-course. When a student asked about Saavalainen’s work, he pulled up a website for a conversion therapy organization that specifically targets deaf Christians. Saavalainen continued to present in ASL for about 10 minutes.

Celia Scrivener, a nursing major from Marshall who is taking ASL as a foreign language, snapped a photo and posted about the incident on Twitter. Coincidentally, Scrivener is a GAY officer.

“My jaw dropped,” Scrivener said. “No one in the class seemed comfortable with it at all. I’m very stereotypical looking, it’s not a secret to anyone that I am gay. It kind of singled me out in front of that group of people. It was a lot of uncomfortable-looking faces, especially mine.”

She said she does not blame Baylor for the incident and has not experienced anything comparable in her time as a student there.

“If anything I think it was a lapse in judgment on the part of Dr. Lummer,” Scrivener said. “Baylor didn’t even know until the internet knew.”

Lummer apologized in an email to students the next day and explained he had not known what the guest was going to talk about ahead of time.

“I grew up going to Christian schools. … I’ve never been in a class where, all of the sudden, conversion therapy is on the board,” Scrivener said. “Especially not in an ASL class, where that doesn’t have anything to do with my understanding of a language.”

A Baylor spokesperson said the incident “does not align with the institution’s stance regarding conversion therapy.”

“Throughout the fall semester, President Linda Livingstone has had a focus on civil discourse in which we all strive to understand and be respectful of differing opinions,” according to the university’s statement. “The university does have a policy for students who believe a faculty member has treated him or her unfairly with respect to a course for which the student was registered. We encourage students in the class to exercise the appropriate procedures.”

Now, a faculty member anonymously provides GAY with a room on campus to use for meetings. One of the reasons the group continues to seek official chartered status is so it will be allowed to rent meeting spaces on campus.

“The group has worked hard to offer the kind of relationships and care they hope others will provide,” said Jon Singletary, who is dean of Baylor’s Diana R. Garland School of Social Work and describes himself as a friend and ally of the students. “This organization has worked hard to show the kind of respect for others that we hope to receive.”

Conner said the room provides an extra layer of safety that has allowed students who were uncomfortable with the group’s public meetings to join.

“It’s nice to see people who didn’t usually come,” President Elizabeth Benton said. “There’s a lot of new people here.”

The first meeting of the semester had about 40 people.

“It was a lot of people who didn’t know we existed came, a lot of people who wanted to show they supported us, and also new students as well,” Conner said. “It’s pretty well-known now.”

Conner said the most common refrain they hear from critics, “Why come to Baylor if you’re gay?” is one they are all tired of.

“There’s people who were forced to come here. There’s people who are legacies. There’s people who didn’t know about their identity until they came here,” Conner said. “Then, there’s people who say ‘This is the best school and they gave me the most money. It’s the highest ranking, and I’m not going to sacrifice my academic future because they say I shouldn’t exist.’ ”

After Charter Denial, Baylor LGBTQ Group Pushes Forward

Dallas Observer | SILAS ALLEN | SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

For the last eight years, a group of Baylor University students has been trying to persuade the school to allow them to form an LGBTQ student group.

Earlier this month, the group got an official answer from the university. It wasn't the one they'd hoped for.

Baylor officials notified members of the student group Gamma Alpha Upsilon — or GAY — on Sept. 6 that the university was denying the group's request for a charter. A charter represents official recognition from the university, which would give the group access to student activity funds, allow them to reserve space on campus for meetings and allow them to advertise events on campus.

That notification came just days after Baylor President Linda Livingstone released a statement on human sexuality on the university's website. In it, Livingstone wrote that the university "affirms the biblical understanding of sexuality as a gift from God."

"Christian churches across the ages and around the world have affirmed purity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman as the biblical norm," Livingstone wrote. "Temptations to deviate from this norm include both heterosexual sex outside of marriage and homosexual behavior. It is thus expected that Baylor students will not participate in advocacy groups which promote understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching."

Despite that denial, the group will continue trying to pressure the university to give it official recognition, said Anna Conner, a Baylor senior and Gamma Alpha Upsilon president. Conner, a Houston native, thinks the university is trying to wait the group out. Most of the group's leaders will be graduating in the next year or two, and she suspects university officials hope the matter will die once those students leave campus.

"It doesn't seem like they plan on making any action, at least not while I'm here," Conner said.

In an Aug. 27 email to students, faculty and staff, Livingstone said that, although the university's policy on human sexuality remains unchanged, the university can do more to support its LGBTQ students. Livingstone said university officials began holding conversations in the summer of 2018 about how the university could better support underrepresented groups, including LGBT students.

Out of those conversations came a number of themes, she said: the need for better training on how to support LGBTQ students; the need for opportunities for civil discussions about LGBTQ issues; and the need to establish trust with LGBTQ students so that they feel comfortable seeking out the resources the university offers.

"Meanwhile, as we begin the fall semester, we pledge to continue these ongoing conversations with faculty, students, staff, alumni and members of our LGBTQ community and to provide support for all of our students in keeping with Baylor’s Christian mission," Livingstone wrote. "We are all part of the Baylor Family and are called by Christ to love one another."

Gamma Alpha Upsilon was founded in 2011 under the name Sexual Identity Forum. Since then, its leaders have been seeking official recognition from the university. But for eight years, the university has denied the group a charter.

Baylor, the world's largest Baptist university, was founded by the Dallas-based Baptist General Convention of Texas. For decades, the university's student code of conduct banned "homosexual acts," calling them "a misuse of God's gift." Then, in 2015, the Baylor Board of Regents quietly lifted that ban. LGBTQ rights advocates celebrated the change, calling it a step in the right direction.

A flyer for a campus speech by conservative commentator Matt Walsh featured an LGBTQ flag with a hammer and sickle superimposed over it.

But Conner, 21, said unequal treatment of LGBTQ students has persisted since then. In April, Baylor Young Americans for Freedom, a university-approved conservative student group, hosted a lecture by Matt Walsh, a commentator for the conservative website The Daily Wire. Walsh's speech was titled "Why the Left Has Set Out to Redefine Life, Gender and Marriage." The group posted promotional flyers on campus bearing the LGBTQ rainbow flag with a hammer and sickle superimposed over it.

Last week, the group announced it will host a guest lecture from Daily Wire editor in chief Ben Shapiro in November. An opponent of LGBTQ rights, Shapiro has warned that “the gay marriage caucus” is “utilizing the law as a baton to club wrong-thinking religious people into acceptance of homosexuality." He is especially hostile to transgender people, who he says are suffering from mental illness.

Conner said the group doesn't object in principle to people like Shapiro and Walsh being able to speak on campus. But if those views are allowed an audience at Baylor, she thinks Gamma Alpha Upsilon deserves equal treatment and an equal platform.

"It seems reasonable, but apparently it's not," she said.

Lori Fogleman, a Baylor spokeswoman, noted that the university is hosting a conversation series during the fall semester focusing on civil discourse. On Tuesday, Christian LGBTQ author Justin Lee will give a speech at Baylor's Cashion Academic Center titled "Christianity and LGBTQ+ Persons."

Last April, more than 3,000 people signed a petition asking the university to recognize Gamma Alpha Upsilon. Among the signatories were current students, alumni and current and former faculty members. Conner said most of the faculty, including religion professors, have been openly supportive of the organization. A few university officials whose positions precluded them from signing the petition contacted members of the group to offer their support, she said.

But there's also an outspoken minority on campus that's hostile to the organization, she said. Mostly those people just shout ugly slurs, she said. But some of the group's members have been threatened on campus and told not to go to group meetings, she said. In one case, one of the group's members was walking to her car after finishing a late-night shift at a campus job when she noticed someone was following her, Conner said.

Incidents like those are examples of why an LGBTQ group is needed at Baylor, Conner said. The university can be an uncomfortable place for LGBTQ students, she said. Many of them feel isolated and alone, nervous about having come to Baylor in the first place. Having a recognized student group that can make those students know they're welcome would help allay some of those feelings.

Although the group still doesn't have the official recognition it had hoped for, Conner said it's been encouraging to see the support LGBTQ students have received on campus — even if that support hasn't come from the university's administration.

"For the most part," she said, "Baylor is very welcoming."

New semester, same frustrations for LGBTQ students at Baylor

Houston Chronicle | Brittany Britto | September 5, 2019

It may be the start of a new semester, but frustrations largely remain the same for many LGBTQ students at Baylor University.

After months of putting pressure on Baylor administration and its Board of Regents to meet with and formally recognize its LGBTQ student group, Gamma Alpha Upsilon, the students finally received a response from University President Linda Livingstone, but it wasn’t the one that they had hoped for, according to Hayden Evans, a second-year graduate student, outreach chair and treasurer for the group.

In a letter addressed to the university community on Aug. 27, Livingstone stated that “Baylor is committed to providing a loving and caring community for all students — including our LGBTQ students.”

But Livingstone pointed to the university’s newly launched webpage, which includes its human sexuality statement and sexual conduct policy in the hope of conveying the “university’s values and expectations.”

On HoustonChronicle.com: More than 3,000 petition for Baylor to recognize LGBTQ student group

The statement notes that “the university affirms the biblical understanding of sexuality as a gift from God” and that “Christian churches across the ages and around the world have affirmed purity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman as the biblical norm.” Its sexual conduct policy also states that it is “expected that Baylor students will not participate in advocacy groups which promote understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching,” which include “heterosexual sex outside of marriage and homosexual behavior.”

Livingstone further emphasized that the university is in compliance with Title IX as well as state and federal regulations in terms of the services and support it provides for LGBTQ students.

She also pointed to multiple resources provided for LGBTQ students through school organizations, including the Title IX office, the Chaplain’s Office and Spiritual Life, and its Counseling Center, which Livingstone noted does not practice or condone conversion therapy. The president also noted that students are not disciplined or expelled for same-sex attraction.

“With this said, we understand that we must do more to demonstrate love and support for our students who identify as LGBTQ,” Livingstone wrote, adding that it has been suggested that the university provide “more robust and more specific training” for students, faculty and staff in regard to LGBTQ students, and more opportunities for civil dialogue.

“And, perhaps most importantly,” she wrote, “we need to establish trust with our LGBTQ students so that, among other things, they might seek out the resources provided by Baylor — all of which must be done as a faithful expression of our Christian mission.”

Despite the lengthy letter, many LGBTQ students and alumni said they found Livingstone’s statement disingenuous.

“I’m appreciative of her that she made the statement at all and so publicly,” Evans said. Livingstone’s letter, he said, has allowed people to see some of the fight Gamma Alpha Upsilon has gone through to be recognized and included as a group on campus since its inception in 2011 as the Sexuality Identity Forum.

“But,” Evans added, “I also think it’s a hollow response.”

Justin Davis from Washington state graduated from Baylor in 2009 and agreed with Evans. He said little has changed from his time at the university a decade ago.

“To me, it indicates when these policies become more targeted, but less specific, they’re basically meant to discourage dissent, protest or advocacy,” Davis said.

“I think they’re soft-pedaling this ‘loving and caring community’ thing without taking actual steps.”

On HoustonChronicle.com: Baylor drops longstanding ban on ‘homosexual acts’

The private Baptist university’s refusal to recognize Gamma Alpha Upsilon, or “GAY” in Greek letters, as an official student group has prevented them from receiving certain privileges, including the opportunity to advertise events on campus, reserve university spaces for meetings, and to receive funding through the student government.

In May, more than 3,000 Baylor University alumni, students, staff and former faculty signed a petition addressed to university officials supporting the group’s fight to be recognized. Since then, Gamma Alpha Upsilon has requested to meet with the university’s Board of Regents — the entity that Livingstone said established its human sexuality policy. That request was declined.

Rumors of the school’s alleged loose ties to conversion therapy — treatments that are supposed to turn gay people straight — have also floated around among Baylor’s LGBTQ community. They involve links between Dennis Wiles, a member of the university’s Board of Regents, vice chair of the student life committee, and pastor of First Baptist Church in Arlington, and his partner church Living Hope Ministries.

Living Hope Ministries, described on its website as “a Christ-centered, Biblical world-view of sexual expression rooted in one man and one woman in a committed, monogamous, heterosexual marriage for life.” hosts a 20-week “intensive, discipleship program” designed to “assist those who have sexual and relational struggles of any kind in their life.”

Late last year, Apple pulled a Living Hope Ministries app from its online store, NBC News reported at the time. And in March, Google shut down a Living Hope Ministries app that promoted conversion therapy, according to reports by Business Insider.

But Jason Cook, a spokesman at Baylor, said “Dr. Wiles has indicated Living Hope Ministries does not do conversion therapy,” adding that the church is a “discipleship, peer-based ministry.”

Cook also emphasized that although Wiles, one of 41 members of Baylor’s Board of Regents, is vice chair of the university’s student life division, Wiles still has to consult and work with the rest of the board to make decisions.

“It’s unfair to cherry-pick an alleged belief of motive, and then ascribe them to the entire board,” Cook said, adding that there are many diverse-points of views on the board, some of which are LGBTQ-affirming.

“There’s a lot of misinformation that is intentionally being spread regarding this issue. We’re trying to be very clear and keep this on a factual-based discussion,” Cook said. “We’re trying to provide clarity regarding the university’s practices and we have demonstrated that we are willing to discuss the issues that our LGBTQ students face. That’s significant progress.”

Evans, the outreach chair and treasurer of the campus group, countered that saying Baylor’s administration is “doing minimal, if any, changes here at the university.”

In July, Evans attempted to “(go) up the chain of commands” by emailing the Big 12 and NCAA organizations in hopes that they could push Baylor to be more inclusive and have a conversation, but Evans said both organizations have said that the university is in compliance with their standards. A spokesman for the Big 12 conference declined to comment in response to Houston Chronicle’s requests, and the NCAA never responded to inquiries.

Since then, there have been some new developments.

Evans said that an open discussion — likely the first to ever take place between university administration and Gamma Alpha Upsilon — will happen soon. And on Sept. 17, Justin Lee, an author and founder of a Christian LGBTQ organization, will speak at the university’s Cashion Academic Center — in an event hosted by the university’s School of Social Work.

Still, Skye Perryman, Jackie Baugh Moore, and Tracy Teaff, the Baylor alumni who authored the letter that received 3,000 signatures calling for Baylor’s inclusion of LGBTQ students, said in a statement that though dialogue is a part of academic life and can be useful, “this is an effort about real people who are in the Baylor family living their lives as dialogue about their civil rights is happening around them.”

“Until all members of the Baylor family, including LGBTQ+ people, are afforded equal opportunities to participate fully in campus life, our work is not done,” the alumni group told the Chronicle.

“We and thousands of others look forward to helping Baylor move forward and urge it to adopt policies that are in line with its academic and athletic peers.”

Baylor president's statement on LGBTQ issues stops short of student demands

Baylor University President Linda Livingstone announced this week that the university will take steps to better support LGBTQ students, but recognizing unofficial LGBTQ student groups is not part of the plan. 

In an email Tuesday to students, faculty and staff, Livingstone stated Baylor students will not face disciplinary action for their sexual identity, and said that Baylor counselors do not practice or condone so-called conversion or reparative therapy to change their orientation.

Baylor officials have faced pressure in recent months from students and alumni who have petitioned them to recognize LGBTQ student organizations, and Baylor regents discussed related issues at a retreat this summer.

“During the course of these conversations, it has become evident to us that there are many misperceptions regarding Baylor’s stance on human sexuality and that there is more we can do to support our LGBTQ students,” Livingstone said in the statement Tuesday.

Baylor’s website now contains a page stating the university's LGBTQ resources are  compliant with Title IX, the federal law that bars gender discrimination on campus. The page states that students are not expelled or disciplined for same-sex attraction. In a frequently asked questions section, the site reiterates Baylor's official statement on human sexuality, which reads:

“The University affirms the biblical understanding of sexuality as a gift from God. Christian churches across the ages and around the world have affirmed purity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman as the biblical norm.” 

The page also states LGBTQ students seeking community support can find it through Baylor's counseling center, Baylor's Bias Response Team or the Department of Spiritual Life. 

“With this said, we understand that we must do more to demonstrate love and support for our students who identify as LGBTQ,” Livingstone's statement continues. “A common theme emerging from all of the aforementioned conversations is the need for us to provide more robust and more specific training for students, faculty and staff in loving, caring for and supporting our LGBTQ students.”

The unofficial student group Gamma Alpha Upsilon, formerly known as SIF, said in a statement that their members appreciate the university's efforts, but that Baylor still has not addressed issues they raised during the previous semester.

"We wish to point out that they have continued to ignore our requests and refuse to talk with us about the issues we face as LGBTQ+ students," they stated. "We have clearly outlined what issues we have found, in the petition written in April, that we wish to be addressed. In the email, the president has expressed interest in continuing the conversation and we would greatly appreciate the ability to establish this dialogue with her and other Baylor administration."

Kyle Desrosiers, a Baylor student who wrote about the issue in a Tribune-Herald guest column, called the statement a “callous lack of action.”

“Though President Livingstone and the Baylor administration think that current resources, which most LGBTQ students don't currently trust to meet their needs, are enough, LGBTQ students are constantly faced with harassment and hatred at Baylor in many ways small and great,” Desrosiers said. “Additionally, LGBTQ persons cannot and have never been able to participate in the Baylor community as fully as straight students.”

BU Bears for All founders Skye Perryman, Jackie Baugh Moore, and Tracy Teaff, who authored an open letter calling for recognition of Baylor’s unofficial LGBT student groups that gained more than 3,000 signatures, released a statement in response.

“Dialogue is part of academic life and can be useful," they stated. "At the end of the day, this is an effort about real people who are in the Baylor family living their lives as dialogue about their civil rights is happening around them.

“Until all members of the Baylor family, including LGBTQ+ people, are afforded equal opportunities to participate fully in campus life, our work is not done. We and thousands of others look forward to helping Baylor move forward and urge it to adopt policies that are in line with its academic and athletic peers.”