Community engagement experiences of college students with minoritized sexual and gender identities

Utilizing national data from the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) survey coupled with in-depth interviews, the authors explored the community engagement experiences of queer- A nd trans*-identified students. Community engagement is nearly ubiquitous in institutions of higher education, and while the impact of this practice on students has been explored broadly, queer and trans*experiences are absent from extant literature. The research discussed in this article centers the perspectives and experiences of students with minoritized sexual and gender identities in an effort to understand how community engagement classrooms and placements engage with issues of sexuality and gender identity. The results of these analyses suggest that gender identity and sexual orientation play a role in predicting students' community involvement and that those experiences are complicated by instances of marginalization, silencing, and erasure.