{"id":51334,"date":"2018-01-06T15:02:17","date_gmt":"2018-01-06T15:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2018\/01\/06\/engaging-lgbtq-student-vets-on-your-campus\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T08:31:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T08:31:36","slug":"engaging-lgbtq-student-vets-on-your-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/education-transition\/2018\/01\/06\/engaging-lgbtq-student-vets-on-your-campus\/","title":{"rendered":"Engaging LGBTQ student vets on your campus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When former Navy linguist Lindsay Church was a student at the University of Washington, she was part of a team trying to build a community of fellow veterans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as a self-identified queer woman, she sometimes felt like she herself didn\u2019t belong in that community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn my first day, I got to hear many things about what gay people are and was made fun of without anybody even recognizing that I was in the room,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Church is the assistant director of the university\u2019s Student Veteran Life office, which also works with the Queer Resource Center on campus. And she wants to make sure other student veterans don\u2019t feel the same way she did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you see yourself reflected in leadership, you want to be a part,\u201d said Church, who also recently co-founded the nonprofit Minority Veterans of America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Church and three other panelists at the Student Veterans of America national conference Friday shared their experiences during a discussion on what it\u2019s like to be a veteran who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer and how campuses can better engage student veterans in this group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s unfair that an LGBT veteran has to come out of the military and feel like they don\u2019t fit in at an institution or feel like they have to be a different version of themselves where they go,\u201d said Alisha Guffy, founder of The Ask and Tell Project who identifies as a gay woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guffy said President Trump\u2019s recent efforts to ban transgender individuals from serving in the military has brought renewed attention to this topic, sparking interest in the intersection between the military and LGBTQ communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\t