ABSTRACT
Cishetero-normative systems and structures fail to recognize and validate the humanity of LGBTQIA students. Nevertheless, these hierarchies of humanization are recognized and resisted by LGBTQIA students who demand to be seen and to have their needs met in every aspect of their educational experience. During the D. Trump presidential administration, education policy has become openly beholden to neo-conservative interests hostile to diversity, equity, and justice for anyone who is not a white, cisgender, heterosexual man. A liberatory higher education praxis must attend to the multiple ways that students with Minoritized Identities of Sexuality and Gender engage the systems and structures of higher education. The reality of intersectional oppression must prompt alliances and collaborations across identity-based workers within higher education. The greater conflagration of anti-queer and anti-trans sentiment is merely an unmasking of the refusal to acknowledge the full humanity of LGBTQIA people.
