Being a Part of the LGBTQIA+ Community at CMU

The summer before my first semester at Carnegie Mellon, I was afraid. As a transgender man coming from a small public arts high school in Philadelphia, I felt like a tiny queer fish leaping over the edge of my small glass bowl into a vast ocean of unknowable depths. Although I was thrilled to be attending one of the most prestigious drama programs in the country, I felt an equal measure of anxiety about the possibility of being in a new city without the sense of belonging and community I had built at home. I had a lot of questions… Will I fit in? Do I even remember how to make new friends? Are there a lot of other trans and queer people? What if my roommate has a problem with my identity? What about my professors? 

As many people my age do, I turned to social media to alleviate some of my nerves. I thought it might be a good idea to connect with others in my class and form a picture of what my CMU experience could look like. I quickly found an unofficial, student-run Instagram page dedicated to helping connect incoming first years, and after scrolling through scores of introduction posts and even submitting my own, I began reaching out to people. It became clear to me that the same questions and feelings I had were ubiquitous among my peers, particularly those in the LGBT+ community. One of my new peers had the idea to make a group chat for LGBT+ students of 2025, and just like that, a community began to take shape. 

By the time the highly anticipated move-in day arrived, I knew I wouldn’t be alone. As the car rolled up to the Morewood Gardens parking lot overburdened with my most treasured belongings, a friend from the group chat stood waiting for me. Under slender streaks of sun peeking through the cloudy Pittsburgh summer drizzle, she greeted me with a warm hug, like we had known each other for years. Without hesitation, she offered to help me load my unwieldy bags and bundles into bright red rolling carts. We spent orientation week getting to know each other and our floormates in the gender-inclusive wing, most of whom were also LGBT+, with the exception of two towering student athletes who had opted in by mistake somehow (they were a bit confused initially, but ultimately kind and open-minded). For my part, I was relieved to be surrounded by people who genuinely saw and understood me. 

Three-and-a-half years later, I am typing this blog post from my friend’s couch: the very same friend who helped me move in on that rainy August day in 2021. For all the ways we’ve both changed and grown over the years, the kindness and warmth between us remains untarnished by time. Not only her, but my RA, roommate and many of my other floormates from that first year at Morewood Gardens have stayed in touch throughout my education, and I am constantly grateful for their friendship. The LGBT+ community here is fairly small and tight-knit, but our commitment to uplifting and supporting one another cannot be overstated. Being trans, or any LGBT+ identity, comes with legitimate challenges regardless of where you attend college. Anxiety about potentially experiencing isolation, exclusion or disrespect is understandable, particularly in a new environment. Fortunately, community exists wherever you strive to create it, and that same community will be there to catch you when you need it.