Aimee Breaux | Press Citizen

Joseph Cress, Iowa City Press-Citizen

Survey after survey shows LGBTQ students in Iowa City, from kindergarten to graduate school, do not feel as safe or as welcome in their classes as their peers.

The surveys' results, which have been called "troubling" by local education administrators, are mirrored across the nation.

The Press-Citizen spoke with Pete Buttigieg ahead of the LGBTQ Presidential Forum in Cedar Rapids on Friday to discuss what the mayor of South Bend, Indiana — a city home to a large private and religious university — thinks the president of the United States can do to make schools safer and more accessible to students who identify as part of the LGBTQ community.

Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen

On the campaign trail, Buttigieg, the only openly gay presidential candidate, has long emphasized a "crisis of belonging" in the U.S.

"We have a culture right now — and certainly a president — that specializes in pitting us against each other," he said.

Friday, he stressed the need for a cultural shift brought on by a "moral leader" in the White House, directing the federal departments that serve students. He says progress gained under the Obama administration in protecting LGTBQ students' rights is being undone by the current administration.

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"We clearly have a lot of backsliding going on now," he said. "Students need to be able to learn without the kind of harms or harassment that come from a failure to take care of it."

Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen

At the Department of Education, he sees room for better training for teachers on LGBTQ issues and how to support students from different backgrounds, though issues that hinder LGBTQ students in the classroom do not only fall within the DOE's purview. Buttigieg points to homelessness among youth, which disproportionately affects LGBTQ youth, and he calls for a federal ban on conversion therapy.

Local surveys show that, in addition to feeling less welcome on their campuses, LGBTQ students may experience more harassment and violence.

Iowa City school officials began using their annual student climate survey to track how non-binary gendered students feel about their campus experience in 2017. This year's results showed non-binary students have "significantly lower levels of always feeling safe." Of the few non-binary students who took the survey, only 32% said they always felt safe, compared to 62% of their male peers.

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Election 2020: Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat campaigning for president in Iowa

The University of Iowa conducts a survey every other year on sexual violence, called the Speak Out Survey. The most recent survey, conducted in 2017, showed higher rates of victimization experienced by gay, lesbian and bisexual students. Bisexual women who participated in the survey reported a 15% higher rate of unwanted sexual conduct, compared to their straight female peers. Around 21% of gay men who took the survey said they were victims of rape, compared to just 4 percent of straight men who took the survey. The survey did not analyze how non-binary students responded to questions.

Buttigieg sees a cultural shift underway, brought on in large part by the advocacy of young people today. He said young activists advocating for climate protection, gun safety and LGBTQ rights seem to have a kind of "moral urgency."

"If I had come out in my high school, I would literally have been the only one," Buttigieg said. "Students — courageous students — are changing the misperception that any one student is alone, and I think that's one of the most encouraging things that's happening even just in the years that have passed since I've been in high school."

He points to students at the University of Notre Dame, located just two miles from South Bend, who advocated for decades to have a gay-straight alliance recognized by the campus.

"Still a long way to go, but what is starting to turn the tide is this sense of compassion," he said. "And, increasingly, you see alumni who are LGBTQ speak up, support students and you've got a whole dialogue on a university campus that's tied to a larger dialogue going on in the Catholic church."

He said public universities, like South Bend University, have the potential to be global leaders when it comes to educational access to LGBTQ students. But more work needs to be done to ensure the nondiscrimination protections implied by term "public" are realized.

"Matter of fact, Indiana is one of the places where you can still be fired for who you are," he said. "South Bend has legislation against that ... That's one more reason why we shouldn't leave this up to states."

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Photos: Cedar Rapids, Iowa, LGBTQ Presidential Forum at Coe College