Supporting careers of LGBTQIA+ students in Australian universities

Australians who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual and more (LGBTQIA+) face tremendous challenges in preparing careers through higher education. However, there is very limited knowledge on how they are being supported to achieve better career outcomes and what unique expectations they hold for university support systems. While LGBTQIA+ students have emerged as a new equity group in the higher education sector, Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment (2018) has historically excluded these students from the existing officially defined equity groups. However, the estimated number (>60,000) of domestic LGBTQIA+ students are comparable to (e.g., students with disability) or greater in number than (e.g., Indigenous students) some of the traditionally defined equity groups. Evidencing the unique vocational challenges LGBTQIA+ students face in general and in extreme conditions such as during COVID-19, our project has served to advocate for explicit policy attention for this emerging equity group.