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The study included 337 self-identified gay and bisexual fraternity members, with 170 joining their chapters in the year 2000 or after, 99 joining their chapters between the years 1990 and 1999, and 68 joining in the year 1989 or before. Participants who self-identified as gay or bisexual men and who joined in the year 2000 or after reported a more positive experience overall as fraternity members than did the participants who joined at any time prior. Each new cohort showed movement toward a more accepting environment for gay or bisexual individuals. The data suggest that the fraternity environment is increasingly becoming more accepting of gay and bisexual individuals and the LGBT community.
Research indicates that students experience a campus climate based upon their social group membership (Chang, 2002) and students who experience a supportive campus are more likely to consider their college experience as positive (Milem, 2003; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Understanding how students from various social groups experience a campus climate is therefore important to higher education professionals in designing successful out-of-the classroom experiences.
The literature suggests that college campuses have been and continue to be difficult environments for students who do not identify as heterosexual (Dilley, 2005; Rankin 2003; Rankin, Weber, Blumenthal, & Frazer, 2010). For the purposes of this article, when referring to the overall "community" we use LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender). In the literature review, we use the sexual identity identifiers used by the authors cited. Bieschke, Eberz, and Wilson (2000) completed a meta-analysis of the experiences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) students. In the studies the authors reviewed, LGB students reported experiencing high levels of harassment on campus, and in three studies that compared LGB and non-LGB students' experiences LGB students reported statistically significant higher levels of harassment. Bieschke and her colleagues identified only six studies addressing the experiences of LGB students (and none that addressed the experiences of transgender students).
Bieschke et al. (2000) suggested that the research they reviewed was "sparse" and "methodologically flawed" thus limiting the findings' generalizablility. Bieschke et al. offered that the majority of the research reviewed in their meta-analysis contained research designs that were "atheoretical in both their conceptualization and discussion of results and not based on previous research" (p. 45)....