<p>Hey so I’m a junior and I have to apply to college next year. I’m pretty set on going to a UC but I’m not sure which one. One of the things that I want to base my decision on is LGBT friendliness. </p>
<p>So I was wondering which UC is the most LGBT friendly, based on tolerance/acceptance, how active their LGBT community is and amount of other LGBT students. LGBT themed housing would be a plus too.</p>
<p>Definitely LA and Berkeley. Santa Cruz is also ideal.</p>
<p>Berkeley has an LGBT theme area in the dorms called Unity House, and the cooperative houses have an LGBT theme house named for Oscar Wilde.</p>
<p>[Unity</a> House](<a href=“http://themeprograms.berkeley.edu/unity.html]Unity”>http://themeprograms.berkeley.edu/unity.html)
[Oscar</a> Wilde House](<a href=“http://www.bsc.coop/index.php/housing/houses/medium-houses/oscar-wilde-hall]Oscar”>http://www.bsc.coop/index.php/housing/houses/medium-houses/oscar-wilde-hall)</p>
<p>I think they all are, but I’m confident in saying UCLA, Cal, UCSD are all LGBT friendly.</p>
<p>Of the ones I’m familiar with, UCSD, UCI, UCLA, UCSB, UCSC, UC Berkeley, and UC Davis are all LGBT friendly. I don’t know any LGBT students who go to Riverside or Merced, so I never asked them.</p>
<p>However people who live in the surrounding city of Irvine might act surprised if they see two men holding hands. This is not likely to be an issue in many of the other UCs, especially Santa Cruz, LA, and Berkeley.</p>
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<p>If you want to go by county where each UC campus is in, using Proposition 8 (anti gay marriage in 2008, so low yes percentages are more gay-friendly) as the proxy, we see:</p>
<p>Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County, 28.6%
Berkeley, Alameda County, 37.9%
Davis, Yolo County, 41.6%
Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, 46.8%
Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, 50.2%
San Diego, San Diego County, 53.7%
Irvine, Orange County, 57.8%
Riverside, Riverside County, 64.3%
Merced, Merced County, 71.0%</p>
<p>Note that the county that Irvine is in is not the most conservative (with respect to gay marriage) county where there is a UC campus. Los Angeles County is actually the median one of those with a UC campus.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-2008election-california-results,0,3304898.htmlstory[/url]”>http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-2008election-california-results,0,3304898.htmlstory</a></p>
<p>UCSB isn’t truly within Santa Barbara, it’s in Goleta. That makes a huge difference in how accepted gay students might feel on one campus versus another. </p>
<p>It’s also worth remembering that UC Merced isn’t actually in Merced, it’s fairly isolated from the rest of the town.</p>
<p>I’d like to add that the LGBT vibe in san diego is very strong, with huge gay pride and a great LGBT friendly district (hillcrest). The explanation for the prop 8 numbers can be found in the strong military presence in south bay (30 minutes south of UCSD, I rarely have a reason to go down there) that traditionally votes anti LGBT (although this is starting to change), the catholic immigrant population, and the wealthy, “old-money” in La Jolla. It’s that last group that would be the biggest influence on an LGBT individual, but I’ve found that on campus and the surrounding areas UCSD is very LGBT friendly, with a beautiful LGBT center and really open people. Most colleges in California tend to swing liberal and LGBT friendly, and that trend only increases every day. You would feel comfortable at most if not all the campuses, but I’d put UCB, UCLA, UCSD, and UCSC near the top of the list</p>
<p>^Large fraction of Californians are not well-educated. That’s why. The more educated the people are, the more likely they voted against Prop 8.</p>
<p>Public opinion on same-sex marriage has shifted so far, so fast that I’m not sure 2008 election results have much relevance anymore. Among other things, there’s an entire cohort of 18-to-22 year olds who weren’t eligible to vote in the 2008 election, but now are, and public opinion surveys show that group overwhelmingly favoring same-sex marriage. And the attitudes of many middle-aged people have swung as well. Older people, not so much.</p>
<p>That said, I’m not surprised that anti-LGBT sentiment would be strongest in California’s interior, in places like Merced and Riverside Counties. Interior California is more like the rest of the interior West, and very different from the coast. In southern California, I would expect much of the support for Prop. 8 came from Latinos at the urging of the Catholic Church. The Church hasn’t changed its position, but many individual Catholics have. At least that was our experience here in Minnesota, where the Catholic Church largely bankrolled a 2012 proposed constitutional amendment to put a permanent ban on same-sex marriage into the state constitution. They really shot themselves in the foot; by putting that issue on the agenda, it forced people to think about it, and upon reflection most Minnesotans, including a majority of Catholics, said the constitutional amendment wasn’t a good idea, and voted it down by a decisive margin—first time ever such an amendment had been defeated at the ballot box. And in the process, public opinion shifted so strongly in favor of marriage equality that the state legislature was able enact a full marriage equality bill this spring, which public opinion surveys say has been embraced by a majority of Minnesotans.</p>
<p>In any event, I’d expect every UC campus to be LGBT-friendly. The only question is attitudes in the surrounding communities, which should be fine in most coastal cities, less so in the interior.</p>
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Homosexuality is completely irrelevant in schools. Why would the level of education make a difference?</p>
<p>That’s downright ridiculous.</p>
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Again: why? I do not like generalizations that don’t have logic behind them :/</p>
<p>And regardless of what your thoughts are on homosexuality, I think it’s safe to say that how educated someone is doesn’t determine how good/bad someone is.</p>
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<p>Remember, these are the votes in the counties with the UC campuses. Except for Yolo County, the UC campus students make up only a small part of the county population, so the attitudes in the surrounding areas may be different from the attitudes on or around the UC campus.</p>
<p>Young people (i.e. including most college students) tend to be much more accepting than the general population.</p>
<p>stressedouttt,</p>
<p>It’s not only logical based on many people’s experiences (including mine) but also supported by statistics. A day afte Prop 8, Los Angeles Times published the GIS maps with statistics showing the breakdown according to race, education level, gender, etc. The most predictive factor is one’s education level. Even race is secondary though at the first glance, it seems otherwise. Once the education level is adjusted, race becomes less of a factor.</p>
<p>Yes, homophobes are on average dumber or at least less educated. Enough said!</p>
<p>@Sam Lee perhaps it is the more significant compared to others, but is it a significant factor?</p>
<p>although, now that I think about it after reading redhuntinghat’s post, educational institutions do tend to include more liberals than conservatives, so I suppose there is an influence.</p>
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<p>Students at educational institutions tend to be younger than the general population (even if you include non-traditional students and graduate students). For this particular issue, acceptance is rather strongly correlated to youth.</p>
<p>^^As a whole, the blacks were supportive for Prop8 by a large margin but among the educated blacks, the majority actually voted against Prop 8 and voted fairly similarly to educated whites/asians. I think that’s signficant enough.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus,
It’s not just the youth, the faculty are overwhemingly liberals, especially at the top schools.</p>
<p>Sam Lee is generally right about education being a major demographic divide on the issue of same-sex marriage, but it’s not the only one, and maybe no longer the most important one. Public opinion surveys say that while a narrow majority of Californians opposed same-sex marriage in 2008, by 2010 public opinion had swung slightly in favor, and by early 2013 a clear majority of Californians favor it (53% favor, 41% oppose). </p>
<p>Among those whose education level is high school or less, only 46% support same-sex marriage. Among those who have some college, 57% support it. Among those with a 4-year degree or higher, 59% support it. But that gap has narrowed since 2008, when only 33% of those with HS or less supported it. That’s a huge 13% swing toward support for same-sex marriage—the biggest swing of any demographic group.</p>
<p>Opposition remains strongest among evangelical Protestants, of whom only 25% support same-sex marriage. But even they’re coming around; that’s up from 15% in 2008. Only 45% of Catholics support it (up 3 points since 2008), but 56% of mainline Protestants do (up 12 points since 2008). Among those claiming no religious affiliation, an overwhelming 84% support same-sex marriage (up 7 from 2008). So I’d say the religious divide is more important than the educational divide, at least at this juncture.</p>
<p>Other demographics showing less than majority support for same-sex marriage: Republicans (30% support, up 7 points since 2008), persons aged 55+ (46% support, up 12 points), and Latinos (46% support, up 12 points since 2008).</p>
<p>Strongest support: Persons with no religious affiliation (84%), Democrats (67%, up 11 points), persons aged 18-34 (62%, up 9 points), college graduates (59%, up 6 points), and political independents (59%, up 6 points).</p>
<p>These are just enormous attitude shifts across every demographic segment in just 5 years.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1012[/url]”>http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1012</a></p>
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Agreed. In my opinion, parsing it further is an exercise in futility. People really seem to worry too much about this issue, though I understand why. </p>
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The UCs share a common application. If you’re willing to pay the application fees, it’s pretty simple to apply to as many as you’d like. There are much more important differences between the UCs than how they treat LGB folk. (T, of course, is always a more complex issue.)</p>