Shane Windmeyer Sounds the Alarm: The Quiet Crisis Facing Queer Students in 2025
As anti-DEI laws sweep the nation, Shane Windmeyer calls on higher education leaders to stop whispering and start resisting—because LGBTQ+ students can’t wait
It doesn’t always begin with headlines.
Sometimes it starts with a missing poster on a residence hall bulletin board. A familiar staff member who suddenly disappears from the resource center. A locked door where there used to be community. An unanswered email from the advisor who always had your back.
For LGBTQ+ students on college campuses in 2025, these quiet absences are adding up to something bigger: erasure.
Across the country, public colleges and universities are retreating from commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)—and queer students are being left to navigate the fallout. What was once infrastructure for belonging is now rubble, replaced by compliance language, rebranded offices, or nothing at all.
Shane Windmeyer, longtime national leader in LGBTQ+ student advocacy, has a name for what’s happening: “a slow-motion crisis that’s accelerating every day.”
“People keep asking if DEI is ‘under threat,’” Windmeyer says. “It’s not under threat—it’s being dismantled. Right now. In plain sight.”
The Disappearance of DEI—and What It Means for LGBTQ+ Students
In the past two years, over 20 U.S. states have passed or proposed legislation that restricts DEI in public higher education. From Texas to Florida, Utah to North Carolina, the message is clear: state-funded schools are being told to eliminate anything that directly acknowledges race, gender identity, or sexual orientation as relevant to student experience.
The impact has been swift:
- DEI offices have been closed or merged beyond recognition.
- LGBTQ+ centers and staff positions have been eliminated.
- Inclusive housing options have been rescinded.
- Safe Zone trainings have been banned.
- Courses in gender studies and queer theory are under review or canceled.
What was once progress is now being rewritten as political overreach. And the students most affected are those with the least power to fight back.
“When you lose your resource center, your mentor, your safe space—all in one semester—that’s not a policy debate,” Windmeyer says. “That’s trauma.”
A New Kind of Campus Climate: Fear by Design
In this new environment, LGBTQ+ students are being asked to show up for midterms, attend group projects, and chart career paths while navigating a daily climate of invisibility.
A recent 2025 national student survey revealed:
- 61% of LGBTQ+ students in states with DEI bans feel unsafe expressing their identity on campus.
- 34% reported losing access to a mental health or peer support program.
- 18% have considered transferring or pausing their education altogether.
The emotional toll is mounting—and in many cases, so is the risk.
“We’re seeing a rise in depression, isolation, and suicidal ideation among queer students,” warns Windmeyer. “That’s the cost of erasure. And it’s being paid in silence.”
Why College Presidents Must Stop Playing It Safe
While some college administrators have privately expressed concern over DEI restrictions, public institutional responses have been timid at best.
Rather than push back, many leaders have chosen quiet compliance: erasing inclusive language from websites, dismantling programs without notice, and offering hollow reassurances of “support for all students” that mask the truth.
To Shane Windmeyer, this kind of institutional passivity is just another form of harm.
“This is not the moment for quiet sympathy behind closed doors,” he says. “It’s the moment for bold, public commitment—especially from the top.”
He challenges presidents, chancellors, and trustees to reject the idea that silence protects them from controversy.
“If your students are under attack and your response is silence, then your values were never real to begin with.”
Student Organizers Are Rising—But They Need Allies
In spite of the rollback, LGBTQ+ students are not giving up. Across campuses, they are:
- Building underground support networks and virtual communities
- Organizing walkouts and sit-ins
- Launching scorecards to track which schools are failing on equity
- Creating digital zines and toolkits for navigating erasure
Their resilience is powerful—but unsustainable without adult allies.
Shane Windmeyer emphasizes that student activism can’t replace institutional accountability.
“We need faculty, donors, alumni, and policy advocates to step up and say: ‘We see you. We’ve got your back. We’re not letting this slide.’”
Five Ways Institutions Can Resist—Even in Red States
Windmeyer offers a clear roadmap for higher ed institutions, even in politically hostile environments:
🛡️ 1. Preserve Core Services Under New Names
If “DEI” is banned, repackage programs under wellness, retention, or leadership—while preserving their purpose.
💬 2. Say LGBTQ+ Out Loud
Stop hiding behind vague phrases. Affirm LGBTQ+ identity directly and often, even if policies change.
🤝 3. Build External Coalitions
Partner with local LGBTQ+ nonprofits and legal orgs to provide what your institution no longer officially can.
🎓 4. Protect and Empower Faculty Allies
Provide legal resources, mental health support, and professional protections to staff still doing equity work behind the scenes.
📢 5. Use Your Platform, Even If It Costs You
College leaders must speak publicly. National moments of backlash demand moral clarity—not marketing.
The Bigger Picture: What We Normalize Now Will Shape the Next Generation
Windmeyer warns that what happens on college campuses today will ripple outward into every sector tomorrow.
“If we normalize queer erasure in education, we normalize it everywhere—at work, in healthcare, in civic life.”
That’s why the fight for LGBTQ+ visibility in higher education is not just about students. It’s about democracy. It’s about justice. It’s about who gets to exist without fear.
Conclusion: The Choice Is Clarity or Complicity
This is not a hypothetical moment. It’s already here.
Queer students are being told, day by day, that their safety is a bargaining chip. Their history is a threat. Their future is optional.
But Shane Windmeyer refuses to accept that.
“These students are not asking for extra help. They are asking not to be erased. They are asking to learn, to thrive, and to matter.”
He calls on all of us—educators, donors, journalists, parents, alumni—to join that fight.
“The question isn’t whether the backlash is real. It’s whether we are brave enough to respond.”
Because for LGBTQ+ students in 2025, every semester without support is a semester too late.