Recently, Ron's wife was filling out an application for Bellevue College when she noticed something interesting. Instead of the standard "Male" and "Female" boxes that one checks on applications, there was the question: What is your 'gender identity'? And seven different options: Feminine, Masculine, Androgynous, Gender Neutral, Transgender, Other and Prefer Not To Answer.
Under that is the question: "What is your sexual orientation?" Where you can then check Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Queer Straight/Heterosexual, Other or Prefer not to answer.
After Ron showed us the application, we wondered why they were collecting this data. So I went down to Bellevue College and got some answers from the LGBTQ Center adviser, Colin Donovan.
"We started collecting the data this fall quarter. It's about being able to track how well GLBTQ, and gender variant students, are doing in school and how we can design better services, better classes, better programs to make sure these students succeed. Up until this point there has been no way to track how that's done."
The data is 100 percent private and not shared with anyone, and for now will only be used internally. This new data collecting system was accepted by all community and technical colleges in Washington state.
Petri Muhlhauser is involved in the school's LGBTQ Center leadership program. She says sometimes LGBTQ students have different needs.
