Crossroads: a transgender education platform for Greek life students

Abstract

Individuals who identify as LGBTQ+, particularly transgender individuals, face unique challenges on college campuses, and these challenges are further exacerbated by Greek Life, a college sub-community founded on gender. LGBTQ + training and educational materials exist on many college campuses but fail to reach the entire Greek student body due to optional attendance and limited motivation in Greek circles. This paper presents findings from a year-long human-computer interaction study examining one university’s Greek environment in which we employ participatory design to create a prototype for a mobile educational platform, called ‘Crossroads,’ that is more accessible to cisgender Greek students. Crossroads is characterized by short lessons with follow-up reinforcement challenges, and results suggest that it has a positive effect on participants, enables longevity of learning, and relieves the burden of educating from transgender and nonbinary individuals.