Campus (In)clusivity: A qualitative analysis of queer students’ lived experiences in academic spaces of Assam, India

Research on LGBTQIA + inclusion in higher education often neglects the specific institutional and socio-cultural landscape of India's Northeast, particularly Assam. This study addresses the gap through a qualitative, phenomenologically informed inquiry involving open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with 21 queer students across eight higher education institutions in Assam. Drawing on queer theory, intersectionality, spatial theory, and the minority stress framework, the study explores how institutional norms, regional sociocultural dynamics, and structural absences shape everyday campus life. Findings reveal that dominant gender binaries, conservative social attitudes, and inconsistent institutional policies contribute to experiences of concealment, harassment, and emotional strain. While individual faculty members and peer networks sometimes offer support, formal mechanisms such as gender-neutral infrastructure, grievance redressal systems, and sustained policy commitments remain limited. Rather than isolated incidents, these patterns reflect systemic exclusions embedded within institutional cultures. By foregrounding voices from a region often marginalised within national academic discourse, this study challenges metropolitan generalisations in Indian LGBTQIA + scholarship and calls for intersectional, region-specific frameworks of campus inclusion. It argues that universities must move beyond symbolic gestures toward structural accountability if they are to function as genuinely transformative spaces for queer students.