Mackenzie McCann
(she/they)
Liberty University
Mackenzie McCann lives in Bethlehem, PA. They identify as non-binary and queer.
She attended Liberty University for one semester, leaving in December 2018 without graduating. She was a transfer student, choosing to shift her focus from Psychology to Biblical Studies. She wanted to be surrounded by like-minded individuals on this new journey.
“From the minute I stepped on to Liberty's campus, I knew it'd never be safe to be authentically myself (as it relates to my gender and sexuality's queerness),” they said. Liberty University’s student honor code, “The Liberty Way,” has a range of anti-LGBTQ+ policies and explicitly prohibits romantic and sexual relationships between people of the same sex. The school’s official policies lead to an unaccepting anti-LGBTQ climate. “Students at Liberty behave in homophobic and anti-queer ways because they know that they can do so with relative impunity. Liberty's culture enables such conduct and makes students feel like Liberty is backing them,” they said.
Mackenzie left Liberty University “because of the emotional strain that I was facing – for my own emotional safety. She now attends Pace University. They are raising their voice to protect all LGBTQ+ students at Liberty University and religiously affiliated colleges across the country.
About US
At many religious schools, colleges, and universities, LGBTQIA+ and other marginalized students suffer discrimination, abuse, isolation, and hardship. If this describes you, you are not alone. We are in this together.
REAP fights for the safety, bodily autonomy, justice, and human rights of LGBTQIA+ and other communities marginalized at many predominantly white, taxpayer-funded religious schools and colleges. Using campus organizing, storytelling through podcasting, documentary film, and speaking and preaching on campuses throughout the country, REAP empowers students, faculty, staff and alumni at these institutions to advocate for human rights, while shining a light on the dangers and abuses of a major educational pipeline of white Christian Supremacy.
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