Campus Recreation Amenity Use Differences by Sexual Orientation Among US College Students

College years are a formative life stage; however, students who identify as a sexual minority participate in insufficient physical activity. This study examined differences in level of comfort 1) with/in campus recreation facilities overall, and 2) using specific amenities, by sexual orientation. Students at four public universities completed online surveys assessing perceived comfort using their campus recreation facility. Among participants (n = 160), Kruskal-Wallis analyses showed comfort using campus recreation facilities, free weights, non-intramural sports,and intramural sports was significantly higher among heterosexual students compared to sexual minority students (all p < 0.005). These findings highlight inequities in comfort using campus recreation facilities and provide evidence of the need for inclusive recreation spaces for all students regardless of sexual orientation. Future research is needed to assess LBGTQ+ student's health disparities related to campus recreation facility use and how to increase perceived comfort for all students.


Introduction
It is well documented in the literature that physical activity has numerous health benefits, including improved mental and physical health outcomes (2018Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee, 2018;Bull et al., 2020).College years are considered formative for developing habits that will continue post-graduation, whether they be healthy or unhealthy.Specifically, physical activity in college is indicative of activity postgraduation (Wilson, Matthews, et al., 2020); however, college students continue to participate in insufficient physical activity (aerobic and muscle strengthening) (Wilson et al., 2021), with women (Wilson, Colinear, et al., 2020) and sexual minorities (e.g., LGBQ) reporting reduced levels of overall physical activity due to societal stereotypes (Frederick et al., 2020), athletic self-esteem (Calzo et al., 2014), and dominant space behaviors of men (Coen et al., 2018).
Campus recreation facilities can serve as supportive institutions to encourage physical activity among students (Bull et al., 2020).These facilities also assist in promoting social belonging and place bonding leading to increased university retention (Miller, 2011).Additionally, use of campus recreation amenities and sport programming (club and intramural sports) has been linked to a higher grade point average and likelihood of degree completion (McElveen & Ibele, 2019;Roddy et al., 2017;Vasold et al., 2019;Vasold et al., 2021).College student physical activity interventions continue to be unsuccessful, potentially due to a lack of environmental and policy modifications that promote equity (Wilson, Guthrie, et al., 2020), which emphasizes the importance of campus recreation facility use.
With a growing proportion of college students identifying as a sexual minority (Conron & Goldberg, 2020), it is imperative for research to continue in this field to understand behavioral or systematic disparities that impact health.Similarly, campus-based research suggests that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students experience heterosexism on campus, including derogatory comments and acts of transgression (Rankin et al., 2010).Using the minority stress scale with sexual minority college students, Woodford and Kulick (2015) found that increased heterosexual harassment was associated with increased feelings of depression, anxiety, alcohol use, and negative physical health outcomes.Furthermore, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students report that they feel the least safe and supported in physical education and athletic environments (Barber & Krane, 2007;Seehuus et al., 2021).Sexual minority individuals report higher rates of mental health issues (Brooks et al., 2022;Seehuus et al., 2021) and physical inactivity (American College Health Association, 2022), and describe additional barriers to physical activity specific to their LGBTQ+ identity (Frederick et al., 2022).Specifically related to sport participation, sexual minority individuals report higher discrimination when participating in club sports (Anderson & Mowatt, 2013) and participate less in team sports (Calzo et al., 2014).
Campus climate and facility resources must improve to accommodate these individuals to promote positive physical and mental health outcomes.Though there is evidence examining gender differences and perceived comfort using campus recreation facilities (Shaikh et al., 2018;Wilson, Colinear, et al., 2020), there is limited literature detailing perceived comfort using campus recreation facilities among individuals who identify as a sexual minority.The purpose of this study was to examine sexual orientation differences of campus recreation amenity comfort levels.Comfort is an important factor that may impact the use of certain amenity types, and in turn, physical activity behaviors of students.Understanding comfort across different types of amenities is a first step to informing focal areas for potential new policies or practices that campus recreation professionals can employ to promote more equitable amenity use.

Participants and Procedures
Data for this cross-sectional study were collected using an open-link, Qualtrics (Provo, UT) survey at four public universities in the United States.Participants were college students with varying academic backgrounds.Email distribution of the survey occurred from March to April of 2022 and varied by institution: (1) to several large general education courses that draw students from various majors and at various undergraduate levels, (2) to campus recreational sport participants by the campus recreation department and by the School of Sport, Recreation, and Tourism Management via their school newsletter email, (3) to Kinesiology-specific students, and (4) to all undergraduate students via university Listserv.Participants were presented with a description of the study and link to the survey.Upon opening the survey link, informed consent was presented before beginning the survey.The survey asked about participants' physical activity and included specific questions regarding perceived comfort of amenity use at their campus recreation facility.As an incentive, participants who completed the survey (n = 673) were able to enter a drawing for a gift card.Given our varied survey distribution methods and unknown size of several email lists from which we recruited participants, it is not possible to calculate a true response rate.Only participants with completed data on the variables of interest were retained for analysis (n = 160).This analysis is only one piece of a larger study.
Comfort levels using available campus recreation amenities.Participants who used campus recreation facilities indicated their comfort when exercising in the facilities and when using the amenities within the facilities (machine weights, free weights, cardio equipment, stretching areas, informal (non-intramural) sports, intramural sports, club sports, group exercise classes, indoor running track, and pool) on a 100-point scale with 0 being "not comfortable" and 100 being "very comfortable" (see Table 2).This scale was previously used in a similar study (Wilson, Colinear, et al., 2020), which was effective in measuring the differences in comfort with/ in campus recreation spaces and highlighted how comfort with specific amenities mirrored actual use of amenities.The scale was shown to have ideal internal consistency in the current study (α = 0.95).

Data Analyses
Descriptive statistics were computed using IBM SPSS Statistics Version 28.0.1.1 (IBM, Armonk, NY).Descriptive statistics were computed to describe the sample with regard to participant characteristics and overall and specific comfort levels.
Due to varying sample sizes among groups, the Kruskal-Wallis test was used to assess differences in level of comfort both overall and for individual amenities based on sexual orientation.To reduce the likelihood of Type 1 error associated with multiple tests, a Bonferroni correction factor was used, and significance was set at p < .005.

Overall Comfort Using Campus Recreation Facilities
Overall comfort using campus recreation facilities (p = .002)was significantly higher among heterosexual students compared to sexual minority students (see Table 2).

Comfort Level Using Specific Campus Recreation Amenities
Comfort using free weights (p = .004),informal (non-intramural) sports (p < .001),and intramural sports (p < .001) was significantly higher among heterosexual students compared to sexual minority students (see Table 2).

Discussion
The results of this study indicate that sexual minority students report feeling less comfortable in campus recreation facilities overall, and specifically when using free weights and participating in informal (non-intramural) and intramural sports.The findings of this study are in-line with previous research that found historically overlooked groups reported lower comfort and use, including gender differences in physical activity (Wilson et al., 2019), with women reporting less comfort and use of campus recreation facilities compared to their male counterparts (Wilson, Colinear, et al., 2020).When examining informal and intramural participation, the current findings are similar to previous research describing sexual minority students reporting lack of comfort participating in informal and intramural (club) sports (Anderson, 2017;Anderson & Mowatt, 2013;Elling & Janssens, 2009).
Adding context about the role of comfort in sport environments, Anderson and Mowatt (2013) and Anderson (2017) used a modified version of the attitudes toward lesbians and gay men (ATLG) scale to assess attitudes and found heterosexual males on the baseball club team held negative attitudes toward gay and lesbian participants, providing foundational knowledge in understanding why sexual minorities may be hesitant to participate in informal or club sports due to potential discomfort.These findings offer insight to the team environment format and less about the individual members, placing emphasis on the role of positive intergroup contact and supportive leadership within recreation spaces that impact attitudes to improve inclusivity of participation and limit negative intergroup contact (Cunningham, 2019;Denison et al., 2021).
LGBT ally training programs (ATPs) on college campuses have been previously examined to measure impact (Woodford et al., 2014); however, there continues to be a lack of engagement and operationalization in these initiatives to improve campus climate (DeVita & Anders, 2018) and many programs create over-ambitious goals that cannot be met due to resource limitations (Woodford et al., 2014).To combat issues of negative intergroup contact in the physical activity setting, future initiatives should implement programs with attainable goals that can be met with allotted resources of faculty time and skills, as as ensure input from those who ally-ship.Equitable physical activity opportunities are needed to improve mental and physical health outcomes for students.It is important to ensure measurements of gender identity and sexual orientation are being gathered for research and operational facility use.Many campus recreation facilities currently survey their student population; for example, their classification of sexual minority students is limited to only "heterosexual/straight" and "LGBTQA" groups based on self-report (Penn State Student Affairs, 2018), making it difficult to assess the disparities LGBTQA students face due to a lack of specific sexual identity classifications.This is an ongoing challenge in data collection and research, particularly due to small sample sizes and low statistical power.Further, research in healthcare facilities indicates that patients felt that if their sexual orientation and gender identity information was collected, their provider would gain a better understanding of them and improve health outcomes and treatments (Maragh-Bass et al., 2017).Installing a standardized demographic questionnaire that details sexual orientation or gender identity could be pivotal in proper reporting of student body demographics.Resources are available for standardized sexual orientation and gender identity measures that can be used to aid campus recreation survey methods (GenIUSS Group, 2014).
Moreover, research supports the notion of implementing private workout spaces to help reduce constraints associated with activity (Shaikh et al., 2018;Wilson, Colinear, et al., 2020).To expand on this, campus reaction facilities could implement and/or increase availability of these spaces but ensuring to market them as 'secluded workout spaces' rather than groupspecific spaces (i.e., LGBQ-only spaces) to reduce further separation from their heterosexual counterparts.Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic required many campus recreation departments to implement new methods of activity, including virtual programming and reservationstyle scheduling of amenities (Powers et al., 2022).This could continue to be implemented "post-pandemic" to increase comfort levels of users when using campus recreation facilities.It is important to note that the creation of recreation spaces for LGBTQ+ persons is not designed to further the divide between non-heterosexual students and heterosexual students, rather it is to provide a multitude of opportunities to those who require them to promote PA.Like the implementation of adapted physical education programming, the suggestions above follow suit with a focus on providing physical activity programming that is in the least restrictive environment (Reid, 2003).These facilities could also benefit from altering the layout of certain equipment sections (i.e., free weight areas) to reduce intimidation factors that students many experiences (Stankowski et al., 2017), ultimately increasing comfort of facility amenity use.
Limitations of this study include our measurement tool used to assess comfort with/in campus recreation facilities as it is relatively novel, but still proved to be valid in measuring comfort as seen in a previous study (Wilson, Colinear, et al., 2020).Also, our convenience sampling approach which lacked a clear process for determining who was missed from the sample, as well as survey attrition limiting our usable sample size.Similarly, given our relatively small sample of sexual minorities, future studies could employ additional methods to represent more sexual minorities in their samples, such as distributing surveys among LGBTQ+ student groups.Another limitation was our inability to control for gender in our non-parametric analyses, which may reduce generalizability in the findings.In the future, campus recreation departments should focus on quality and transparency when it comes to reporting differences to sexual minority students by including full demographic information of students identifying as LGBTQ+.This modification would allow for future research to focus on why these inequities exist and what can be done.
In conclusion, sexual minority students experience less comfort when using campus recreation facilities compared to their heterosexual counterparts.Efforts to combat this range from policy changes to program implementations.Findings of this study may help highlight the sexual orientation inequities of campus recreation facility use, providing the foundations for equitable use for all patrons regardless of sexual orientation.

Table 2 .
Sexual Orientation Differences of Comfort Levels Using Specific Campus Recreation Amenities.
a Sample sizes ranged from 49 to 128.b Sample sizes ranged from 14 to 27. *Significant difference between groups, Bonferroni correction used and adjusted the p-value to <.005.Items measured on scale from 0 (not comfortable) to 100 (very comfortable).