DIVERSE ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION — On last Thursday, the governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, signed a bill into law that will ban trans girls and women from playing sports in college and high school. This move comes less than a week after Wyoming’s state senators passed a budget amendment to stop funding the University of Wyoming’s women’s and gender studies program. That amendment died in the House, but for scholars watching more and more anti-LGBTQ+ bills across states, concerns are mounting for LGBTQ+ students in higher education, especially trans women and girls. “Clearly, this will interrupt and mediate the college-going process for trans girls,” said Dr. Z Nicolazzo, an associate professor of trans* studies in education at the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona and one of the few openly trans tenure-track professors in the field of higher education. “If trans girls don’t feel like education is a space for them and face barrier after barrier just to be themselves, then I would assume they actually would be trapped out of higher education before they even get to higher education.”