Within higher education, LGBTQIA+ inclusion has largely been pursued through two approaches: improving LGBTQIA+ students' access to universities, and developing inclusive curricula and research agendas that better "include" LGBTQIA+ people and topics. While these approaches have had positive impacts in some respects, they have also been criticised for deficit-based framing, neoliberal subjectivities, and failure to account for (or address) wider intersectional dynamics of power and marginalisation. In this paper, I present an initial exploration of "queer hospitality" as an alternative approach to LGBTQIA+ inclusion in universities. The term combines queer theory's potential to destabilise normativities and hierarchies with emerging thinking about universities as hospitable spaces in which the experiential, cultural, and educational capital LGBTQIA+ people bring with them is acknowledged, and that empower them to contribute meaningfully to the academic community and wider society. Drawing on this conceptualisation, I begin to imagine what a hospitable university might look like for LGBTQIA+ students and staff, and how it could contribute to democratic societies more widely.
