For youth who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered (LGBT), or for those questioning their sexuality, entering college or university can bring a host of problems not faced by other students.

Higher education usually offers a welcoming environment for those who are often marginalized, but intolerance and fear can still spark some unfortunate incidents.

A.Y. Daring is a second year University of Waterloo (UW) student who says with the bigger population at the school versus high school, there is an advantage.

She says you can be a lot more choosy about who you will interact with and who is in your circle of influence, "and so as much as people can do discriminatory things and say things behind your back or even say things to your face, they don't matter as much and they don't impact you as much."

While her experience has been positive, Daring says discrimination still exists.

Adam Garcia is an administrator at GLOW: The Queer and Questioning Community Centre, a LGBT organization at UW. He says the discrimination has become more subtle.

"There are definitely still comments…but I think they come more from a place of not knowing and ignorance, rather than complete homophobia."

Nonetheless there have been some recent cases of abuse at campuses across North America that went further than foul words, bring the topic of LGBT discrimination into the spotlight.

One of the most notable was the suicide of Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old student at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He jumped off a bridge after two other students, including his roommate, secretly filmed him during a sexual encounter and posted the video online.

Earlier this month, Valerie Bustros, a lesbian student at York University in Toronto, was allegedly attacked by three men at a campus bar after they said she shouldn't be using the women's washroom despite her insistence she was a woman.

Bustros said "Getting jumped for using the bathroom, yeah it sucks, and hopefully one day we won't have to get jumped for that."

Those types of stories, coupled with the already stressful experience of entering college or university, is putting some younger LGBT students on edge.

Brooke Young, a project coordinator with OK2BME, works with many of Waterloo Region's LGBT teens, and says there is a pattern to the concerns.

"I think the biggest concern that we hear is around, ‘How do I be out in potentially an unsafe environment?' So concerns about, particularly for trans clients, ‘Which washrooms do I use? How do I register? Will people know my history?' That kind of thing, as well as sort of a fear that things won't be supportive."

That's where Daring says university LGBT groups, programs and policies are helpful.

"It's not so much of whether or not it happens. It's about whether or not it's dealt with. I think that's the problem you have in high school, it happens but it's not dealt with appropriately," Daring says.

Coming up in part two: What are campuses doing to make sure the issues are dealt with appropriately?