Your Guide to LGBTQAA Dating in College

College is tough.

Throwing dating into the mix and college life can get especially complicated, especially if you identify as transgender, agender (not identifying as any gender), asexual (not sexually attracted to any gender) or another sexual minority.

There are many ways you can find love and your potential partner on a college campus.

Below are a few tips.

Joining an advocacy group can make it easier to find someone who's attracted to you. You can find people who accept you in discussion groups, at LGBT-oriented bars and on the Internet.

Most colleges offer discussion groups for transgender people, queer women and LGBT students who are new to the school, says LB Hannahs, the director of the University of Florida LGBT Affairs office. Students can find people like them, learn about safe dating and sex and, most importantly, feel comfortable being themselves.

But Reilly Clemens, a transgender women's studies student at UF, suggests finding someone online.

"If you put a message on your page and forge carefully, almost any site will work," she says.

Most sites don't let users specify trans status, which Elizabeth Brosseau, a 19-year-old biomedical engineering major at the University of Southern California, found out quickly.

She heard her friend complaining about the lack of bisexual options on JDate and looked up the profile options for the 15 most popular dating sites.

Her results showed that only three sites had options for bisexuals (OKCupid, Badoo and HowAboutWe). Only OKCupid offered gender options outside of male or female, she found.

None of the sites had options for romantic asexuals, which would allow users to specify whether or not they were interested in a sexual relationship.

Clemens doesn't see the lack of options as a problem. She suggests using settings, which allow you to regulate who can view your profile.

"A trick is to go ahead and make sure that it's on your page if you're only seeking people who accept you," she says. "It's a very safe place to be vehemently out, especially because you can put a picture of a flower and control access to people identifying you with that trans status."

Clemens also says it's safer to talk to people online for a while before meeting them and to meet them in a crowded place during the day.

If dating sites aren't your thing, Clemens says she's able to meet a lot of people in everyday life just by being confident and comfortable with herself.

"The number one thing to do to meet someone who's accepting of you as a person," she says, "is to be yourself, work on being comfortable with yourself and be proud of who you are regardless of where you are."

Hannahs says it's also important to know what you want.

"Be honest with yourself and really know where you're at and what you want out of a relationship and partnership," she said, "and don't feel pressured to date someone or to be to a certain stereotype."

Morgann Ramirez, a romantic asexual from USC, says understanding her needs was key to her happiness in college.

"I used to think I was broken and other people could see it and avoided me," she said. "But then I realized my brain just didn't process sexuality the way other people did. I decided that I would only have a relationship with someone who could understand that."