This semester has seen students at three large Texas universities publicly grapple with questions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights.

First the University of North Texas student government shot down a proposal to allow same-sex couples to run for the school’s homecoming court. The vote made headlines and sparked student protest at a subsequent student government meeting, prompting the student senate to put the question to a referendum vote. More than two thousand UNT students voted in favor of the change, but the referendum failed by a 58-42 margin in heavy turnout.

In early December, the student government at Southern Methodist University divided over a plan to add a special interest seat for “Sexual Orientation and Gender Equity” to its student senate. (The 47-member senate currently includes seats for African American, Latino, Asian, and international students.) A proposal to send that question to a referendum failed in a 19-19 vote of the senate, needing a three-quarters majority for passage. The question appears likely to go to a referendum anyway, as supporters have vowed to gather the 1100 signatures needed to authorize a vote without senate approval.

At about the same time, the UT Austin student government passed a resolution in support of extending partnership benefits to UT employees in same-sex relationships. The vote there was overwhelming — twenty-four in favor and one opposed, with one abstention. Supporters argued that the measure was not only a matter of decency but also of university competitiveness: “The University of Texas wants to be the best public university in the country,” one said, “but it’s working with one hand tied behind its back in terms of recruiting.”

None of these campaigns won concrete victories for LGBT rights. Two of the reform efforts came up short, and the question of partnership benefits for employees will be decided by UT’s regents, not its students. But the fact that supporters of equality have been able to build such substantial support on each of the three campuses indicates — like last week’s election of an openly lesbian mayor in Houston, Texas’s largest city — that some outsiders’ views of the Lone Star State may be in need of an update.