so i have my personal statement ready and all my choices filled in, scary thing is that it asks your sexuality and I (brave for me) answered it honestly. the answer is invisible to your advisor and college so thats okay and the uni can't see it till they have accepted you. once they have accepted you the data is shared with them. not even anonymously, litterly gives them your name and all your details with this attached. scary because i have no idea what they would do with that information, will they ambush me? give me some sort of protection? organise for me to be put in a certain place (living situation wise)? make me join the LGBTQ+ society they have there? who knows...no seriously who knows? id seriously be interested in what the uni would do with the knowledge that your gay but im too afraid to ask (long story short)
I highly doubt they will do anything with your information. My college personal essay was actually about my sexual orientation and the type of person is structured me to be. I've gotten accepted into 2 of the colleges I've applied to (well, I've only received a response from 2 and those are both back ups) and they actually read that before even accepting me! I would say that colleges, especially if they are liberal-leaning, tend to use that information just for demographical purposes. Maybe the same reason they ask for your race/gender. Even if they want you to join an LGBTQ+ society, they have no way of being able to force you to do so. At best, they can only suggest it. Although, some colleges really do look favorably at making their LGBTQ+ student body more "visible", so (only if you're comfortable with it) you can say you'd join one. But I wouldn't worry much about it.
It might be, as you said, a way for them to consider both the kinds of resources you'll want to access on campus and, as I was just thinking, how they should house you on campus. They might put you in a dorm with another LGBT student or someone who's LGBT friendly. I've never honestly been asked what my sexuality was but I was asked, when I was applying to community college, what my gender was and if I was transgender too. There was no on-campus housing though.
They only want to know so they can monitor discrimination and act accordingly. They're not going to ambush you. The only people seeing it are those at HR and they're legally not allowed to share information you provide with anyone without your consent. Where you live depends entirely on you, but on-campus accommodation isn't the norm for most universities in the UK.
It's entirely for statistical purposes and to monitor the role and effectiveness anti-discrimination policies. They will not use it for any other purpose and it will have no impact on your application for accommodation or academic placement. The United Kingdom has strong anti-discrimination and privacy laws. Your information will be totally safe with the university, so I suggest you relax and don't feel uncomfortable submitting that information.
