Sept. 25, 2017

GSA is usually assumed to mean Gay Straight Alliance, but here it stands for Gender Sexuality Awareness. The club changed what the acronym stood for because they felt the original one wasn’t inclusive enough.

“There’s more sexualuties than just gay and straight. LGBTQ is so much bigger. It’s an acronym that should be at least 20 letters long because that’s just how complicated the human psyche is,” says GSA President Brandon Rodriguez, a senior, “And it wasn’t just about sexualities, it was about gender, too. We have lots of transgendered students in our school. And we’re ‘Awareness’ because those people are real and people need to realize that they are real and they go to our school.”

Rodriguez says that the club is planning to educate students and teachers about the LGBTQ community in a similar way to Youth Suicide and Bullying Prevention’s bullying presentations. The club feels that much of the bigotry that LGBTQ students experience could be prevented through education.

“We feel like a lot of the hatred we feel in this school is due to ignorance, and we just want to make sure the other students are educated,” Treasurer Anthony Hill, a senior, says, “We want people to know about the specific struggles LGBT teens face at our school.”

The club’s main focus, though, is on being a safe space for all people, regardless of gender or sexuality or whether or not they are ‘out’.

“I joined GSA my sophomore year because I had realized a few years ago that I was transgender and I really wanted to come out…” says senior Ezra Grey, the club’s secretary,  “I decided that it [GSA] would be the safest place for me to actually say it out loud to people besides just my older sister.”

Everyone is encouraged to show up to at least one meeting, which are held every Wednesday after school in portable nine.

“I think the people here are pretty cool,” says sophomore Max Sutton, “They just make you feel at home, and like you’re welcome.”