Panther Prints | Issue 2 | December 2019

8 • Feature PESHPRINTS.COM
Gay-Straight Alliance returns
Club restarts after hiatus
by Akie Kasai
Walking into a Gay-Straight Alliance
(GSA) meeting, GSA president,
junior Daveion Milligan, and the rest
of the officers welcome their members.
Though the meetings can be
hectic with the group ready to socialize,
team-building activities the group
brainstorms create a laid-back, welcoming
environment.
GSA clubs are national student-run
organizations that connect
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender
and queer students (LGBTQ) with
allied youth to build communities
and discuss issues impacting them.
However, many students and staff
did not know that a GSA club existed
in the past. Milligan took the
initiative and decided to restart the
club after a yearlong hiatus.
“The purpose of the GSA
was to provide a safe space for
not only queer individuals but
for straight people who want
to learn more and support the
cause,” Mulligan said. “It’s needed
to further [spread] positivity
and be a place that fosters peace
and protection.”
Every GSA club creates its own
mission to meet the needs of its
members and their school, but
there are three main types of GSA
clubs: social, support and activist.
Milligan created a social GSA to
allow students to meet and connect
with other LGBTQ students on
campus.
“I call our GSA kids, ‘my kids,’”
GSA vice president junior Zee
Mucheson said. “You signing up
for this club makes you my No. 1
priority as a mom or [Vice president].
You are important to this
community and school so I [want
to] make sure you have somewhere
to go when you feel
less important.”
GSA sponsor Susan Kessler-Muse
provides the room
and time for the group to meet.
As an ally, she supports the students
in their endeavors.
“It’s fun to see them happy
and free to be themselves,” Kessler-Muse
said. “I hope they accomplish
their goals [for the club].
To break down the walls of judgment,
I fully support them.”
Members appreciate having
the chance to meet other
LGBTQ students and allies that support
the community in a welcoming
environment.
“It’s [about] being able to socialize
with everyone — everyone’s so nice and
it’s really fun,” senior Yasmine Benelbar
said. “We’re all in the same boat so there
are a lot of things that we can relate [to]
“I hope [the GSA] spreads awareness
of people in the community, but I hope
it spreads awareness that we’re here,
and yeah, we’re queer but we’re
proud of that.”
-GSA member and senior Amber Brockmann
“
Photo by Akie Kasai
with each other.”
Although the club met from 2014-
2018 under the direction of economics
teacher Julie Malcom, there was no GSA
from the 2018-2019 school year. Malcom
oversaw the meetings for students
to come together and created presentations
to address the issues that LGBTQ
students encountered. Back in
2015 and 2016, club members
participated in the Gay, Lesbian
and Straight Education Network
(GLSEN) Day of Silence, a national
student-led demonstration
where LGBTQ students and allies
around the world take a vow of silence
to protest harassment and
discrimination of LGBTQ people
in schools.
“If we don’t accept [LGBTQ students]
and [let them] be who they
are, we would be missing [the] vibrancy
that we appreciate,” Malcom
said. “[The day] was to show
what it would be like, without that
[vibrancy].”
GSA meets in room B3-209
every Monday after school from
4:30 p.m. to 5:15 p.m.
“The number-one [goal] is to
provide a safe space for any student
to express themselves,” Malcom
said. “They [may] need a safe
space to do it, so I think [providing]
that is the basic foundation of
the club.”
1 out of 5
students
consider themselves
part of the LGBTQ+
community
out of 448 students polled