Another Perspective on Starting a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA)
by Michelle BoltonLucy Goldberg and I go to the same congregation. As teens we were both in the Coming of Age (COA) program. COA is the Unitarian Universalist version of the child to teen rite of passage year, like a bar/bat mitzvah or confirmation. Later, we were in the Jr. High Our Whole Lives (OWL) sexuality program together. Those two programs really helped us see who we were, what we believed in, what we valued, how to make decisions. The OWL program is nothing like you get at high school. It gives you real information—we even went to Planned Parenthood. We also had a panel of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) adults come in to tell us their stories.
My next year in high school, after those two programs, my older sister Liz and I tried to start a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at our high school. We first went to the office to find out who to talk to about starting a new club. We were told we had to have an advisor, and we found one. She was very receptive to the idea. But, she told us, we could not post notices about our Rainbow Club, have it in the newspaper, or have our meetings announced on the PA like other clubs. So it never really got very big, probably for two reasons. One, of course, is because we didn't have a way to get the notices of our meetings to the whole school. It was just like, well, I'll tell my friends who are interested, and they might tell some more people. The other reason was because we had to have the meetings during class time. So people didn't want to miss class a lot. After about six months we just gave up. We have not had any major incidents of homophobia at our school. No one really flaunts their sexuality. There are varying degrees of intolerance, but not much is reported. The feeling is nothing will be done anyway. I don't know where the rule comes from that would not let us post notices. What the advisor told us is that the school didn't want any homophobic parents getting all upset about having a gay-straight club at school. We live in a pretty conservative area, and it's really hard to change.
Article Written For And Printed In New Jersey Gaze Magazine, June 2005, for Asbury Park Gay Pride Celebration
For more information contact youth @ uua.org.
Last updated on Friday, April 18, 2008.
