Same-Sex Households
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
GSA
I'm a high school teacher in Houston, and students at my school are trying to start a Gay Straigh Alliance.??
Were anyone of you in GSA in high school, and if so, could you tell me about some of the things you did in the club?
My teacher friend has been asked to sponsor the club, but she doesn't really have any idea what that would entail.
I seem to remember another school I worked at had a GSA who put on some sort of day of silence, but I don't recall the details.
Any help you could offer would be appreciated.
Re: GSA
I don't know if you've seen this website, but I think it's a pretty good resource.
The day of silence is a good one. I also remember collaborating with other clubs to create a "diversity day" - I don't completely remember what that entailed, but any club could participate and do something for the day. We also had diversity workshops that students could attend.
If the teacher is straight, perhaps it would be good to get an idea from students about how they perceive the school community's attitude toward queer students, what they think would be helpful to have, etc. Sometimes it can be hard for straight allies to get a feel for what is happening, and, equally, sometimes teachers have a difficult time really knowing the atmosphere among students. Get student input, for sure.
My high school GSA did put on a couple of yearly events (Day of Silence, Diversity Day with other student groups, and sent student ambassadors to lobby legislators about relevant legislation). Most of the meetings, however, were more a place for students to unwind, discuss how they felt on campus, discuss anything difficult in their lives (parental and teacher homophobia was always a big theme). If something had happened at school, our advisor served as an advocate to connect concerned students with appropriate administrators who were asked to deal with the problems. This was mostly stuff like homophobic comments from teachers, anti-queer bullying, dress code rules that targeted non-gender-conforming students, same-sex couples attending school dances, etc.
I really hope your friend does take this on! GSAs are a really great resource and support for high school aged kids. I know in some areas it can mean sticking your neck out and there can be a lot of opposition both from within the school community and from outside it. Hopefully your friend will stick by it and advocate for the students so they know they have an adult they can rely on to be on "their side." Also, I've heard of teachers co-sponsoring the group (a sort of strength in numbers approach) and it seemed like a good approach, so if you are able, it might be nice to get involved yourself!
I am a middle school teacher and help run our gsa. I would be happy to e-mail with you or your friend about how we run our gsa. I can also put you in touch with the gsa leader at on of the high schools in our district. Let me know if you are interested and I can pm my email.
Thank you for your suggestions.
To make my original post easier to understand, I wanted to just ask about the GSA clubs, but with your kind support, I will clarify the situation.
A student approached my friend and actually asked her to sponsor a "Lady Gaga Club." He told her he wanted a place where gay students could feel accepted. I told her about GSA, but I didn't know enough about it to really help her understand what GSA is all about.
With you help, she presented info about GSA to the student, but he's not budging on the name remaining "Lady Gaga Club."
I know Lady Gaga is a strong advocate for gay rights, and she is viewed as an icon in gay teen communities, but I really fear that the name of the club will on contribute to this student's feelings of being left out. I think it's alienating.
I was hoping I could get enough info to help her show him why a GSA would be great, but he's still trying to go full-speed ahead with Lady G.
I hope this works out well for him!
Thanks again for all your help and any follow-up advice you would have about Lady Gaga Club!
After a lot of fighting with administrators and the school board, we were able to form a GSA my senior year of high school. The club was new and composed of a handful of theater geeks and a bunch of what I guess you'd call the "outcast" kids who didn't participate in any other clubs or activities. So despite having no idea what we were doing, we were able to organize 1 fundraiser that went to a local AIDS nonprofit, I think 2 or 3 after-school "field trips" to Gay Bingo, and spent the rest of the meetings talking a little bit about our problems but mostly about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
My rambling point is that we opted to go with the traditional name, Gay Straight Alliance, but nevertheless most of our club meetings & activities involved campy pop culture. I think your student would be happier in the long run if he went with a more inclusive name for the club; or else just started a Lady Gaga fan club if that's what he's really after. But however this works out, best of luck to him.
I like this name a lot.