Bringing the Fight to the Schools

Storytime!

I’m at a Quiz Bowl meet with Krista. We’re chilling before the meet when our coach says to her, “Hey, where’d you get that bracelet?”

This is the bracelet that they give out at our support group. It says “GLBT Ally” on it. You can see how this is potentially an awkward situation.

Krista handled it gracefully by deflecting the question to me. I told our coach that it was from a youth group, which is true. This pretty much floored her, until I clarified that it wasn’t a church youth group.

“Oh,” the coach mentions casually. “I was looking into starting one of those groups at our school.”

Say WHAT?

This is exciting news! The coach is busy right now, but soon, she’s going to start getting support from our admittedly conservative school administration. However, as they always tell us at my support group: As long as there is one teacher willing to host it, no school can stop a GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance) from meeting.

The idea that we could have a GSA at my school is totally exhilarating! I’d love to be the student who started it. We have about 1,200 kids. According to the statistics, that’s about 100 kids who would be interested. That’s a lot of members! Even if we only had a membership of 20, or even 10, I would consider my time well spent.