Let's Have a Holi-gay Party!

The regional GSA meeting was super fun! There were a lot of groups there, fifteen or twenty, and a lot of them were newer, but they all had really cool representatives. There were a lot of great ideas thrown around, too- like having the titular holigay party or having a bake sale with rainbow cupcakes, etc. 

One thing that struck me is how lucky I am to be in such an accepting school. One of the groups who came to the meeting, from Lake Lure Classical Academy, have had a very vocal uproar against "the gay club" and all clubs have been suspended while the board "[seeks] legal counsel on club protocol'.(1) It is illegal, as far as I know, to specifically ban a GSA from meeting, so we'll see how that pans out for them. I just hope hatred doesn't come out on top.

One thing that the GSA is doing is assembling a list of MOGAI authors and books to put up on the English Honor Society's bulletin board, so that's awesome. A few that'll likely get up there are This Book Is Gay by James Dawson, an author who recently came out as transgender (2), and one of my personal favorites, Honor Girl, by Maggie Thrash, which is a memoir. We also have our own bulletin board, but what's going on that in the near future is as yet unclear to me. Still, it's something to think about, and I hope we get a wider sphere of acceptance from the school.

1) http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article45081705.html

2) http://www.autostraddle.com/award-winning-best-selling-ya-author-james-dawson-comes-out-as-a-trans-woman-313744/

New GSA Opportunities

This week has been pretty quiet again- things seem to cycle like that, with a prep week and then a big thing, and then another prep week for a big thing, etc. Next week's big thing is the regional GSA meeting at Time Out Youth, a safe space and help center for MOGAI youth. Last week's school GSA meeting had a lot of people, and I've approached some of them personally and made a post to the group page in order to invite them to go. Some people are busy, of course, but a few students and faculty and I are already sure we're going. 

The meeting's focus is a kind of 'show and tell' about what we're doing to further the GSA's mission in our community, so I'll talk about my project and the Day of Silence and the safe space kit and all of that. It'll be fun to see how many people are there, and maybe I can pick up some ideas for the project from what they're doing as well. Plus, of course, they're providing dinner, so that's always a plus.

If anyone who's reading this is interested in coming, just to see what it's like, join the Schoology group with the code on posters throughout the school, and here's the info for the regional meeting: 

    Where: Time Out Youth Center (2320 North Davidson Street, Charlotte, NC 28205)

    When: Wednesday, November 18 from 6:30 - 8:30pm

    Who: Gay-Straight Alliance club members and faculty advisors from Charlotte and the surrounding region

I hope I see a lot of people from LNC there!

Something Deep About Pitching Projects

Last night was the class's community pitch event, and let me just say, first off, big things like that should not be on Thursdays. That should just not be allowed. It's exhausting, and it make it feel like a Friday, which is just terrible. But I digress. 

There were so many people there, as it was the opening night of the play, and being able to talk about my project with all of them was so amazing. Some of them were parents, some came from other schools, and a few friends of mine came too. Giving the same pitch over and over and over again was a little weird- must be how teachers feel, giving the same lesson every day- but I kept it interesting and I feel like there was a lot of support for the project. There wasn't even one person who was negative, which suprised me, if I'll be honest. It's so encouraging, though, to hear over and over that people actually like what I'm doing. The gift bags that I made to go with my presentation (picture below) went over amazingly, too.

And on top of that, there were so many people who came to the GSA meeting! At least four teachers came, and maybe twenty kids, all of whom seemed to be enthusiastic about the idea of having a safe-space club. And on top of that, when I asked a couple administrators about having a PD day where teachers get safe space training, they thought it was an excellent idea!

This project is picking up momentum, and I couldn't be more excited.