Photo provided by: Melissa Roy
Members of the Gay Straight Alliance marched in the parade at Come Out with Pride 2021. Students, teachers, parents and community members gathered on Oct. 10 at Lake Eola Park.
Gay-Straight-Alliance Club
As the 2021-2022 years kicks off, clubs and organizations are starting back up with much anticipation. One of these clubs is the Gay-Straight-Alliance (GSA), which is a club that hopes to make an impact and a change within the campus.
GSA is an LGBTQ+ campus club that is open to all students whether or not they identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community or as an ally. They also play a role in representing the community and they have organized events such as last school year’s Virtual GSA & LGBTQ+ Youth Summit. This and future events serve as a way to allow both middle and high school students to connect to the community, connect with one another and have fun. Additionally, they have created spirit nights and even hosted their own take on a lunch pep rally.
“A student doesn’t have to be gay or trans or identify anywhere in this community to be a part of our group,” English teacher Melissa Roy said. “In fact, we encourage and welcome any identity or any background to be a part of our group. The more that we can get people together who don’t live or look or believe exactly the same way and get them to talk to each other and get to know each other and become friends, the more we can increase understanding across the campus and maybe create more peace and to just create an environment where things like bullying and discrimination and mistreating people based on how they dress or how they act is not a thing anymore. That’s our goal at Brantley. ”
The Gay-Straight-Alliance, sponsored by Dr. Roy and co-hosted by English teacher Sara Spencer, meets every Tuesday afternoon after school in building and room 5-011.
“We have a volunteer drive in December, multiple LGBTQ+ people from the community coming in to talk to everyone and of course provide support to everyone who needs it,” president Madalyn Propst said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to expand and truly help as many people here on campus as we can.”
The GSA is working on many upcoming opportunities that they hope can improve the LGBTQ+ community and environment.
“We hope that the GSA will always be a safe space for the queer students who don’t necessarily feel comfortable in other places on campus to be a place where they can show up and be themselves whoever they are, whether they identify as trans or nonbinary gay or straight,” Roy said.