Gay–straight alliance
A gay–straight alliance, gender–sexuality alliance or queer–straight alliance is a student-led or community-based organization, found in middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities. These are primarily in the United States and Canada. Gay–straight alliances intend to provide a safe and supportive environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and all LGBTQ+ individuals, children, teenagers, and youth as well as their cisgender heterosexual allies. The first GSAs were established in the 1980s. Scientific studies show that GSAs have positive academic, health, and social impacts on schoolchildren of a minority sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Numerous judicial decisions in United States federal and state court jurisdictions have upheld the establishment of GSAs in schools, and the right to use that name for them.
Terminology
- ally – In the context of the founding in 1988, an ally is a cisgender, heterosexual person who supports equal rights for gay people and challenges homophobia. The meaning later expanded to include rights for all LGBTQ+ individuals, orientations, and gender identities.
- Gay–Straight Alliance – name proposed by straight ally student Meredith Sterling for the original club in 1988. Sometimes with slash instead of dash.
- Gay Straight Alliance – in title case, and without hyphen on the founder website.
- gay–straight alliances – in lowercase, a generalized term for any club of this nature
- Gay–Straight Alliance Network – an organization founded in California in 1998 to support and promote GSAs.
- gender–sexuality alliance – updated name for gay–straight alliance, the old name appearing "too binary" for a later generation
- Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network – new name for the Gay–Straight Alliance Network
- Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network – organization founded in 1990 in Boston
- GSA – originally, designated a gay–straight alliance club, later, a gender–sexuality alliance club
- QSA – is used for more inclusive use, as the community is more than 'Gay', the use of Queer being used allows other students that may fit the queer definition, like transgender or bisexual students, to be represented in these support groups.
- Sexuality And Gender Acceptance/Awareness/Alliance/Association – unspecific general term, used as an alternative to both LGBTQ and GSA.
History
Founding
Concord Academy
The first gay–straight alliance was formed in November 1988 at Concord Academy in Concord, Massachusetts, when Kevin Jennings, a history teacher at the school who had just come out as gay, was approached by Meredith Sterling, a student at the school who was straight, but was upset by the treatment of gay students and others. Jennings recruited some other teachers at the school, thus forming the first gay–straight alliance. One of the first to join was Sterling's classmate S. Bear Bergman. Jennings credits students for both the establishment of the club, as well as for setting the agenda of struggling against homophobia, and for changes to CA's nondiscrimination policy. Jennings would go on to co-found the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network in Boston in 1990.According to a thirty-year retrospective about the history of the group, Concord Academy reported in 2018 that students at the academy had renamed the group "a few years ago" to "". Faculty mentor Nancy Boutilier said, "That gay–straight language was really important at the time. Times change, though. To students today, that sounds so binary."
Phillips Academy
A few months after Concord started the first Gay Straight Alliance club, another Massachusetts preparatory school north of Boston, Phillips Academy, started one of their own. It began with a meeting called by Phillips student Sharon Tentarelli for February 7, 1989, with little advance notice. A dozen people attended, including a mix of student, teachers, and staff. This was the second such group, after Concord Academy. The group was well-received, and some staff and faculty became supporters, both gay, and straight. Athletic director Kathy Henderson was one of the supporters, and she later went on to co-found the GLSEN two years later, along with Kevin Jennings of Concord Academy.United States
Described as "perhaps the most important precursor of the GSA movement," Los Angeles' Project 10 is seen as the start of the GSA movement. Founded in 1984, Project 10 was widely recognized as the first organized effort to provide support for LGBTQ youth in schools across the United States. The majority of its facilitators were heterosexual, and was named after the commonly held statistic that 10 per cent of the adult male population is "exclusively homosexual". Project 10 focused on issues such as substance use, and discussing issues of high-risk sexual behaviour.The first GSA was started in 1988, in Concord, Massachusetts at Concord Academy by Kevin Jennings. The first public school gay–straight alliance was started at Newton South High School by teacher Robert Parlin. GSAs made headlines in 1999 with the Federal Court ruling in Utah–East High Gay/Straight Alliance v. Board of Education of Salt Lake City School District. This ruling found that denying access to a school-based gay–straight alliance was a violation of the Federal Equal Access Act giving students the right to use facilities for extra curricular activities at any school that receives public funding—regardless of private standing or religious affiliation.
On January 24, 2012, the United States Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, released a video on YouTube commemorating GSA Day and endorsing GSA clubs in schools.
Inclusivity
Approximately 28 per cent of participants at GSA Network identify as heterosexual.Opposition
Some students face opposition from school administrations, elected school boards, or local communities in starting a school GSA.In 2015, students at Brandon High School in Rankin County, Mississippi, attempted to start a GSA, but the school board met and publicly stated they wanted to prevent the formation of "gay clubs" in the school district. They then created a policy requiring parents to provide written permission before a student can join any club. Students then protested with support from the ACLU.
Students at West Carteret High School in Morehead City, North Carolina, tried to start a GSA but the Carteret County Board of Education turned it down. In 1999, the Orange Unified School District in Orange County, California, moved to prohibit the formation of a GSA at El Modena High School. The students then sued the school board, claiming that their rights under the First Amendment and the 1984 Equal Access Act had been violated. In the first-ever ruling of its kind, Judge David O. Carter of the United States District Court for the Central District of California issued a preliminary injunction ordering the school to allow the GSA to meet.
The right of students to establish a GSA at school is guaranteed by both the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the federal Equal Access Act.
Case law
In the United States, the right of students to establish a GSA at school is guaranteed by both the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the federal Equal Access Act. Since 1998, there have been at least 17 federal court cases in which high school and middle school students have conclusively prevailed in defending the free exercise of their civil rights on this issue, with federal courts consistently ruling that students have both a right to establish a GSA at school and to use the name Gay–Straight Alliance instead of an alternative name. In 2000, the United States District Court for the Central District of California ruled in favour of high school students whose attempt to form a GSA had been blocked by the school board, in the case of Colin v. Orange Unified School District. In 2009, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida ruled in favor of high school students whose attempt to form a GSA had been blocked by the school board, in the case of Gay–Straight Alliance of Yulee High School v. School Board of Nassau County, with the federal court also ruling that the school must allow the students to use the name Gay–Straight Alliance instead of an alternative name that excludes the term Gay. In 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit unanimously ruled in favor of middle school students whose attempt to form a GSA had been blocked by the school board, in the case of Carver Middle School Gay–Straight Alliance v. School Board of Lake County, Florida.Outside the United States
Worldwide, gay–straight alliances are not as common as the organizations are in the United States, but are beginning to spread, particularly in Canada.Australia
As of July 2020, as reported by the media Star Observer, Australia has one gay–straight alliance set up within the Melbourne Grammar School. However, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada and some parts of the United States have had gay–straight alliances within schools for decades.In Australia, the group Safe Schools Coalition Victoria piloted a system of reducing homophobia though teacher training and student groups that promote inclusion of LGBTQ young people, which ran from 2014 to 2017. Started by The Foundation for Young Australians and Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria, along with La Trobe University, the program was expanded to run Australia wide. The program was supported by Beyondblue, Headspace, the University of Canberra, Macquarie University, University of Western Sydney, Curtin University, various family planning and HIV prevention groups, government bodies and Uniting Church organizations.