Whats a gay straightalliance club

GSAs provide a safe, supportive environment for students of diverse genders and sexualities to meet, discuss sexual orientation and gender identity issues, and form community. GSAs also welcome straight, cisgender ally youth. While each GSA is unique, there is never an expectation that students disclose their sexual or gender identity.

GSAs help to foster queer community in schools. Some also educate themselves and the broader school community about sexual orientation, sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression and create awareness about the effects of and how to challenge sexist stereotypes, homophobia and transphobia.

These groups may also support students in accessing their rights such as the rights of trans students, on which the TDSB has specific guidelines. Intersectionality is the simultaneous experience of more than one kind of oppression. The term was invented by Dr. It has since been expanded to refer to any instance of overlapping oppression.

Just because a group of people experience one kind of oppression does not mean that they do not discriminate in other ways. Many spaces in the queer community can continue to be racist, sexist, ableist, or to perpetuate oppression in other ways.

Gay-Straight Alliances

For this reason, an intersectional approach is vital to GSAs so that students have a safe space from all of the kinds of discrimination they face. Many straight, cisgender youth are involved because they recognize that ending homophobia and transphobia are important civil rights and human rights issues.

GSAs provide a space for two-spirit, queer, trans, and ally youth to form community and connections with each other and beyond the school. Student-run discussions, social events, and political organizing are safe and fulfilling ways to explore identity and community and impact their school. In this way, GSAs help to reduce feelings whats isolation, and to increase self-esteem in all members.

While some two-spirit, trans, and queer youth find community online, a school GSA is a space for in-person community and affirmation. Students can share and discuss their identities and experiences. GSAs create safe spaces for students to meet and socialize. GSAs also often conduct student and teacher sensitivity training, and typically see a decrease in slurs, name-calling, and harassment following their advocacy efforts.

GSAs can also be places of advocacy against all forms of oppression that the students in them face. This includes homophobia and transphobia, but can also include racism, sexism, ableism, religious discrimination, and more. By facilitating student-run clubs, students have the opportunity to learn about running groups, planning social, spiritual, political or academic activities, and working with others.

Homophobic and transphobic harassment and violence are very common in schools and among teenagers. While addressing transphobia and homophobia is the responsibility of all TDSB employees, GSAs that conduct student and teacher sensitivity trainings typically see a decrease in slurs, name-calling, and harassment following their advocacy efforts.

GSAs also create safe spaces for students to meet and socialize in a harassment-free environment. Even other students not in the GSA will be drawn into the school-wide discussion of straightalliance and transphobic incidents and attitudes. In Ontario, every student has a right to a GSA in their school and school boards are required to support gay in establishing GSAs.

In the club, homophobic administrators in Ontario have told students they cannot call their group a Gay-Straight Alliance.