Gay-Straight Alliance embracing gender, sexuality diversity on campus
Coppell High School seniors Kai Miller and Tanmayi Akasapu listen to junior Anushree De during a Gay-Straight Alliance meeting at the CHS Library on Oct. 26. CHS junior Sam Khan and a few other students formed the club to create a safe space for LGBTQ people at CHS.
December 16, 2021
”There’s a goal I actually want to have with the club is to educate people on what it really means to be gay or queer or a part of LGBTQ community,” CHS Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) president junior Sam Khan said. “There’s a lot more depth to what people think about our community and I want to help educate people on that. There isn’t enough information going around about it and it’s hard to educate people on.”
To people in the LGBTQ community, being gay is a significant part of their life.
“The LGBTQ community has had a very rough history,” Khan said. “Not just in America but all around the world, a lot of trans people get murdered. But we are proud of who we are and it’s important to mark special events, [such as] certain marches that have taken place for our own rights or people protesting to call attention to horrendous acts that have been committed upon our community.”
Many join the club for the safe space the GSA club provides, allowing for voices to be heard.
“It’s really great to meet more people with different gender and sexual identities [in the GSA club],” Khan said. “I see a lot of these people in the hallway and it’s nice to have a safe place for people to come out and talk. Hopefully in the future [there will be] a more activist nature [to] it.”
In 2011, GSA club was first approved as one of the clubs at CHS. For this school year, GSA club does not have a sponsor and is not an official club at CHS as it did not meet the application deadline. However, the club still hosts meetings every Tuesday at 7:45 a.m. in the CHS Library, overseen by counselors.
“[GSA club] helps me connect with my community,” CHS senior Amy Alex said. “We have a good LGBT community here at CHS. Our school needs to take the effort to educate students as a whole and get them to the point where they can understand and be respectful about it.”
One of the most misconceptions that are commonly found is that there are only two sets of pronouns (he/him and she/her) being used.
“Pronouns, they are small compared to everything else but they’re so important,” Alex said. “It’s very important that you respect someone’s pronouns and [use] whatever they want [for them].”
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