“I don’t want to have to prepare for a friends funeral, just because she didn’t feel like she is an okay person.”

“Unless we are all free, none of us is free.”

“Here, I am given the right everyone else takes for granted: the right to be honest about the most rudimentary facts of my life. I can speak freely without fear of ridicule, because my identity is not treated as an issue to debate but as a simple reality.”

“Once a week I can walk into room 303 and feel like I belong at MSHS.”

These comments were provided by students in the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) at MSHS during the first-ever GSA parent meeting last week. They brought home the truth for those there: that GSA is one of the most important clubs at MSHS. It is also one of the biggest and most active, with 30 – 40 students attending weekly.

GSA is not just for GLBTQ students. In fact, many, if not most, of the students that attend aren’t gay. They are there to support those that are gay, to help them see that MSHS does not have to be a lonely place.

We learned that GSA meetings aren’t just social occasions, either. The group raised more than $1,000 in the AIDS walk, and has higher goals for next year’s walk. Leaders of the MSHS GSA organized the first-ever Around the Sound gathering for GSAs from schools across Seattle and the eastside so that GSA leaders could share ideas, plans, issues and concerns. The majority of classrooms at MSHS have become Safe Spaces, where homophobic bullying is not tolerated, thanks to the efforts of GSA leaders who trained teachers and provided signage.

And, of course, the GSA organizes the annual Day of Silence at MSHS, to provide people the opportunity to experience what gay students go through daily, not being able to speak up about who they are. Much of what you read in the papers about the Day of Silence is negative, yet the event grows every year. Classes are held as usual and students speak in class but not in the hallways or during breaks.

Every parent wants the best for their child. We want them engaged in the world. We want them to be happy and healthy and to feel good about themselves. The students of the GSA at MSHS, and Eric Goldhammer, the GSA advisor, help ensure that is the case for many students who might otherwise struggle.

Laurie Edwards

North Bend