For over six years, Healdsburg Junior High School’s Gender & Sexualities Alliance (GSA) club has been a safe haven for several students who were looking for a place of support — now the club has evolved into so much more.
School Counselor Bethany Carlson said the club was started about six years ago, after a student in eighth grade was going through gender identity issues and being accepted by their family and peers.
“The two of us talked about offering more support for them and what that could look like. I had heard of other high schools doing GSAs, but never at the middle school level. We talked about whether that would be something they would want. They were interested in it and they had a really great group of friends that also wanted to be a part of that,” Carlson said, noting that the club received support from administration.
“The first year we had it, it acted more like a support type of group. There was some education, but mostly, it was just this one student and then their friends kind of helped them deal with some of the negative interactions going on at school from students. Then after that, it became more of an activist-type of group. They wanted to be visible on campus, they wanted to teach students about what some of the LGBTQ students are dealing with and to cut down on harassment and bullying,” she said.
This year, the GSA has partnered with LGBTQ Sonoma Connection. Solicia Aguilar is the Healdsburg/Windsor program coordinator and Chantavy Tornado, the Sonoma County director of LGBTQ connection. Both help in collaborating with events and Aguilar leads the youth leadership team. With their partnership, the club has been able to strengthen and the engagement with students has increased.
Carlson said that, over the past couple of years, she’s seen more students want to be open about their gender and sexuality.
“The club has just been a part of our school for six years, and it’s part of the culture —it’s kind of just ingrained in our school. I don’t know if it’s like a cultural shift — like it’s more accepted, like in society right now or something — but it’s definitely, four times the size of the normal club, or what it was before,” Carlson said.
Not only do students see it as a safe space according to Carlson but it has led them to build trusting relationships with adults too.
“I think middle school can be really, really hard. Having that place to go to where they can just totally let their guard down and be themselves, be open in other ways, you know, in ways they can’t be to the rest of the school. I think it’s really impactful for them and makes this whole middle school a lot more tolerable,” she said.
Tornado first reached out to Healdsburg and Windsor, under the premise that there was a need for LGBTQ Connection to be present.
“There wasn’t quite enough representation, or resources for our LGBTQ community. What’s cool with our team is that we come with all walks of life, and we have a huge impact within our community, because a lot of us have lived and grown up here,” Tornado said.
The partnership began last March and Aguilar began working with the club in July. Aguilar said she feels consistency and representation in mentorship is what they provide to the club.
“It’s cool for the students to see someone that’s older that mirrors their identity and their experience. So I think that’s what we provide and bring with our life experience,” Aguilar said.
For Tornado, having youth of color present is also something LGBTQ Connection wants to represent as well as highlight.
“There’s a lot of youth of color here. Bethany has done such a great job at being an accomplice for these youth. Bringing us on campus and creating that relationship and co-creating of GSA has even more so created the trust that we need, it brought me back to little me and elementary, wishing that we would have this representation of POC, like Solicia is Indigenous and I’m a first-generation Cambodian. We bring all of these cultural relevance to a time where a pandemic has brought out identity, and what that is and what origin is,” Tornado said.
LGBTQ Connection also helped with training focused on pronoun and identity work. Teachers were trained to hand out a slip of paper at the beginning of school to ask for students’ pronouns.
“The main purpose of that is to not make assumptions. ‘What is your name? What do we need to call you by’, you know, that type of respect is really important. We need more instructors like Bethany, who care enough to bring in folks like us who know, and are able to provide that, because that carries through to our youth,” Tornado said.
For Izzy Osborn, 14, the term ‘inclusiveness’ now resonates more. “It doesn’t really matter what race, gender, sexuality you are, everybody is inclusive, and we all just hang out together and have fun. I’ve made a lot more friends during this, so that’s nice,” Osborn said.
“It’s just giving me better mental health making my morning to come to school a lot better because usually I’m really down and I don’t really like school. So coming to GSA makes it easier to like, be around people that want to do the same things you do and hang out with you,” Osborn said.
Ryden Cass, 11, has been a part of GSA for a couple of months. Cass joined to support his friends and to spread awareness around school regarding gender and sexual orientation.
“I joined it because I hear people joking about being gay. Like, for example, today in English, there are people in my class who are saying, ‘Oh, are you gay? And then I was like, ‘It’s not a bad thing to be gay’,” Cass said.
“I don’t think being gay is a bad thing. I want people to know that I’m not gay myself, but I’m a supporter. And I support because my friends are gay and I want to support them. Just don’t judge a book by its cover,” he said.
Navella Agnos, 12, joined because it seemed fun but has also discovered herself through the time at the GSA.
“I heard about it from my parents, because they’re both gay. I know, right? Awesome. I’ve actually found myself in this group. I found that I’m bi and that I’m pansexual. So that’s good. It just really helped me get through some struggles that I’ve been going through these past two years,” Agnos said.
“I learned that you can be whoever you want to be. Even if people don’t like it, if you’re different, that’s better than being the same. It’s better to be unique. The GSA needs to be in this world. Every kid needs to have something that can support them and GSA is one of them,” Agnos said.
