The Gender Sexuality Alliance club, or GSA, is a club intended to make students feel more accepted and welcome in the Mount Greylock school community. In many schools, LGBTQ+ students are not allowed to be who they are or love who they love and instead are often taunted and bullied for it, making them feel alone and afraid. GSA works to prevent these behaviors at Mount Greylock. The club is intended to make all students feel comfortable and accepted in the school community as well as having a support group to talk to. The club also strives to show other students that people in the LGBTQ+ community are just like anyone else and therefore should be treated with the same respect. Student and club member Tarryn Gaherty explains, “We want people to walk into this school everyday, know that their identity is valid, and be able to embrace it.” Acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community can sometimes be overlooked, but it is extremely important to value all students, regardless of their gender or sexuality.

It is vitally important to a student’s education to know that they are supported instead of being scared to come to school. When a student comes to school afraid of being bullied or having homophobic slurs thrown at them, learning becomes one of the last priorities. This student should be given the same privilege as the rest of the students to get an education and to solely focus on learning. GSA works to promote these privileges for LGBTQ+ students.

To help make Mount Greylock a more accepting school, GSA has initiated a Greylock Pride Day. Greylock Pride Day is a day in which LGBTQ+ students are openly supported by the rest of the student body. The club gives out rainbow shirts and rainbow pins to students outside of the club to help the students show their encouragement of the cause; “It’s awesome to walk into school on Pride day to see so many rainbows, flags, and allies. It makes you feel so supported,” said Gaherty.

To help show others that LGBTQ+ community members are no different from everyone else, GSA holds game days where other clubs and sports teams can come and play games and have a fun time. This also helps other students recognize that students who identify as LGBTQ+ should be celebrated and treated as equal as all human beings deserve the fundamental right to love and be who they truly are.

In the old school building, there was solely a women’s room and a men’s room and no bathroom for queer or transgender students. However, in the new building, the bathrooms were designed to be accepting for all students. The bathrooms are now labeled toilets and toilets and urinals and there are also individual gender neutral bathrooms. This effort is appreciated by GSA, however, in the beginning of the school year, students were told that girls should use the rooms labeled toilets and boys should use the urinals and toilets room and the students were not informed of the importance of the initiative. As Gaherty points out, “we don’t completely love how it has been handled and described to the students. We’re just hoping to reword how the bathrooms are described and make the school more inclusive.” GSA will continue to enforce a more inclusive description as the school year progresses.

GSA meetings are usually held on Tuesdays after school. These meetings are open to everyone who wants to attend, not just for LGBTQ+ students. The meetings strive to be inclusive to everyone and to be a safe place for students to go and relax. “We like to have fun while also at least trying to learn new things and talk about new ways to have a more accepting school,” stated Gaherty.

Editor’s note: you can read a more in-depth look at the bathroom situation in this Friday’s print edition.