My Senior Year with My GSA

 

If someone told me three years ago that I would be a pansexual LGBT activist, I would have never believed it. I remember the times when I would sit in my room and just seethe at the fact that I wasn’t entirely sure about my sexuality. I didn’t like a particular set of people, and even if I had a “type” I was attracted to, it wasn’t enough to make a decision. I had never come out as any sexuality up until a year ago when I learned about the other sexualities that didn’t quite make it to the ever-growing acronym. Ever since that day, I can only remember positive thoughts about my sexuality and how it really suits me.

I just started my senior year in high school and the time has flown by faster than I can even fathom.

When I started school as a freshman, I was excited to join my school’s Gay-Straight Alliance. It was one the main reasons I chose to attend the school that I will be graduating from in just a few months. This year is a very big year for me and my GSA because I’m finally stepping up and taking the reins on the club. Ever since I started high school, I have talked to many different teachers and other youth coordinators about how to make the GSA more active, but now that I have years of experience, I know exactly what we’re going to do to make our club known at school.

All summer I’ve been planning monthly events to do with the GSA and trying to get club members’ feedback on how to make my plans work for everyone. So far I have a calendar full of themed months based on Days of Action, remembrance days, and LGBT topics in general. Once clubs start up for the year, I hope to add some kind of educational component to the GSA to teach students about LGBT issues and what the club means. My school is a very liberal school that allows free gender expression and sexual orientation, so I have no doubt that once this is implemented, people will be more interested in being a part of the GSA.

I think it’s important for students to actually learn about human sexuality outside of the standard health class lectures. I would love to see teachers including LGBT figures in their lesson plans no matter what subject they teach. I remember when my ninth-grade English teacher had my class read the story “Am I Blue?” from the book of the same title. That was my first real experience of talking about being LGBT in an open environment and I will never forget it. It would mean so much to me if there were more people able to experience that. 

While it’s a bittersweet feeling to be a senior, I can only enjoy everything that comes my way this year and hope that all my memories of being a high school student can help inspire other people.

Jada Gossett is a GLSEN Student Ambassador.