Gender Sexuality Alliances: What Are They And How Can They Help
23 Sep 2022
Schools can sometimes be hostile to LGBT+ students, GSAs or gender sexuality alliances (sometimes called gay-straight alliances) are a type of club that aims to fix that by giving students and safe place to be themselves. GSAs are beneficial to LGBT+ students and schools, unfortunately, they are not universal and some are pushing back on efforts to start them.
LGBT+ students often find that their school or peers are not supportive of them, and this is a problem. In a survey by The Trevor Project, only about half of LGBT+ students identified their school as an LGBT+ affirming space. In a similar survey by GLSEN almost 60% of LGBT+ students felt unsafe in school because of their sexual orientation and almost 40% because of their gender identity, the survey also found many students were verbally harassed or sometimes even assaulted over their LGBT+ status.
This harm and discrimination have a big negative effect on LGBT+ students. LGBT+ students who are in a hostile school environment have worse mental health, higher suicide rates, lower grades, and are more likely to feel unsafe.
Luckily, they're things that can combat these negative effects. Schools with inclusive curricula, accepting teachers, and inclusive policies are better for LGBT+ students. One of these things that we will be covering is the GSA.
A GSA is a type of school club that supports LGBT+ students. They offer a space for LGBT+ students to connect and bond over issues they face. The GSA Network categorizes 3 types of GSAs:
Social GSAs where LGBT+ students can meet and connect with others
Support GSAs where LGBT+ students work to create a more accepting environment and talk about issues they face
Activist GSAs where LGBT+ students work to improve their school by changing policies and bringing attention to issues
GSAs can be beneficial to students and schools. They can help LGBT+ students in many ways like directly supporting students, allowing students to connect with others, and giving students a sense of belonging. The GLSEN survey from before found students in schools with GSAs were less likely to feel unsafe or experience victimization because of their LGBT+ status.
GSAs can also improve school environments. They can work to improve a school's LGBT+ policies and educate students and staff about LGBT+ rights and issues. The GLSEN survey found schools with GSAs had more supportive staff and less anti-LGBT+ sentiment from students. The Trevor Project survey from earlier also linked a more affirming school environment with lower suicide rates.
These results have been backed up by a systematic review that looked at 15 studies on GSAs. It found GSA presence is linked to, "significantly lower levels of youth's self-reports of homophobic victimization, fear for safety, and hearing homophobic remarks ..." It also found that the results were robust when accounting for a variety of factors.
GSAs have been getting more available over time, while GSAs used to be rare, according to the GLSEN survey 62% of schools today have them. Unfortunately, there has been opposition to GSAs. These can be everything from statewide laws like to don't say gay bill which has had the side effect of shutting down GSAs to school admins who simply don't want to start them.
Luckily, at least in the US GSAs implicitly are protected under law. They are protected by the freedom of speech and association parts of the First Amendment along with the Equal Access Act which stops federally funded schools with other non-curricular clubs from discriminating against a certain club.
GSAs are important to LGBT+ students and improve school environments. If you want more information or are interested in starting one go to GLSEN or GSA Network.
https://www.glsen.org/sites/default/files/2020-10/NSCS-2019-Executive-Summary-English_1.pdf
https://www.glsen.org/sites/default/files/2021-04/NSCS19-FullReport-032421-Web_0.pdf
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2022/
https://gsanetwork.org/what-is-a-gsa/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27221632/
https://www.lambdalegal.org/know-your-rights/article/youth-gay-straight-alliances