#Gay Straight Alliance

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

On Tuesday, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris announced that her pick for Vice President is Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota. In recent years, as trans and queer people have come under attack from over a thousand proposed bills, Walz is expected to serve as a source of optimism for LGBTQ+ people. The governor’s long track record on LGBTQ+ rights positions him as a strong oppositional force against what has become a national attack on LGBTQ+ people, particularly transgender individuals.

“I am proud to announce that I've asked Tim Walz to be my running mate. As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he's delivered for working families like his. It's great to have him on the team. Now let’s get to work. Join us,” read Harris’ statement on Twitter. Walz has taken decisive action against attacks on transgender people in surrounding states, making Minnesota a refuge for those seeking care. In 2023, he signed an executive order protecting transgender people from out-of-state prosecution if they seek care within Minnesota’s borders. The executive order also issued a bulletin to health insurance companies, mandating coverage and initiating investigations into health insurance denials in the state.

In 2024, Walz signed a bill banning the gay and transgender panic defense. This defense is often used to help individuals avoid murder charges or receive lighter sentences by asserting that they were "deceived" by a romantic partner who was gay or transgender. According to one study, the transgender panic defense has been used at least 351 times. Walz's pro-LGBTQ+ record goes back much further than his time as governor. In 1999, he sponsored the first gay-straight alliance at his high school while working as a teacher. In Congress, he co-sponsored the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and voted to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D)’s track record on LGBTQ+ issues has been stellar, dating back to his pre-Congress days.

This makes me glad that he is the nominee.

[mermazeablaze]

Misti Tope is the current head principal of Classen School of Advanced Studies at North East High School in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Misti Tope has been fostering an environment of fear & hostility among everyone including students, faculty, educators & parents. It is to the point where parents are organizing private meetups to discuss her. Students are creating petitions.

Misti Tope has recently stated multiple times to students & faculty that she wants to create an educational environment that aligns with Ryan Walters views.

Misti Tope has been firing teachers of color & working to force them out. Misti Tope recently fired a trans teacher, Mx Mustain, who was close to receiving tenure. Misti Tope, of course, lied about the reason behind these firings.

Misti Tope has threatened female students who wanted to report predatory behavior from faculty. She went so far as to make threatening phone calls & disbanded an after school club over these students compiling information. Misti Tope has threatened to disband any club that seeks to protect themselves from predatory teachers.

Misti Tope physically gropes students over dress code violations. Whether they are violating dress code or not, this is unexcusable. Misti Tope also makes derogatory commentary on female students being "busty" & "curvy".

Misti Tope actively intimidates the female student body. There have been situations where male students have shown their penises to female students & all the male students receive is detention. Misti Tope has called female students "overemotional" & "dramatic".

Misti Tope keeps seeking ways to disband the Black Student Union. Misti Tope has vocally compared black students in BSU more than once to rats & roaches pulling at each other's weaves. Misti Tope also stated that black students are equivalent to goldfish & don't deserve an education because they are incapable of retaining information.

Misti Tope is an active Holocaust denier. The son of a Holocaust survivor was kicked off stage while giving a presentation. Misti Tope shuts conversations surrounding the Holocaust.

Misti Tope's son who is a student is known to carve & graffiti swastikas & other Nazi imagery all over the school. Misti Tope's son also states antisemitic, homophobic, transphobic & racist rhetoric. Misti Tope scapegoats by saying he learns this from anime, which is untrue. Misti Tope also allows her son to skip classes & wander around the school.

Misti Tope attempts to force transgender students to use restrooms of their biological gender. Misti Tope has told transgender students to dress according to their biological gender.

Misti Tope is seeking to end funding to the athletic departments & divert funds to a swim team.

Misti Tope is not the future of Classen. Misti Tope is unfit to be a part of any school district in any capacity.

Again, I am not the only parent. Other parents are organizing & mobilizing of their own accord & having meetups. The same is being said of students. I have added screenshots because the admins of the Classen Parent group like deleting posts as evidence when things become heated.

Students, though this action was not right, cornered Misti Tope in her office this Friday (05/03/24). This is how threatened they feel by Misti Tope, this is the environment she's creating.

[gsmst-blahaj-brigade]

first meeting summary

sorry I forgot to post! Oopsie doopsie I guess lmao

Anyways, first we started by having everyone fill out the Google doc to collect emergency contacts. After, we started by introducing the club itself, what we are about, what we do, and our schedule.

After all that was out of the way, we introduced the club sponsors, and thr club captains. Each person shared their name, pronouns, and something fun.

When Introductions were finished, we moved on to an icebreaker game of would you rather, having everyone move to the left, right, or center of the room depending on their answer. After they moved, we had them discuss something about their answer.

Overall, it was a fun meeting, and the next will be on September 27th, where we will having a game night with karaoke!

[prettygirlgerard]

Wanted to share some pictures from a middle school GSA meeting four years ago today! 🏳️‍🌈🤍🌈

I (second picture, far left, grey shirt) was in 7th grade and the founder/president. As far as I know the GSA dissolved when I went to high school, but hopefully my middle school is more accepting now. I started fighting to start a GSA in 6th grade, and a while ago I found old drafts of letters to the administration who argued that parents would be upset about it lol. I know it was only four years ago, but it was a real necessity at the time compared to now. At one point, Brave Trails (queer summer camp on both coasts) sent us all some pronoun pins and stickers for free. Our last big event before covid hit was a Valentine’s Day dance I organized, we rented a little party room down at Woodlawn Lake. I still know or talk to almost everyone in that second picture, and we’re all juniors and seniors in high school now (except my sibling lol they’re younger). Some of the now-seniors I even went to my first pride with in 2019. Queer people are more accepted at schools now, even here in San Antonio, than we were in 2017/18, which I’m grateful for. Anyway, it was real important for us to have this and I’m glad I did it. It gets better 🤍

[janegrey9]

extended interaction with some baby gays is so hard bc on one hand they can be so terminally online in the worst way possible and it becomes so annoying but on the other hand. i was once you. i am looking into a mirror at a reflection from several years ago and also right now. i hate you i love you i wish i could protect you from how hard it is. i remember being you so vividly but i find you so insufferable. i want to help you but i can't help but wonder if i'm harming you and if i am i don't know how to stop.

[snufkingg]

heres a lil smth i made to advertise my schools gay straight alliance bc we all agreed it would attract the right crowd

crazy silly

[loaflovesdoodling]

Happy pride month!!!

I might not be part of you guys' community, but that doesn't mean I can't show my appreciation towards you! Enjoy your month, you all deserve it. ❤️ ❤️

[therealestwizard]

BREAKING NEWS: High school friend said I was one of the “LGBTQ”. I have been discriminated against.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Michelangelo Signorile at The Signorile Report:

When Jacob Reitan was a student at Mankato West High School in Mankato, Minnesota, where Tim Walz taught social studies in the 1990s—long before a political career that would eventually take him to the Minnesota Governor’s Mansion, and now as the VP running mate on a presidential ticket—Reitan was a student in Gwen Walz’s class.

Reitan was closeted in a time when being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender was deeply shunned by many Americans, particularly in rural and small-town America. Bullying in schools was rampant from big cities to the most remote parts of the country, and it was often dangerous to be openly queer as hate crimes escalated. “Gwen was my English literature teacher in 10th grade,” Reitan told me in an interview on my SiriusXM Progress program. “And in 10th grade, I knew that I was gay, but I was living in the closet of one. It was an echo chamber. I was out to no one, but I was wrestling with this reality. That was difficult because not only did I not tell anyone that I was gay, I also knew no one who was gay.” Reitan, who would go on to become a gay activist in later years and an attorney, remembers feeling very lonely in the small city of Mankato, the county seat of Blue Earth County, 82 miles south of Minneapolis. On the first day of class with Gwen Walz, she said something at the beginning that stirred Reitan.

“She started the class by saying that this was a safe place for gay and lesbian students,” Reitan vividly recalls. “I had never heard any teacher say anything positive about gay kids from the front of the class. My heart was beating out of my chest. I thought, Does she know that I'm gay? Is that why she's saying this? And it stuck with me.” Reitan soon decided to come out as gay, telling his sister and a good friend first. The third person he came out to was Gwen Walz. “Gwen and I had long conversations about being gay, and she talked about being supportive of a previous student of hers who was openly gay when [she and Tim] were teaching in Nebraska and things that they had done to support that student,” he recounted. “And so I knew that Tim and Gwen were supportive people that I could go to.” Within the year, Reitan, the first student at Mankato West to come out as gay, worked with other students and created the gay-straight alliance at Mankato West. As Vice President Harris noted in her introduction of her running mate in Philadelphia two weeks ago, Tim Walz, the social studies teacher and football coach, became the faculty adviser to the group.

Both Tim and Gwen Walz became lifelong friends of Reitan and his family. Reitan told me about how their faith is what guided them in supporting LGBTQ people. “Tim's core is the concept of treating people with compassion, equality, and justice,” Reitan said. “And it's in Gwen's core too. Gwen, in high school, would talk to me about why it was important to her because of her faith.” “We talked about how I come from a Lutheran family. My grandfather was a Lutheran minister, and she would say that it's because of her Lutheran faith that she does this. They're very religious people. Gwen prays every day. Their concept of religion includes treating people equally and justly.” That is enormously powerful to hear at a time when Donald Trump courts Christian nationalists in the evangelical base who demonize LGBTQ people. He’s promised them, as he did in his first term, to strip the rights of LGBTQ people. much of which is outlined in Project 2025.

Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, calls LGBTQ people “groomers"—a grotesque and dangerous lie that implies we are pedophiles—and is opposed to marriage equality and gender-affirming care for transgender people. So the fact that the Walzes supported marriage equality in 2006 as Tim Walz was embarking upon a run for a congressional seat in a rural, red Minnesota district is pretty astounding. That was a time when President George W. Bush was pushing for a federal marriage amendment, and many states had banned same-sex marriage. Even most Democratic elected officials, including those from urban areas, publicly opposed same-sex marriage. In fact, they saw the middle ground—the safe space—in opposing the federal marriage amendment while opposing marriage equality. It was pretty cowardly. But not Tim Walz. Reitan relayed a story from 2006, when Tim and Gwen Walz were mulling over Tim’s possible run for the U.S. House, and they came to his home for dinner.

Jacob Reitan came out as gay in Gwen Walz’s English Lit class in 1999 at Mankato West High School in Mankato, Minnesota. Reitan helped form a gay-straight alliance that year with Gwen and her husband Tim, who taught social studies.

In 2006, when Tim was gearing up for a Congressional run, he supported marriage equality in a time where many elected Democrats still didn’t support marriage equality or LGBTQ+ rights.

In 2004, his ticketmate Kamala Harris fought for marriage equality in California and refused to defend Prop 8 as Attorney General.

See Also:

Public Notice: Tim Walz's remarkably courageous stand for LGBT youth

[yoursapphicsgirlfriend]

[nerdykeith]

The GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) in Iowa are taking a stand against the anti-LGBTQ. They say they are not going to listen to the rules. Good on them. These outrageous rules are only hurting the trans youth and putting them in vulnerable situations. They need to have some sense of safety. I wish them well with this. 

[adetheenby]

thse kids from GSA came and had a talk in my class abt how we should stop by and check em out and maybe join, honestly felt proud of myself bc for years these two kids looked like they were queer in some way to me and i was RIGHT but also oneof them definitely clocked me bc my dude WHY did you keep glancing at me STOP GLANCING AT ME WHY ARE YOU ONLY GLANCING AT ME MULTIPLE TIMES?????????????????????? like STOP i was sitting firstrow too, how am i supposed to NOT laugh at how you just nonverbally called me an obvious homo??????????

[longtimesatyr04]

Wholesome internet interactions(ft. Me and some good cishet man on YouTube)

[localdiscountgoth]

sometimes i remember that time my catholic schools gay straight alliance (we called it love club to get around the arch diocese rules) made posters and my friends and i put anime ships on the posters because we were 15 and a some girl vandalized the posters (she was a lesbian) and posted it on her tumblr?????

i do wonder what came of that