Starting promptly at 3 p.m., senior president and co-founder Misty Adkins of the Gay-Straight Alliance hushed the members as she began their weekly Tuesday meetings in club sponsor Jeff Wieland’s classroom.
“For this meeting, we talked about future events,” Adkins said. “There is a lipdub coming up and GSA movie night. It’s also anti-bullying week so I was trying to see if there’s anything we can do to get involved.”
Bullying was one of the main reasons Adkins decided to start the club a few years ago.
“I started the club my sophomore year because I had friends who were being bullied severely for being gay so Kayla, the other founder, came to me with the idea,” Adkins said.
Senior Alex Maupin, who has been attending GSA since its very first meeting his sophomore year, believes that GSA allows students to talk about certain things without being judged.
“GSA gives students outlets for thoughts that just can’t be shared with everybody at school,” Maupin said.
The club was created in hopes of providing a safe environment where students of all sexual orientations can give one another support.
Since then, Adkins says that some people have judged her for being in GSA.
“I’ve had lots of people say ‘oh, you’re so gay’ or ‘the idea of GSA is gay,’” Adkins said. “Some people have been really standoffish to me but now most people leave me alone.”
This year, fewer students have attended GSA meetings.
“Attendance has been a little low. We have around 20 members that come to meetings but last year we had around 30.”
GSA meets every Tuesday on full school weeks in room A-211.