Club officers and sophomores Liv Hagan and Ky Winn work their booth in the cafeteria, talking to students about GSA and offering face painting. Hagan, the club president, is extremely passionate about GSA. She founded the Cavalero chapter of the club, which had 17 members last year, and is trying to get membership to a similar level at the high school. As of now, Hagan and Winn represent ⅔ of the club’s total membership but they are working hard to change that. The club works to promote tolerance through education and encourages open dialogue about gender and sexuality. They currently meet Thursdays in room 104.

When membership does pick up, Hagen has a clear image of what the club could grow to be. She has a schedule for a typical meeting all worked out as well.

“So we come in, there’s like ten minutes to just kind of wind-down and then we sit in a circle. There’s an opening presentation talking about what the basic rules are, you know the expectations,” Hagen said. These rules deal with things like privacy and respect and are meant to ensure that everyone feels safe sharing their experiences. “Then we have a check-in, which is your name, your pronouns, something good that happened this week  [and] something bad that happened this week and then there’s like a weekly question like “what’s your favorite dog” you know, just like random questions and then there will be an educational slide show about what different sexualities are, like basic terms, what it’s like to come out, and then we have activities things like that,” Hagan continued. There is also a question box where students can anonymously pose a question to the group.

GSA  wants to emphasize that all students are welcome. “Any time I talk to someone about GSA I try to make it known that heterosexuality is a sexuality and in gender-sexuality alliance that does fit in. You just have to be accepting of other people and that’s all it really is,” Hagan said. “Come. If you are gay, straight, trans, cis; if you don’t know what any of what I just said means, you should come. Even if you come once and you don’t like it and it’s not for you then cool because at least you tried,”  Winn added.