The Gender and Sexuality Alliance club at San Marcos High School  has shown up for the LGBTQ+ community this year. The GSA started this year with the hope of making our campus a more accepting and knowledgeable place for all students. They were able to accomplish this through school wide events and behind the scenes work.

As many students know, the first ever San Marcos Pride Week took place during April. Throughout the week of April 9 to 14, Spirit Days were organized in which students were encouraged to wear certain colors to show their support. The final day of Pride Week aligned with April 14, Day of Silence. Day of Silence is a national celebration where people can take a vow of silence to protest the oppression LGBTQ+ people face. The GSA had 200 participants and at the end of the day they hosted a festival. At the festival there were different booths operated by students. There were booths for students to sell artwork, get pizza, read library books by LGBTQ+ authors, get free LGBTQ+ stickers, and play games manned by other clubs at San Marcos. Overall Pride Week was a huge success and created awareness for Day of Silence. Whether students went to the festival, participated in a spirit day, or heard about it second hand, having a LGBTQ+ organization on campus celebrating themselves creates a rippling effect of awareness and positivity towards the community.

Freshman Kat Vochvska said that having the GSA on campus this year made her feel “safe and welcomed.”

Another accomplishment of the GSA was applying for and receiving a grant of $3,000 from The Fund for Santa Barbara to put towards the Name Change Fund. The name change fund is an organization that funds students who need to change their dead names on their diploma. (A dead name is a person’s name assigned at birth that they no longer identify with or use.) This organization is crucial for students as it allows people who may not have been comfortable changing their name in high school to have it reflected in their diploma. 

The GSA’s final goal for the 2022-2023 school year was to get another multi-stall gender neutral bathroom on campus. Having gender neutral bathrooms is not a frivolous desire, it is a right. Students must have access to a clean bathroom that they feel safe in, and currently that right is being neglected. 

In an interview with one of the co-presidents of the GSA it was reported that administration was highly encouraging of the GSA pursuing another gender neutral bathroom at the beginning of the school year. As the year went on communication and actions from administration towards the installation stopped. This is not a new occurrence. The co-president reported that for the past four years the club had tried to work with administration to get a bathroom but the plans always fell through, and it was not because of the GSA’s lack of conviction or organization. While funding and space are legitimate road blocks, the biggest road block the GSA has encountered this year is the administration’s lack of dedication and abundance of empty words. 

“I think it is not as prioritized as it should be,” said sophomore and GSA club member, Avery Estrella. “I don’t think they understand that having a bathroom for non-binary students is a necessity. It’s so frustrating because they’ve been trying to do it for so long and it is just a basic human right to be able to use the restroom.”

Despite this frustrating situation, the GSA was able to get the current gender neutral bathroom cleaned more often and have hope that the future generations of GSA will get a safe bathroom for students to use. 

The GSA has helped students all across campus this past year. Their achievements should be widely recognized and celebrated for the incredible feet they are. Moving into the future, they will use their momentum and continue bettering San Marcos for all.