LGBT Center and Athens High School Gay Straight Alliance safe spaces for high school students to be themselves.
Emily Hanna hangs out in the LGBT Center almost every day.
It isn’t uncommon for people to hang out there between classes or to connect with fellow Ohio University students, but Hanna, as a high school senior, is one of the exceptions.
Although Hanna isn’t a member of the university community, the LGBT Center is designated as a resource for area teens seeking advice, direction or just a place to hang out. But in addition to the LGBT Center, which has been a presence in Athens for 16 years, a new resource has become available for LGBT-identified youth — the Athens High School Gay-Straight Alliance.
As a senior at Athens High School, Hanna also is the secretary of the Gay-Straight Alliance club, which just started this year through a class project. The club has grown to be one of the largest in the school, with 20 to 40 attendees in its bi-weekly meetings.
Todd Fry, teacher and GSA advisor at Athens High School, said it has been a great experience getting to work with the group of students.
“Just how passionate the students are to have a club and to have a space where they can talk about … LGBT issues and how interested they are and how open they are and how accepting they are,” Fry said. “It seems like half the club, just from things that they’ve talked about, are allies. They’re not even LGBT themselves.”
The club has also proved valuable in connecting students to other resources in the area. Hanna learned about the LGBT Center when Delfin Bautista, director of the LGBT Center, brought along some college students from the center to talk to GSA.
“Because they were all very close to our age, it was nice to hear from people who are out in the community and have gone to college and now are completely themselves and to hear their stories of their high school experiences and that it gets better,” Hanna said.
Bautista encouraged students that if they wanted to, the LGBT Center was a space for them to visit, with plenty of events and opportunities to meet other people. Hanna decided to take Bautista up on the offer.
Hanna said everyone was welcoming, and even asked for preferred pronouns, something Hanna was not used to. Bautista, with a background in religion and religious studies, has helped Hanna find a balance and harmony with LGBT issues and Catholicism.
“I’m not out to my family really, only out to a couple of friends so just being surrounded by these people has been amazing,” Hanna said. “It’s given me the confidence to tell more people and be who I am and to learn more about myself.”
Bautista said it’s been an extension of the center’s mission to have members outside OU attend.
“A lot of them are starting to hang out in the center and I think it’s just a reflection that we don’t have any spaces in the community, so we’re not going to turn them away,” Bautista said.
Bautista said sometimes the LGBT Center is a resource not just for high school students, but also their parents.
“It’s sort of made us proud that people from the community feel comfortable hanging out here in the center,” Bautista said. “It’s also happened with some older community members.”
Hanna said a goal of the GSA is to continue to grow. Federal Hocking High School recently started a GSA as well, Hanna said.
“I would like (to see GSA improve by) definitely more people to come because some people are afraid and for us to educate the student body and teachers to make it known that people who are scared can come and be who they are,” Hanna said.
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