This upcoming year, among many other new clubs, there will be a Gay Straight Alliance at the OHS. Gay Straight Alliances are in schools across the nation and attempt to create safe environments for LGBT students in schools, as well as educate communities on LGBT rights and issues. Created by two seniors, Brendan McDonnell and Caroline Korndorffer, the plan for this club is to incorporate gay rights into the OHS community through student discussion; as founder Brendan McDonnell states: “My mission for starting the Stanford OHS Gay Straight Alliance is to….respectfully but still energetically introduce the gay rights movement into our community. As GSA is an alliance between all groups of people, this association will fight for the rights of all minorities in our community, helping to establish a tolerant and open-minded zone for students.”

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Tara Smith, a junior and the president of her local brick and mortar’s GSA, has similar views on the matter. “Well, GSA, for me, has always been a safe place for me to talk about my feelings. It was one of the only places that I felt truly comfortable, and I made some of the best friends in that club. It’s also a wonderful opportunity to discuss issues that face the LGBT community.”

Zachary Shuster, a junior, disagrees on the issue, but still does not consider this a negative idea. He says that while he personally does not support gay marriage, he is not opposed to the idea of the club and is surprised as to why it wasn’t started sooner. Overall, many people support the idea of the Gay-Straight Alliance being created, and view it as an opportunity to educate people on issues from both within our community and on a much larger scale.

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