Alberta gay straight alliance

Students meet, socialize and support one another as they discuss their feelings and experiences related to sexual orientation and gender identity. Our GSA held weekly meetings, made posters with inclusive messages, organized awareness events and offered support for all students.

The most recent Calgary Pride parade saw record-setting crowds numbered in the tens of thousands. The party fulfilled its election promise to support those students by enshrining their rights to form a GSA with Bill This act requires all publicly funded schools to create welcoming, caring and respectful policies and make the policies publicly available, and ensures principals help students create a GSA in a timely manner when one is requested.

Some attendees are straight allies wishing to learn more about how to support their peers, or they may simply want to better understand the complex issues around sexual orientation and gender identity. Safer schools benefit everyone.

[]. It is important to know that GSAs have only existed in Alberta for less than two decades. Further, the act ensures schools comply with the law. One of his campaign promises is to roll back GSA legislation: Kenney has proposed allowing school officials to notify parents when their child joins a GSA.

Such a move could jeopardize student safety.

Why gay straight alliance

Gay-straight alliances (GSAs) and queer-straight alliances (QSAs) promote welcoming, caring, respectful and safe schools for LGBTQ2S+ students and their allies. At a memorable staff meeting, a few brave students stood in front of more than adults.

They are also able to thrive and find resilience with appropriate adult and peer support in place. They talked candidly about growing up gay in Red Deer, about wishing to be like the cast members of the popular sitcom Friends, but knowing they were somehow different.

Today the Alberta GSA network has 78 registered clubs and a wealth of strong resources to guide the formation and sustenance of these groups. Just last week, a recording surfaced in which UCP candidate Mark Smith came under scrutiny for comments appearing to question if homosexual love is real love.

Today we are not living in the Alberta of earlier generations, and many signs point to a more accepting and open-minded population. This.

Gay Straight Alliances Sexual

In a relatively conservative social climate, courageous students convinced our principal and staff the group was needed to help students feel safer at school. Today, research is clear that the existence of a gay-straight alliance in a school will improve the learning environment for all of the students there, and particularly for sexual minority students.

The Alberta Teachers’ Association supports the establishment of gay–straight alliance groups to create awareness and action that promotes the creation of safe learning environments for all students in Alberta high schools. Youth Freedom Fund is one of the ways GSA youth leaders can lead their own experiments with building anti-capitalist, community-centered operational models.

I learned as a teacher that there are numerous reasons students may wish to join a GSA. Allowing schools to disclose membership to parents would put many students at additional risk. Further, the NDP recently released a campaign attack video that draws attention to a decades-old video showing a younger Kenney discussing leading a petition against gay spousal rights in San Francisco.

Issues surrounding sexual orientation also came to the fore during the Alberta election, when the fledgling Wildrose Alliance Party attracted a number of candidates with extremist views. Their stories were unscripted and compelling — and they touched the hearts of all who listened.

The Alberta Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Students Alliance (GSA) Network provides support to students & teachers to start, strengthen, and sustain GSA clubs (also known as gay-straight alliances, gender & sexual orientation alliances, queer-straight alliances, pride clubs, rainbow alliances, and many other names) in Alberta's K schools.

Every year, we hold the AB GSA Conference. Alberta legislation dictates that students at any school in Alberta can start a GSA. Over schools in the Calgary area have one!. Resourcing Clubs. With an Alberta election ahead next week, party leaders are declaring their positions.

Schools that do not put in place a relevant written policy and code of conduct, or who disallow the formation of a GSA, are subject to removal of public funding.