I’m proud to celebrate Ally Week with GLSEN and Gay-Straight Alliances around the country—and I’m especially proud to be one of their allies.

We will only succeed in stopping anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in our nation’s schools by locking arms and standing united—young and old, gay and straight—against discrimination.

If we do this, it will only be a matter of time before we pass the Student Non-Discrimination Act and the Safe Schools Improvement Act, two pieces of legislation which will go a long way in guaranteeing safe and effective schools for all students, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Last Saturday, I had the honor of serving as Youth Grand Marshal for my local pride parade. The theme this year was ‘Pride Links Us Together,’ and the event was a beautiful reminder that the LGBT/allied communities are themselves diverse groups that are made up of people from all different walks of life. Not only that, but taking part in the festivities also reminded me that pride is an important link to the history of the LGBT community. It wasn’t too long ago that LGBT people marched through the streets for the very first time during the Stonewall Riots, in response to discrimination that was so widespread that almost no one could afford to be out of the closet.

Fast forward only 43 years, and I’m at an event where LGBT people can openly celebrate their community. Now, although society is still nowhere close to as accepting as it should be, many are safely out and proud of who they are, and have the rainbow flags to prove it. Seeing this made me—well—proud. Proud to be an ally to such an extraordinary community that has held its head up high throughout decades and decades of discrimination, degradation, and stigmatization. And proud to be an ally to a community that has fought and still is fighting hard for their rights, and making progress every day.

Nashville, TN

I love schools. As a teacher, I imagine schools as centers of impassioned learning, maximized potential, and energetic engagement. However, I have spent most of my career working with students who struggle with learning. School often does not hold a lot of promise or hope for them. I have never been able to accept this. School is meant to be a place for all students—yet many continue to feel excluded. This is one of the many reasons why I became involved with GLSEN.

During what is already a period of change and self-exploration, LGBT youth face an additional struggle. They are often faced with messages of judgment, intolerance, and rejection. Messages targeted directly at the identities that they themselves are trying to understand and embrace. Consider their experiences. One student watches as politicians, on local and national platforms, debate his basic human rights and dignities. The simple act of going to the restroom at school becomes a source of anxiety for another student. The student who hears his peers joke around by calling each other “queer” or “fag.” Yet another who listens to the minister at their church tell the congregation that there is something fundamentally wrong with their  identity.

GLSEN sends a powerful counter message. GLSEN not only accepts these students, but also lets them know that they are amazing, unique, and brave. A little over a year ago, I become involved with our local chapter in Middle Tennessee. In this short period, I have attended national events, met safe schools activists from around the country, and worked with some of the most inspirational youth I have ever had the privilege of knowing. GLSEN provides a space for adults and youth to come together to learn, listen, share, and laugh. I attribute it to the GLSEN magic—a special blend of inspiration, affirmation, and passion.

However, the strength of GLSEN depends on us. Many LGBT youth have stories of struggle, exclusion, fear, and insecurity. But with strong partners like GLSEN, these youth are changing their stories—to ones of empowerment and inclusion and love. But we can’t do it alone. We need individuals, like you, to stand up in support of LGBT youth. Stand up in support of acceptance. Stand up in support of our schools. How can you do this?

Be an ally.

It seems simple. It is. Identifying as an ally means that you believe all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression, deserve to feel safe and supported. Identifying as an ally means that you will not use anti-LGBT language. Identifying as an ally means that you will support efforts to end anti-LGBT bias, bullying, and harassment in our schools.

I AM AN ALLY. If you are questioning the power of these four simple words, consider the impact that messages of intolerance have on LGBT youth. Your words send a message. Your words tell the student whose parents reject him that there is a place for him in this world. Your words lend support to the student who feels that her very identity is a sin. Your words provide affirmation to the student who hears taunts and name-calling as he walks through the hallways at school. You may not know these students’ names and you may never hear their stories, but your words can change their lives.

Take the ally pledge today! And if you want to provide further support to our safe schools advocacy and student leadership programming, consider volunteering or donating to your local GLSEN Chapter. Be an ally to LGBT youth. They will be change.

However, something changed when I realized not only that other people were feeling the same thing, but that people who weren’t even LGBTQ were willing to stick out their necks for me. These people were my allies.

No matter what choices I made or how many people were pushing against them they never left my side. They helped me pull through bullying, adjusted to new names and pronouns without question and never even considered the possibility that I was anything other than myself. These allies weren’t just students but teachers as well. It was my adviser who upon learning of my gender identity immediately put a plan in place so that my preferred name would be on all school documents. It was the teachers that when they messed up a pronoun apologized so profusely I thought they would cry. Most of all my English teacher who was so willing to start a GSA, he was ready to go against the administration for it.

People have always told me that I am really brave and that I deserve something for what I am doing. I think it should work the other way around. For me it’s just about trying to be myself and be happy with my life. But for allies, they risk their own happiness and popularity for the sake of others that they might not even know. That is an outstanding quality in someone.

Now that I have graduated from high school, I too have taken on the role of being an ally to LGBTQ students. I continue to keep in touch with friends in tight situations, learn about how students are doing and provide information to teachers and parents alike with resources to help the young people in their life.

This Ally Week, I would like to dedicate my thanks to all they allies in my life, and whether they are near or far, they will always be in my thoughts. Have a great Ally Week and if you haven’t already please take the pledge to be an ally for all students, and help to create safe schools for everyone.

-Emet

Emet is a former GLSEN Student Ambassador.

Student
Lebanon, TN

My life, though just beginning, has not been easy.

I grew up knowing I was different, knowing I liked boys. However, I have not always been the open book I am now. You see, I had never really had feelings for girls. So naturally, when I first realized I liked a boy in my class, I was terrified. I hated myself for years constantly afraid of someone discovering my secret and outing me to the world. I also worried quite frequently about being shunned by my family. I tried not to make friends because I felt I couldn’t trust anyone.

When I was younger my grandmother drilled the idea into my head that homosexuality was wrong and for me to be homosexual was a sin. Being raised around others who have strong opinions based in their faith, this negative connotation was embedded even further into my mind. It made me even more scared to be my true self.

Everything changed when I went to live with my father for a year. Though he was worse when it came to his feelings about gay people, the move to Ohio introduced me to a whole new world I had never experienced and slowly, I began to creep out of my shell.

Eventually I made friends and discovered that there were people out in the world who would accept me no matter whom I loved. My life slowly but surely began to change after this discovery and I became increasingly more comfortable in school.

As I changed so did my personality. While I was still terrified of my family realizing why I had never had a girlfriend (I was banking on my dad and his wife just thinking I was ugly or something), I was happy everywhere but home.

I soon returned to life with my grandmother still quite afraid of being hated. Years later, I started high school feeling rather alone once again. However, as was the case in Ohio, I found friends among my student body that would love and accept me no matter what. I also found an organization called GLSEN who worked to fight for LGBTQ people and provide safe environments in schools.

After I found a group of people I felt I could trust, I began to ponder the idea of “coming out” to the entire school. At first I started by telling my close friends and no longer denied my sexual orientation when I was accused of being gay. Of course there were some in my high school who, put plainly, didn’t approve as well as those that were flat out bullies. But with my allies by my side, I made it through the storm and found myself standing up victorious when the storm finally subsided.

One day near the end of my freshman year, my mother called asking me how I had been (the usual motherly things) when mid-sentence I stopped and said “Mom there’s something I need to tell you. I’m gay.” With that, I thought my ship had sunk. My heart felt like it was beating out of my chest just waiting for her to reply. She simply stated “Son, I’ve always known and will always love you. You’re the only child I can ever have and I’ll love you always.”

I broke down after that.

I sat down…

I cried (happy tears)…

My mother loved and accepted me, I was overjoyed! It changed everything. After that moment I felt as free as a bird. I had friends who loved and accepted me and now my mother too! Soon after, I built up the courage to tell the rest of my family. While I will admit I was terrified, I knew whether their responses were good or bad I would still have my mother and wonderful companions.

Plainly put, without discovering my allies and groups like GLSEN, I never would have had the courage to take that first step out of the closet into the light of a happier world. I am so grateful for all of my allies and the GLSEN community for helping to teach love, acceptance and creating safer schools for me to learn and grow.

Celebrate allies in your life during GLSEN’s Ally Week. Have a story about why allies are important to you, or why it’s important that you, as an ally, are creating safer schools for LGBT youth? We want to hear from you! Click here to submit your story.

Then I found Ally Week. Ally Week brings all people who support equality together and has them pledge to intervene, if they safely can, when they see bullying.

Ally Week is a time when you and your friends can stand up and say, “You know what? Bullying and name-calling needs to stop.”

I was afraid to do an assembly about Ally Week at my middle school. I still remember walking onto the stage in the gym. I looked toward my classmates, but could only make out silhouettes. The bright cream-colored rays from the stage lights burned my eyes.  My cheeks were warm with fear.  I raised the microphone to my mouth, the black plastic slick with my sweat.

I began. I made a plea to my school, my classmates, and my teachers to stand with me, to end bullying in our school, and to pledge to no longer be bystanders. As I walked off the stage, I licked my chapped lips and wished I could take it back.

At the end of assembly, I waited until everyone left and followed them out of the gym. The second the door shut behind me and I looked up, tears pooled in my eyes. A crescent moon of my classmates surrounded me, smiling and clapping. People asked where they could sign the Ally Week pledge and how they could continue to be supportive.

From that moment on, I felt like I belonged. I had a community of people who were committed to making our school safe.

This is why I urge you to participate in Ally Week. This is your chance to tell your classmates that they all deserve to be safe. This is your chance to stand up and say that equality matters. This is your chance to be the difference between bullied kids in your school feeling alone, and feeling supported. Don’t miss it.

Amelia Roskin-Frazee
San Francisco, CA
10th grade student

Want to do something for Ally Week? Take the Ally pledge and find other ways to show your support.

I realize that the school I attend is probably on the safe side, but without the safety net of the students and faculty that support me, I have no idea where I would be. As a queer, transmale student in a rural high school in northern Wisconsin, I will stand on the rooftops to scream how important allies are to me. During the second semester of my freshman year in high school, I began further exploring my gender identity, transitioning slowly from female to genderqueer to male.

In the years that have followed, I have taught, simply through my existence, the students and staff surrounding me about the fluidity of gender. The journey has not been easy. My mom has been my biggest ally. She has been my backbone, my support group, my cheerleader, and sometimes, the one thing that keeps me pushing through. The encouragement my allies give me is phenomenal. Some days, the only thing that makes the journey easier is the people that continue to hold me up.

When my mom and I were lobbying in Washington, D.C. with GLSEN for the Safe School Advocacy Summit in March of 2009, we both wore GLSEN pins. Every representative that we talked to, my mother would point at her pin and say, “Straight is the heart of GLSEN.” Allies can help our voices be heard.

I have a couple things to say to you allies out there. First and foremost, remember this: while you support your LGBT friends, try to be as proactive as you can be. If you hear someone saying “that’s so gay,” don’t just let it go unnoticed. Being a bystander can sometimes be as bad as being the bully. But most importantly, I want to say thank you. Without your support, some of us have a hard time pushing through. I appreciate everything you do, and so does my mom.

If you’d like more information on how you can be a better Ally to transgender and gender-nonconforming youth in schools, download the Ally Week guide: Be an Ally to Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Students.