A rare club

GSA first came to YB in 2015. Even Though Ms. Pastran had no background in running a club like GSA; she thought we needed one on our campus so she started one. 

Pastran: “I actually help to bring it to YB so it was not at YB prior to me coming and …  other social workers in our district were talking about GSA and I was noticing we didn't have a GSA and I also notice we had many students who did identify … and so i thought it was interesting that we had this population they weren’t being served.”

Over the years GSA has helped bring awareness for many different things but their mission has always been the same.

 
Pastran: “Even though the name has change it has been the same purpose and that is to normalize … not being heteronormative … accepting everybody as how they are however they identify. And also [it's] a place for allies and for people like me who want to promote equality and really give people a safe space to be who they are and not to be judged. I think it's like promotion too of getting our message out there and being a visible population on this campus and so that's providing a space to do that and to really educate other about this population they wouldn’t know about.”

Like most clubs GSA is Student led with club leaders. The co-presidents are Navi and I. Last year Navi was president and at the start of this year he asked me to be co-president with him.

Navi: “Because I was still president and I kinda needed two or else GSA wouldn’t have a president or any officers. All of our officers last year were seniors.”

Before the hiatus GSA would have activities during lunch like games and potlucks. Members would also share their personal experiences and life stories.

Pastran: “We would do really fun things like at the beginning we would play games. We did a lot of potlucks during lunch and I think that was really nice because it was something to look forward to on a Thursday everybody brought something to share … I think sharing stories and hearing about the members' experience was really powerful too which we don’t really do very much of.”

Ms. Pastran would also like to take a step back and do things differently like when the club first started in 2015.

Pastran: “We really could make this club look very different then what it is now, which is what I am hoping we go kind of backward in terms of what it used to look like before we went on the hiatus for a couple years.”

GSA is back and ready to be a part of the community at YB again. If you are interested in joining GSA we encourage you to follow us on our instagram to know when our next meeting will be or stop by room 620 on Thursdays during lunch.