Queer Straight Alliance

In May, last year’s QSA leadership approached me and recommended that I apply to be part of next year’s QSA leadership.  I applied, and now I’m co-chair and financial manager.

In the past few years, it has mostly been a social organization.  Last year, they organized the work on the No On Prop 8 campaign, but not a whole lot of other political action.  There is a lot of potential in the organization, though, and I hope to make it a lot more political.  One thing that we’ll want to do is organize an Ally Week to try to get more people to identify as allies to LGBTQ people. 

We’ve also been working with the ASSU to try to get some institutional change.  For instance, in RA training, there isn’t anything about LGBTQ issues, and I have heard of RAs who were openly homophobic.  It’s nice to be on both the ASSU and QSA – I can see the direct institutional connection and feel like I can easily make my voice heard.  Even though I just got involved with QSA, I have already helped represent them at the ASSU Policy Summit’s panel on the student government’s agenda for diversity and in meetings with David Gobaud about the executive agenda.