Gay-straight alliances should be mandatory: Regina student

On Wednesday night, a panel in Regina will talk about the idea ofgay-straight alliances (GSAs) in high schools. The panel coincides with the city's pride week.

Grade 12 student Anna Robinson will speak on the panel.

She attends Campbell Collegiate andis the co-president of her school's queer-straight alliance (QSA). Robinson saidsafe spaces, likeQSAs, should be mandatory in high schools.

"They are necessary," she said.

She cited Alberta's legislation that mandates a GSA be implemented should a studentrequest one. Saskatchewan doesn't have a similar legislation.

There are still schools in the Regina area without aform ofGSA.

School without support

Regina resident Bernie Mathieson knows what it's like to have attended a high school that didn't have a safe space.

He attendedArchbishop M.C. O'Neill High School in the 1980s.

"My high school experience would have been atenfold better [with a GSA]," he said.

Mathieson said the option to have supports from LGBT allies as well as people of his own lifestyle to talk to, would have made his high school experience completely different in terms of morale and involvement.

There was nobody you could talk to.-Bernie Mathieson

"High school for me was pretty much classified as a nightmare," he said.

Mathieson didn't openly identify as gay then, butwas beat up and bulliedfor being different. He was called "fag" and "gay" and bullied for being "feminine."

He skipped classes and his grades fell.During that time, GSAs were unheard of.

"Back then there was nobody you could talk to," he said, noting he didn't even feel he could approach a teacher or a counselor about what was going on.

"I've heard that since that things have changed there,"

Making progress

Things have changed so muchMathieson could hardly believe Robinson when she informed him that Archbishop M.C. O'Neill High School was the first Catholic school in Reginato have a safe space for LGBTstudents.

Robinson is hopeful for the future of LGBT students in local high schools, and Mathieson is too, however, they both say there is still a lot of work to do.

"We're not safe yet," Robinson said. "I think that for everyone the [Orlando] shooting was kind of a wake-up call."

The GSA panel isat 7p.m. CST at the Cathedral Neighbourhood Centre.