Club Feature: The UNITY/GSA Club
The UNITY/GSA club meets every Thursday from 3:30-5:00 p.m. in room 317A in Beacon Hall. But it is no ordinary club. Yes, there are snacks and drinks provided at meetings, but that is not the best part. The UNITY/GSA club helps students be a part of a community that accepts and talks about sexuality and gender orientation.
UNITY stands for Understanding and Nurturing Individuality Throughout the Year. GSA stands for Gay Straight Alliance. This club brings together students of any gender or sexual orientation to support one another and provide a safe place to socialize, and create a platform for activism to fight homophobia and transphobia. Many schools have a GSA or UNITY club, making for great connections and even better support.
The UNITY/GSA club at HCC is a very welcoming environment. At the meeting I attended we started off with a game so that everyone would feel more comfortable. The concept of the game was to stand either on the left of the room, the right of the room, or in the middle based on your own likes. For example, if players liked Pepsi better than Coca-Cola they would stand on the right of the room, but if players like Coca-Cola better than Pepsi they would stand on the left of the room and if players like both or neither they would stand in the middle of the room. The game went on for a few minutes and was a ton of fun, it really livened up the room and helped everyone become more comfortable.
Afterwards, we discussed upcoming events that were being planned, such as HIV Day, a day where students could go and get tested for HIV. Another event that is being planned is The Day of Silence, which is April 17th. The Day of Silence is a day that represents all of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) people who were bullied into silence or death for their sexual preference or orientation. On this day people who support, know, or have experienced what these people go through are completely silent for the whole day to symbolize what they have to go through.
Next, we talked about the topic of the day, which was stereotypes. When discussing stereotypes everyone had to come up with stereotypes about LGBT people that are not true. Everyone came up with a lot of stereotypes that society has created that are not true. An example of one would be that lesbains are more masculine than straight females. This stereotype is not true, there are a lot of lesbian women who are ‘girly,’ but the media does not show a lot of them because they are harder to identify.
As a straight female I was apprehensive about attending this meeting because I thought to join one could to not be straight, but there are some members who are straight and they support the LGBT community. The members of this club are very friendly and fun to be with, if anyone is interested in joining a fun and interesting club, this is the one for you!