By now, you’ve probably heard of the Springbrook PRIDE club, and its title as the Springbrook GSA. But do you know the history behind this controversial name, and the reason it was left behind?

The term ‘Gay-Straight Alliance’, or GSA, was invented in 1988, at Concord University, by a gay teacher and one of his straight students. Naturally, the alliance was built to help aid gay students & staff in Concord who were being heavily mistreated due to the stigma created during the AIDS crisis that had labelled gay men as sick and near-cancerous.

This alliance served its purpose as well, serving as a statement throughout Concord that intolerance would not be accepted in the school. However, as time progressed, and a new generation of students flooded into GSAs, the old name faded away, being replaced slowly with the Genders & Sexualities Alliance.

This was done to stretch the inclusion of GSAs, notably to transgender and/or bisexual students, who were not included under the range of Gay-Straight alliances, and to allow them to have a space in GSAs as well.

Students were mostly receptive to this idea, and, as one MCPS student says, “Having a sanctuary space within school to know that I can just be myself is super important. ‘Gay-Straight Alliance’ is outdated, and doesn’t take into account the wide spectrum of identities in the LGBTQ+ community.”

However, throughout its lifetime, the term GSA has always been contested, being usually replaced with more specific names. This is, of course, due to confusion between the GSA and the SGA, as most student government associations did not historically want to be confused or associated with the GSA.

As such, here at Springbrook High, we have the Springbrook PRIDE club, instead of the Springbrook GSA. The club serves the same purpose of providing a safe zone for all students with the protections of staff and teachers, but the name change allows for less confusion among any participants.