It had been one week since the first day of school, which for some reason was on a Friday. I was enjoying all of my classes and none of my "friends" were talking to me after I almost broke that senior's arm. Today was also the first meeting of GSA and I couldn't be more excited, I still wasn't used to my school schedule since we had odd and even day blocks so I looked at the date on my calendar. It was the eleventh, an odd day. I put all of my class folders for an odd day block and went downstairs to leave for school. My mom had already left for work and wouldn't see me until I got back from GSA, I walked out of my house making sure the door was locked before I closed it. I got into my sister's car where she was waiting for me.
"So," she began, "do you want me to go to GSA with you?"
"No, only if you want to, don't you have another club today too?" I asked knowing that every Friday last year she would be at a club.
"I feel like you'll be surprised at the club I went to every Friday last year, I could hang with you guys for awhile." She said while pulling out of the driveway and taking us on our way to school.
"Okay." I smiled, it was gonna be the best day ever.
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The bell rang signalling the end of the day and as kids pushed pass one another I made my way to the classroom where GSA was held, room 214. I walked over and pushed the door open and saw Thomas pushing tables with some people and Charlie was slowly putting chairs in a circle along with the help of Zach. They didn't notice me enter so they continued with their conversation.
"Do we know how many people are gonna be here?"
"Nope, but I'm sure it's gonna be a larger turnout than last year. We'll be sure to have a lot of straight allies."
"Oh please don't use that word, straight allies hurt us more than they help us."
"Casey could you just be nice to them? We could really use the support."
"Fine, but don't expect me to jump at being the one who explains all of the sexualities and gender identities they don't know." I decided then to make my presence known so maybe everyone in the room would hate me less.
"Hi guys." I said meekly. Zach looked up at me and dropped a chair which landed on Charlie's foot but he didn't react because he was also staring at me, everyone was. I didn't know what to do so I just stood there waiting for something to happen, after a couple seconds Thomas walked over to me and broke the silence.
"Yay you're here! Everyone this is Elizabeth and she's new here!" I was pulled into the room and left there so I decided to help set up chairs with Zach. A person walked over to me while I was setting up chairs and started to make conversation.
"So, you're a freshman." They said. I thought it'd be in my best interest to not give anyone pronouns until I knew their gender identity.
"Yeah." I said back meekly, I'm pretty sure this was Casey and they would hate me forever if I slipped up.
"You straight?" They asked. I was lucky Thomas intervened again or else I would've had an anxiety attack.
"Hey it's almost time to start, you should go find a seat and I'll finish setting up chairs for you."
"Okay." I responded and went to sit down in between Charlie and Zach while Thomas pulled who I believe is Casey aside and started to what looked like scolding them. Zach and Charlie were already having a conversation so I sat there and watched everybody come into the room and find a seat. Then the club advisor, who just so happened to be my guidance counselor walked in and sat down in the chair that had a "for advisor" sign on it. I looked around the room to see who was here. Ali, Kate, my sister, Zach, Thomas, Charlie, and some other people who I had classes with or saw in the halls. Then the meeting started.
"Hello everyone, I am Mrs. LaPage and this is our school's GSA," our advisor began, "our first order of business is to introduce first our club officers and then ourselves, then we'll see if we have enough time to do rose and thorn which we'll discuss." She stopped talking and let the officers stand up.
"Hi, I'm Zach and I'm the president of the club."
"Hi, I'm Thomas and I'm the vice president."
"Hi, I'm Charlie, I'm the treasurer."
"Hi, I'm Bella and I'm the secretary." My sister said that. This was the club she went to every Friday.
"The way we introduce ourselves is we say our name, our grade, our sexual orientation if you want, and gender identity as well as our personal pronouns," Zach said smiling. His smile was so cute, it was small but it held so much happiness, "Mrs. LaPage would you like to start?" Zach asked while everyone sat down.
"Sure, I'm Mrs. LaPage, I'm a guidance counselor here, I'm straight but don't tell my husband that, and my pronouns are she and her."
"I'm Charlie, I'm a sophmore, I'm gay, I'm cisgender, my pronouns are, he, him, and his."
"I'm Thomas, I'm also a sophmore, I'm a flaming homosexual, I'm cisgender and my pronouns are he, him, and his."
"I'm Zach, I'm a sophmore, I'm pansexual, I'm transgender, and my pronouns are he, him, and his." Now, it was my turn.
"I'm Liz, I'm a freshman, I have no idea what my sexual orientation is, I'm cisgender, and my pronouns are she and her."
"I'm Bella, I'm a senior, I'm bisexual, I'm cisgender, and my pronouns are she and her." That was a punch in the face to me. I didn't even know this about my sister and we were so close. It really made me feel like she didn't trust me enough to tell me that about her.
"I'm Casey, I'm a junior, I'm polysexual, I'm a demigirl, and my pronouns are they, them, theirs or she and her." This was the girl who asked me if I was straight, and obviously the one who hates straight allies.
"I'm Ali, I'm a freshman, I'm demisexual, I'm cisgender, and my pronouns are she and her."
"I'm Kate, I'm a freshman, I'm homosexual, I'm cisgender, and my pronouns are female."
"I'm Sage, I'm a junior, I'm skoliosexual, I'm non-binary, and my pronouns are they, them, and their." I didn't know a lot of the genders or sexualities said so I guess I was just gonna have to look them up on the Internet when I got home, after I talked to my sister about the recent event that occurred.
"I'm Tia, I'm a junior, I'm asexual, I'm cisgender, and my pronouns are she and her."
"I'm John, I'm also a junior as well as asexual and cisgender, and my pronouns are he, him, and his." That was the last person for introductions so the officers were supposed to speak about the club now.
"So Gay Straight Alliance is a club to support students that are LGBT+ and allies that need help with coming out or really anything in their lives," Zach stated, " we also talk about news in the U.S. or worldwide that has to do with the LGBT+ community."
"We have rules that we always rewrite each year that we have all of our members sign, I have the sheet right here, please read it over and sign it," Thomas said while unravelling a poster sheet with a sign that said "Da Rules" at the top. The sheet said;
- Confidentiality, what happens here stays here
- Mind your tongue, no swearing or bad mouthing people
- Ohana means family, we all care about each other here and want the best for each other
- Keep your promises, if you say you'll help at a bake sale or bring in food for a meeting, go through with it or tell an officier you can't do what you said
- Clean up your mess, this isn't our classroom so please keep it clean for the other teachers
- THE GOLDEN RULE! We are here to help each other, we do not wake up one day and decide that we want to make our lives worse for ourselves so treat others how you want to be treated
The rules were small but they were important, I grabbed my favorite purple pen from my pocket and signed the sheet and sat back down. Everyone had signed the paper and sat back down, we waited for the next order of business for today.
"I think we have enough time to explain rose and thorn," Mrs. LaPage said, "Would one of the officers please explain that to the group?"
"I'll do it." Charlie said surprisingly not pausing in the middle of the sentence.
"Rose and thorn is when we say something good that happened during the week and something bad, if you don't wanna say anything you don't have to, it also doesn't have to be just one rose and one thorn, if you had a really good week you can say two roses and the same goes for if you had a really bad week." It was amazing hearing him not just randomly stop talking, I guess he really just wanted to get that out.
"Would anyone like to go first?" Mrs. LaPage asked.
"Actually, Mrs. LaPage it looks like we've run out of time." Zach said looking at the clock by the door, it was three fifty- five and the meeting ended at four. We still had to put the room back in order too.
"Well then we'll do rose and thorn next Friday, have a nice weekend everyone!" Mrs. LaPage said while putting her chair back onto a nearby desk and leaving. The rest of us put the desks back in order and put up the chairs. I helped Zach pull the tables back to their original positions while everyone put the chairs on the desks and picked up any trash that was on the ground. Peanut pulled me aside to tell me something.
"I'll pull my car out front, okay? I'll also explain to you that thing that happened." Then she walked out while saying her goodbyes to everyone. I stayed behind with Zach while everyone else left the room.
"Bye guys!" He said, he was putting up the last chair in the room and I just stood there. It was silent for a minute, then he spoke.
"It's called questioning."
"What?"
"You said you don't know what your sexuality is, if you don't know then you're questioning."
"Okay, what were the other sexualities mentioned?"
"I'll tell you later, maybe on Facebook or Tumblr, if you have those."
"Oh, yeah I've got a Facebook and Tumblr," I said while blushing. Zach wanted to talk to me, and he was going to help me not be uneducated about all of the sexualities and genders there are.
"Heh okay, can you write them down on a piece of paper for me?"
"Okay," I grabbed my storybook, which is just a bunch of fanfiction I write, and ripped out a piece of paper. I then took out my pen from my pocket and wrote down my Facebook and Tumblr
Facebook: Elizabeth "Liz" Ambler
Tumblr: LizzyKittyLovesYou.tumblr.com
"Here you go!" I said, putting the paper into his hand.
"I'll be sure to follow and friend you when I get home." He responded smiling. We then left the classroom and began to walk towards the front of the school, again we were silent for a minute then I decided to ask maybe a weird question, I wouldn't know though.
"When did you realize you were a boy?"
"I don't know, when I was little I didn't like wearing dresses and clung to more "masculine" clothing and toys but I don't think that has to do with it, I just think, maybe I wasn't supposed to be born a girl, maybe I was supposed to be a boy and I just was assigned the wrong gender. It's not so much of a realization either, it's more like a feeling that it's always been there through your actions, like when you realize you're gay, it's always been there, you're just noticing the signs when you do." Zach said that with such certainty, it made me glad I could be his friend, I could trust him and that was hard for me. He just seemed like the type of person who you'd know would be there for you no matter what situation.
"That's really interesting."
"Nah, not really, that's just how I see it, 'cause you wouldn't ask someone when they realized that they were straight or cis, the signs are just there and they notice it before gay or trans people notice their signs." By this point we were at the front doors of the school, walking out into the cool air with the small sunset made New York look like paradise.
"Fall is my favorite time of the year, the cool air, the leaves changing, everything just seems so beautiful," I said while looking around for my sister's car.
"Yeah, the best place to go is New Hampshire, there are so many trees and in October there's this awesome amusement attraction called Nightmare New England, it's the best and scariest thing in New England, we should go sometime," he smiled.
"That sounds awesome, oh there's my sister, I've gotta go, talk to you later." I said while seeing my sister drive her car up.
"Woah, so she's the one with the awesome car."
"Yeah, she is."
"Well tell her she's got an awesome car, and yeah I'll totally talk to you later, bye." He said standing there waiting for his parents to pick him up. I went to leave, then I turned around and gave Zach a quick hug and bolted to my sister's car. My sister pulled out and Zach waved to us as we left.
"Zach says you have an awesome car."
"Don't pretend like I can't tell you have a crush on him, you don't hug anyone, sometimes you don't even like hugging me or mom."
"Goddammit fine, yeah I've got a crush on him, he's so nice and friendly. Now about that thing you were talk to me about."
"Okay Kitty, it started in eighth grade......"