This week, at Trinity College School, the student-driven Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) decided it is never too late for the School to celebrate its sexual and gender diversity – both on campus and within the School’s vast alumni community. Nor is it too late for TCS to help make high school life a little bit easier for those students who may be struggling – sometimes silently – who we don’t know. This is a definition of genuine leadership: standing up for those who are suffering even when you don’t know who you are impacting, or how.
For the past three years, the GSA has been quite active, seeking student and staff support, presenting the idea for a school Pride flag to school leaders, and running a bake sale to raise funds. After surpassing their fundraising goal, as well as receiving a donation from an alumnus, the GSA purchased Pride flags. Those travelling near campus can see the Pride flag which was raised back in June 2020, and those on campus pass by the Pride flag which sits within the School’s main entrance. While COVID-19 restrictions didn’t allow for a formal gathering on the occasion of the raising of the flag, a celebration and recognition of the GSA’s hard work on this front took place through a GSA-produced video, shared this week with students and staff.
Click here to view the GSA-produced video.
Collectively, for the school community, what is perhaps most beautiful is that, through the message of its GSA-produced video, TCS begins to “disrupt” heteronormativity and cisnormativity: “Disrupting” heteronormativity includes helping “transform how we think about sexuality and desire” (Goldstein, Russell, & Daley, 2007). So, such “disruptions” are intellectual ingredients for helping create purposeful action – lasting change – for current and future TCS students.
Of course, “disrupting” heteronormativity and cisnormativity is only the beginning of this important work, striving for a more just world – one free from transphobia and homophobia. These conversations, especially important for a community of “true religion, useful learning and caring relationships,” have formally begun through the official raising of the TCS Pride flag.
- By Dr. Andrew Woodward ’06, faculty associate
