Susan Berry, PhD – August 26, 2022
The Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) Network, which promotes radical gender theory in elementary, middle, and high schools, now operates over 4,000 “gender and sexuality alliances” under the guise of student “clubs,” reports Christopher Rufo at City Journal.
A senior fellow and director of the Initiative on Critical Race Theory (CRT) at the Manhattan Institute, Rufo explained the GSA Network is a “professionally staffed nonprofit with a multimillion-dollar annual budget. GSA Network serves as an umbrella organization for more than 4,000 “gender and sexuality alliances” across 40 states.”
After rebranding itself in 2016 as the Genders & Sexualities Alliance, GSA Co-Executive Director Ginna Brelsford noted:
The name change has been a long time coming. We have heard from countless youth leaders who understand their genders and sexualities to be uniquely theirs and have moved beyond the labels of gay and straight, and the limits of a binary gender system. For several years, students have been naming their individual school-based clubs in a way that reflects the values and identity of its members.
Brelsford further explained the “function” of school GSA clubs had “evolved.”
“For a generation, since the late 1980s, GSAs have served as safe spaces for LGBTQ youth to build awareness and community as well as prevent discrimination and harassment in schools,” the co-executive director wrote. “More recently, however, these student-led clubs have transcended their traditional role and served as important vehicles for deeper social change both on school campuses and local or statewide educational policy.”
That “social change” focused on joining with a political movement for the “needs of “trans, queer and allied students across the nation,” Brelsford added.
The GSA Network has now taken a decidedly Marxist turn, Rufo observed, endorsing the “abolition of police” and borders, payment of “reparations” to minorities, the “decolonization” of native lands, and a focus on anti-capitalism.
Under the cover of a “club” that seeks to end “bullying” of LGBTQ youth, the GSA Network advises its adult leaders to keep children’s involvement in the club confidential from parents, working with young people to push the use of pronouns and support trans, queer, nonbinary, and similar projects.
In the GSA handbook, Brelsford and fellow co-executive director Geoffrey Winder wrote:
We’re excited to share resources and tools that will support you – GSA club advisors – to create and sustain thriving GSAs in partnership with students, schools, and communities, as we move closer to our vision of trans and queer liberation.
Rufo wrote about how to manage school districts that allow staff to discuss sexuality with children, a system that can easily lead to grooming…
