Realistic or Modern LGBTQAP+ Summer Camp Meetings Page

[Greekgeek1213]

Meeting This Week: The Importance of Safe Spaces

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[Greekgeek1213]

Welcome to the first meeting! These meetings are educational and serve to help bring the people apart of this camp together!
This week, we have the topic of why safe spaces are important for everyone, especially the LGBT+ community. This meeting can include real life examples, statistics and facts, or feelings you have about safe spaces. And, if you want some real-life help, we can all help with sharing links to public safe spaces and can help with supporting school LGBT+ clubs and safe spaces.

 

[Greekgeek1213]

For this, I'm gonna share a real-life story. Well, it isn't really a story, but still.

Anyway, in my high school I had (and still have) a lot of friends that didn't have good home lives or just didn't have a place where they could be themselves. We had an LGBT+ Club, but because I wasn't allowed to join (for the fact I was already a member of five other clubs and six was too much, since my mom drove me back home after the clubs ended) so I can't really say anything about it cause idk. But, instead, I had the honor or being able to help two clubs get their start. The Japanese Culture Club and the Manga Club. Two clubs that were filled with awesome geeks like myself :3 There was also my choir class filled with about 90 kids, but it felt like a really tight-knit family.

Later, as these clubs and class developed, they ended up being places that we would all come together to and help each other out. To get away from the stress of school and family issues. They were our safe spaces.

They helped a heck of a lot of people out, and we all became extremely close because of them. I even met the person that I plan to be the surrogate mom for in my choir class! And my closest friends in the entire world? About 99% of them came from those places.

I know that it might be scary for some people, but creating clubs can be one of the best things you can do for not only yourself, but for others as well. Cause you never know if they will one day become a safe space for people in need of them.

 

[Jun1p]

That's a wonderful thing to share, I'm sorry I didn't get into the meeting sooner, today has been full of college tours and sightseeing!! I would however like to share a little bit of my own stuff for the thread --

In middle school, actually, my friend and I started the LGBTQ+ club, because even though it was a relatively open school, they didn't actually have one, and being the token LGBTQ+ friend group we naturally wanted to make one! So in the end of 7th grade my friend and one of her friends approached a teacher about hosting, and all of a sudden the safe space had been created. At first it was just our little circle of 6 or 7 friends, but by the fall of 8th grade, more and more students, from other grades too started joining. It was then that kids without outlets, without other friends, the kind you'd never even suspect, were able to come in and express themselves, find common ground and people to relate to. We laughed together, we cried together, we had parties and childish games, but also adult, controversial conversations, where we talked about things we would otherwise be afraid to say.

To me, the importance of a safe space is in being able to face things in a way that makes them less scary. To be able to have people to back you up, and who you know won't judge you, so you can confess to, discuss, or just bring light to the things that might otherwise stay hidden and eat you up. Everyone's got things they hide, and it's almost always out of a fear of others judgement, so we all need a safe space where we can do things without worrying about how we'll be judged for them.

 

[mikaluvkitties]

I'd love to add with this, but my experience with my GSA... honestly, it kind of sucked.

It started off as just a few kids from different grades gathering and basically being huge memes (the club was considered a joke by most people outside of it, as our school was just... toxic in general, i guess? it wasn't that there were queer kids [i dont think anyone there had a problem being called queer, and many used it to refer to themselves] but more that they... wanted to make a club, i guess? our school had a thing against effort and enthusiasm and school spirit,,,)

When everything started getting educational is around where the problems started. See, most of us didn't have any ideas what to talk about, so this one guy took it upon himself to educate everyone... and he didn't... actually... know what he was talking about? I'm still angry over the fact that not only did he misdefine bisexuality, and when I explained to him that that isn't the definition (hi im bi ) he not only got in an argument about it with me but proceeded to put it in a kahoot with the wrong definition (i was absent that day but i am assured it was a disaster)

He outed people if i remember that event right and also threatened people beyond that. People stopped coming because of him. It was a disaster.

However, despite all this it was still... nice. I got to meet a lot of really neat people I connected with, even if they were much younger than myself. It evened out. Kind of.