A gay—straight alliance , gender—sexuality alliance GSA or queer—straight alliance QSA is a student-led or community-based organization, found in middle schools , high schools, colleges , and universities. These are primarily in the United States and Canada. The first gay—straight alliance was formed in November at Concord Academy in Concord, Massachusetts , [ 13 ] when Kevin Jennings , a history teacher at the school who had just come out as gay, was approached by Meredith Sterling , a student at the school who was straight, but was upset by the treatment of gay students and others.
Jennings recruited some other teachers at the school, thus forming the first gay—straight alliance. One of the first to join was Sterling's classmate S. Bear Bergman. According to a thirty-year retrospective about the history of the group, Concord Academy reported in that students at the academy had renamed the group "a few years ago" to "Gender Sexuality Alliance".
Faculty mentor Nancy Boutilier said, "That gay—straight language was really important at the time. Times change, though. To students today, that sounds so binary. A few months after Concord started the first Gay Straight Alliance club, another Massachusetts preparatory school north of Boston, Phillips Academy , started one of their own.
It began with a meeting called by Phillips student Sharon Tentarelli for February 7, , with little advance notice. A dozen people attended, including a mix of student, teachers, and staff. This was the second such group, after Concord Academy. Founded in , Project 10 was widely recognized as the first organized effort to provide support for LGBTQ youth in schools across the United States. The majority of its facilitators were heterosexual, and was named after the commonly-held statistic that 10 per cent of the adult male population is "exclusively homosexual".
Project 10 focused on issues such as substance use , and discussing issues of high-risk sexual behaviour. Approximately 28 per cent of participants at GSA Network identify as heterosexual. Some students face opposition from school administrations, elected school boards, or local communities in starting a school GSA. In , students at Brandon High School in Rankin County, Mississippi , attempted to start a GSA, but the school board met and publicly stated they wanted to prevent the formation of "gay clubs" in the school district.
