Check Out the Newest Way to Spread the Word About GLSEN
Click here to discover the Spark!
The Spark is an awesome way for us to highlight our work in a way that compels people to take action. There are a ton of easy ways you can help make schools safer for LGBT students by using this Spark! You can embed the player on your personal website, blog or Tumblr by clicking on the "Share" button on the Spark and copying the embed code. You can also add the Spark to your Facebook or Twitter by clicking on their respective buttons. The best part is, you only have to embed the Spark once to get constantly updated content from GLSEN. So, what are you waiting for?
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Educator Retreat inProvincetown, MassachusettsJan. 25-27, 2013 This workshop is presented by our friends at GLSEN Massachusetts for LGBTQ educators and allies who work in pre-K -12 schools.Register now, because space is filling up! For more detailed information on the workshops and presenters click here.
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Save The Date: Second Annual Safe Schools Summit
April 6th, 2013 We'll share more details soon, but please save the date for GLSEN Connecticut's second annual Safe Schools Summit! It's being held once again at Common Ground High School in New Haven on Saturday, April 6th, 2013 from 9:00am - 5:00pm.
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GLSEN Research Spring 2013 Webinar
Click here for more information and to register for the latest webinar: Gender Identity and Expression in the Classroom: The Experiences of Gender Nonconforming and Transgender Students in Schools. This webinar will occur on Wednesday, January 16th from 4 - 5 pm ET.
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Unheard Voices, an oral history and curriculum project that will help educators integrate lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) history, people and issues into their instructional programs.Click here for more information.
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Experts on LGBT Equality Name GLSEN Top 3 National LGBT Nonprofit
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 GLSEN is an official beneficiary of the
It Gets Better Project
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Happy New Year!
As we welcome the opportunities a new year brings, we are also still reflecting on all that we accomplished together in 2012. We hope that you will take a moment to enjoy this video highlighting our wonderful successes last year.
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GLSEN Year In Review
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These accomplishments became a reality because of your support, and we are eager to move forward into the year ahead. GLSEN has long been known for our unparalleled research into the school climate experiences of LGBT youth, and we are pleased to share our newest report with you.
Strengths and Silences: The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Students in Rural and Small Town Schools underscores the need for educators and policymakers to do more to address the safety risks for LGBT students in rural and small town schools. Rural LGBT students are far less likely to have access to LGBT-related resources at school. Nonetheless, they benefit substantially when such resources are present.
And, since educating and raising awareness is so critical, we'd like to invite anyone who is interested - students and adults - to apply for GLSEN's annual Safe School's Advocacy Summit. The Summit is  completely free, and is being held March 2-5 in Washington, D.C. Applications are due by 12:00 noon on January 28th, so please click here for more information and to fill out your application today!
Thank you once again for working with us to create safe and respectful schools for all of Connecticut's students. We know that there are conversations of all kinds being had about school safety right now, and we are grateful that together we are making a difference in the lives of countless LGBT and allied youth. Even when change takes place one person at a time, the profound ripple effects of that change can be inspiring.
Leif Mitchell and Liane Roseman
Co-Chairs, GLSEN Connecticut
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The New Year Is for Making Schools Safer: What to Look Forward to from the Student Organizing Team
By Alberto Cifuentes, Jr.
Student Organizing Adult Coordinator
I'm more than happy to announce that both the Jump-Start and Students of Color Organizing (SOCO) teams have completed fifteen rigorous but fun hours of Student Organizing (Org.) Team training. Julian Arias, Jump-Start Team Student Coordinator; Roberto Diaz, SOCO Team Student Coordinator; Skylar Liam Spear, 2nd year Jump-Start Team Member; and I led a very successful series of training workshops that focused on leadership, social justice, and issues and strategies for tackling the problems faced by LGBTQ middle school students as well as students of color. This was no small feat, but our student trainers have been such great role models for our new members. They have effectively communicated the shared mission of both teams to inspire more students to become leaders in making their schools safer and more inclusive of LGBTQ students.
At our final training earlier this month, Skylar led an excellent session on facilitating workshops, which is the root of our Student Org. Team's work. Peer-to-peer education, youth motivating and empowering other youth to create social change, is how our team intends to accomplish most of its work. In fact, our Jump-Start and SOCO teams will both be submitting three workshop proposals each for the True Colors Conference in March. In addition, Julian, Roberto, and I will be submitting another proposal to promote our team's work and gain more members for next year. That's a total of seven workshops that I hope our team will be able to present at the largest and one of the most significant LGBTQ youth conferences in the nation. The entire team is very excited!
I want to highlight our chapter's student-led Safe Schools Summit on Saturday, April 6, 9am-5pm, at Common Ground High School in New Haven. This will be our second year coordinating this statewide effort to bring together youth and adults and come up with strategies for making schools safer. Most of the interactive workshops will be led by our amazing Student Org. Team, and there will be many opportunities for networking and resource sharing. Plus, the entire event is FREE, including lunch and registration. We want to increase our attendance significantly this year, so please save the date and spread the word! We're planning to start online registration for this event very soon, so stay tuned!
Our Student Org. Team wishes you a very happy and healthy New Year! I am so proud of our team and thank you for the support you've shown our chapter and GLSEN's mission. If there's one thing I've realized about our team, it's that we're so much greater than our individual parts. Together, we're an unstoppable force that will evolve as time goes by and the torch gets passed on from member to member.
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Past, Present and Future: Why I Am Proud to Be a Member of GLSEN
By Skylar Liam Spear, GLSEN Connecticut Board and Jump-Start Team Member
By the time you read this I will have gotten my first college decision. I've been waiting for this all year - for my whole life, in fact. Thinking about college, of course, means thinking about my future. And thinking about my future has meant thinking to the past, about the things in my life that make me proud.
I can clearly remember back to my freshman year at Amity High School. I walked into school wondering who would dare be friends with
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me, whether my teachers would accept my decision to socially transition as a transman, who would call me by the right name and gender pronouns, and even whether there would be a safe place for me to change for gym class. I was lost and felt like I had nobody to help me.
Two years passed, and I found that my friends were still my friends and my teachers tried their best to understand what I was doing. I had come a long way, but still I couldn't help but feel that the world around me was unfortunately undereducated. I wanted to change this, so when I was offered the opportunity to join GLSEN Connecticut - both the board and the Jump-Start Team - I jumped at the chance.
Since joining the chapter a year and half ago, I've run eight workshops (and am working on my ninth and tenth), contributed to planning and organizing the chapter's first-ever statewide Safe Schools Summit, and even gotten my own business cards. But perhaps what has amazed me the most is seeing the enormous importance of education. I can look at all the issues that have happened in my school, for instance, and know that I at least started conversations, which led to research, communication, and the movement of ideas. Eventually, I helped create change, and my school has been safer ever since.
The same can be said for my experiences at GLSEN Connecticut. On a personal level, I have become a more confident and, I hope, effective ally simply by learning from my peers. On a larger level, my fellow board members and I have worked with teachers and administrators statewide to make sure that they have effective policies for protecting students' rights; moreover, my peers on the Jump-Start Team have brought the lessons they've learned back to their communities to create a more inclusive and accepting environment. It has astounded me to see how far the influence of our team has spread, and I say with complete honesty that it makes me very proud.
While it may be awhile before I can say with any certainty what I'll want to do in my future, I can say one thing for sure. I can only hope that I find a way to use the educational skills I gained through GLSEN to continue to spread the messages that are so important to making schools safer for all students.
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