In a town that walks the border between suburban and rural, it is a difficult to decide whether it is safe to come out, especially when it’s a topic that is not talked about in classes.

“We have this thing now: oh, its 2017, it’s okay to be gay. Even though everyone says that, you don’t really feel that,” Brianna Shannon, senior, said. Shannon came out in sophomore year as bisexual and said her biggest struggle was that she was never made aware there were identities outside of gay or straight.

Caitlin Deerwester, junior, shared a similar story, her questioning phase starting in fifth grade, and not ending till seventh.

“I didn’t even know the word bisexual existed,” Deerwester said.

One place South use to offer for questioning individuals was a club called PRISM, a student led gay-straight alliance (GSA).  The club disappeared in the 2015-2016 school year.

It’s important to note that even though there is no formal curriculum on LGBT identities and we have no specific gay-straight alliance anymore, teachers can still be used as a resource to help students.  Students can be scared to talk to teachers, fearing they won’t understand but, at least at South, this isn’t the case.

“Teachers have special training that prepares them for when a student decides to confide in them when they come out as gay, transgender, or anything in between” a student who wished to stay anonymous said, “If a student asks a teacher to use their correct pronouns, it’s the teacher’s job to respect the students and make them feel safe in a school environment.”

The student had asked a councilor about it last year, when preparing to come out as trans.  It is not possible for them to change names on rosters, but they can inform teachers of a trans person’s identity and real pronouns.

“There are a lot of gay people at South,” I heard a student say as I passed them in the hall. Thinking of all the people I know, most of them being LGBT in some way or another, I agreed with the comment, however out of context it was.