Every letter means something, and students gathered to find out what the meanings were.

October 7, 2016, marked Hershey High School’s Second Annual Community Day. A few days before Columbus Day, HHS students rang in the long weekend by learning about the clubs and opportunities the high school has to offer. Students attend four sessions, which they pick, on the shortened school day. Each session was approximately 36 minutes long, and student and teacher leaders presented or oversaw the session they put on.

One session presented was “The ABC’s of LGBT(Q+)”, which was put on by the HHS Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA). The session was run by student leaders and members of the club, and was supervised by teacher advisors Mrs. Reinert, Mr. Fornataro, and Ms. Krayeski.

“It’s about helping people understand what the acronym LGBTQ stands for, as well as giving people some insight into what our club does,” said Reinert, speaking of the presentation.

Student members of the club presented their session, which entailed an explanation of many of the sexual and gender identities that make up the LGBTQ+ community. They gave descriptions and definitions of terms such as gay, bisexual, and transgender.

The GSA members also went into more detail to explain several letters of the LGBTQ+ acronym. In their presentation, the club talked about the definitions of lesser known terms such as asexual, pansexual, and non-binary.

When asked about what knowledge the club wanted people to take away from the session, GSA co-manager Michael McCall replied.

“Knowledge of the LGBTQ+ community is not completely understood, because people only really know terms like L[lesbian] and G[gay], and sometimes bisexual,” McCall said.

Also included in the presentation were resources for students, such as GLSEN, the Central PA LGBT Center, and GLAAD.

The GSA members and advisors gave a brief overview of what the club does at their meeting, which are after school every other Wednesday. Taking place in room E125, the HHS GSA is safe space for discussion of LGBTQ+ issues, said McCall, backed by Reinert.

McCall and Reinert also explained special events the GSA attends or puts on. These special events include a bake sale, a planned school wide Equality Day, and attendance at a yearly leadership summit at Dickinson College.

McCall said that he enjoyed working on the project with his peers, but that the experience was not perfect. To him, presenting should feel like a great service, but he also wishes that the LGBTQ+ community was something that people already knew about. However, McCall still said it was a rewarding experience.

“When I find out that someone didn’t know about it [the LGBTQ+ community] and I helped them learn about it, it feels pretty good,” said McCall.

Two attendees of the presentation, Al Bova and Paige Dalto, both thought that it was a good experience for them. Bova added that she was really excited for this session.

Dalto agreed and said she thought the session was very informative and helpful.

“I would definitely attend the club meetings again,” said Dalto.