A Day of Pride by Mateo

A Day of Pride by Mateo - January 2024 Scholarship Essay

As I awkwardly walked into a room full of Juniors and seniors and sat with a familiar face, I wasn't aware that this was going to be my life for the last two years of high school. During my junior year of high school, I came out. At the time, I was a bisexual male, and now while my identifiers and sexuality are different, it is still extremely difficult to talk about that or to realize that I am this way. In coming out one of my greatest supporters was a friend of mine who I did theater with, who was also a part of the LGBTQ+. This person too was also the one who dragged me to our school's GSSA, the gay-straight Student Alliance, Club. I remember the first meeting like it was yesterday. I walked in and sat with someone I knew, my now best friend, and met a bunch of like-minded people who are a part of the discussing of ways that they can solve issues within our school. My high school was a preparatory Christian school, so we had a lot of issues with existing as a club that is LGBTQ+.

Sitting there I didn't know what to do, or how to participate, but everyone seemed to know what to do. They talked about the different struggles with the naming of the Club as they weren’t allowed to call the club GSA, Gay Straight Alliance because then the school would be associated with the LGBTQ+ and not the students, which the Jesuits wouldn’t like. They talked about how they were going to plan different events both online and in person. But what surprised me is how they talked primarily about going against the administration. I was extremely surprised that everyone was so vocal and diligent in their planning. I could never even imagine being open about my sexuality, and yet here they were going against the administration of my high school. But in this meeting, they also discussed the planning of a pride day. The events would range from informative events such as handing out treats to painting nails to informing our student body of LGBTq+ icons.

Being able to walk in on this was an opportunity I could have never expected, and I wanted to capitalize on it. So, I did. During my junior year, I helped in planning the first-ever Pride day at my high school. While a majority of my work was simple I wasn't directly involved in the planning and organization of the events, getting the venues, and hiring the different guest speakers. I was able to be there on the day, manage the different areas, and overall be a helpful presence for the group including being one of the informants of presenting the different Pride icons. But this was only the stepping stone.

After my junior year, I became a lot more involved in the group. While the Presidents had already been chosen, I was still able to participate within the group by directly managing the social media. I was able to post the different events and manage different online programs such as the one where we allowed kids to submit their stories of being for the LQBTQ+ in my high school. But more than that I had a constant present presence in our daily discussions. Every day we would meet up at lunch, and on top of just talking with my friends and eating food, we would have discussions surrounding LGBtQ+ icons and other events. The majority of the time, it was simply hanging around and being friends, but through these meetings, I was able to talk about a lot of my interests and hobbies and explain their connection to pride. For example in one of the meetings I talked about the show adaption of the video game, Last of Us. From its original Inception to the new cast to an entirely new episode that focused on a gay couple, I was able to inform the current members of this show/video game that a lot of them did not know about. Similarly, I introduced a lot of new and coming freshmen to this club who were also a part of that identity. Finally one of the main things I helped aid in was when our club was able to interview a mayoral candidate. He was an alumnus of my high school and so he showed up one day for all of the different clubs to ask questions and interview. I helped curate and interview with him as well.

But the biggest contribution I made to my community, was our second ever friday. this time I was a lot more involved as I was a part of the planning committees and able to aid in the logistics. I helped plan the different events from on top of the original deserts and pride icons, hosting the only ever LGBTQ+ Mariachi band that features members that orient themselves in different gender expressions. I was able to host fundraisers by selling merchandise of LGBTQ+ shirts and wristbands. And on the day, I was able to manage the different locations and deal with the crowd of people wanting to get snacks. I was able to actually be a part of our pride day and due to what I saw on the day that I awkwardly walked into a meeting.