I grew up as a rule-follower. A good kid. The kid parents loved because I was polite and likely a good influence on other kids. In short, I was not a trouble maker.
So I had to smile when I sat down in Sammie Howell’s APU apartment at a secret meeting of the Gay/Straight Alliance one night, knowing I could be fired for just being there. I was now officially “bad,” and I couldn’t have been more proud to be there. The students, many of them RA’s and leaders in Student Government, also knew the risks they were taking. I looked around the room nervously, hoping no one would get cold feet and rat the rest of us out.
What were we doing that was so insidious? So revolutionary? Were we planning on taking over an administrative office like at SF State in the 70’s? A glitter bombing? Dumping pig’s blood all over the admin building to demonstrate the blood on the hands of evangelicals for the high rates of suicide amongst LGBTQ teens and young people?
Nope.
We just wanted to create a safe space for LGBTQ students to talk and be supported. The horror!
That was the first step in what would become a lot of steps toward making APU a more inclusive place for LGBTQ students, and Abbie and Liz Cirelli played crucial roles in making those steps happen.
I was hauled in to my boss’s office three times to account for my involvement with that group, and I would be demoted twice and slated for firing because of it. At my first GSA meeting (I think it was the second one) I was asked to bring in a story of how and why I wanted to be involved with the group, as all the charter members had done. I wrote about my “awakening” in my own college years and the steps I had taken to better understand LGBTQ identity. These written accounts were to be held as charter documents kept secret for future generations to see how it all began.
Unfortunately, several generations later, the Haven kids posted all those pieces of writing on the public “Door of Discussion,” effectively outing that first generation. They had all graduated, but I was still there. And many of the charter members had maintained relationships with the school through ethnic orgs, and those relationships were now in jeopardy. The Haven kids meant well, and I stand by every word I wrote, but all of us wish we had been asked if we wanted our “testimonies” to be posted publicly. Oh well.
Such are the pitfalls of trying to support LGBTQ people inside evangelical spaces. In reality, no matter what you do, it does not end well. But from its beginning, Haven did amazing things. Protests. Events. Policy changes. All helping to make APU a little less shitty.
In future episodes, you’ll learn about the work of the generation before the GSA and the generation after Liz.
Abbie and Liz were warriors, each with her own vision for what needed to be done to help LGBTQ students in an impossible situation. And in their own ways, they are still warriors for truth. Abbie is a master high school English teacher and Liz is an attorney. They were and still are heroes to me.
Listen to their episode here.
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