On Feb. 15, Aragon’s Gender and Sexuality Awareness Club took their first field trip since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, visiting the historical Castro district, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender museum and the Strut in San Francisco.
The trip began with a tour of the Castro district called “Cruisin’ the Castro,’’ where students saw several important landmarks, such as the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, the Holocaust memorial and the AIDS memorial quilt and mural. Students learned about the history of the Castro district and LGBTQ+ community, including the history of Harvey Milk, the lavender scare, the AIDS quilt and anti-LGBTQ+ laws.
“My favorite part was Harvey Milk’s camera shop [and] learning the history behind it,” said sophomore Samirah Field. “I enjoy learning the history behind who I am and the [LGBTQ+] community. It’s really empowering to see that among all the prejudice in the 60s, [Milk] wasn’t scared and he kept persevering.”
“It’s really empowering to see that among all the prejudice in the 60s, [Milk] wasn’t scared and he kept persevering”
GSA took their annual visit to the GLBT museum. The museum regularly rotates their exhibits. This year’s students got to see exhibits on the progression of the LGBTQ+ movement, such as queer neighborhood communities, non-conformity to society’s standards and the Dragon Fruit Project, which was a movement by and for Asian members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“The Dragon Fruit Project interested me the most,” said freshman Kori Enore. “Learning that there were people from my ethnicity struggling and growing for us really connected with me.”
Finally, GSA toured the Strut community center, a health and wellness center for the queer community run by the San Francisco AIDS foundation. The center offers services such as sexually transmitted infection testing and pre-exposure prophylaxis medication, which reduces the risk of contracting HIV. Currently, the Strut is also showcasing local queer youth poetry and art.
“I really liked the health clinic,” said GSA president and senior Angel Luz. “The clinic was really sex positive, [which] was inspiring to me. [I’d] never thought of homophobia issues stemming from a stigma around sex. I’m hoping to go into the science part of health and this helped me think about different [career] paths I could [explore]. I’d be really interested in studying remov[ing] the stigma [around sex].”
“I’d] never thought of homophobia issues stemming from a stigma around sex. I’m hoping to go into the science part of health and this helped me think about different [career] paths I could [explore]. I’d be really interested in studying remov[ing] the stigma [around sex]”
GSA visits different destinations every year.
“The historical walking tour [through the Castro] is the foundation of this event,” said English teacher and GSA adviser Vince Bravo. “Then there’s something current [that’s] not going to always be there, [something] you couldn’t recreate when [on a different trip] to San Francisco.”
To students, this trip offered a much needed in-depth look at the LBGTQ+ community.
“When you’re part of a community, it’s important to know the history, especially for the LGBTQ+ community,” said sophomore Chloe Gee. “If you don’t learn the history yourself, no one else is going to do it for you.”
“If you don’t learn the history yourself, no one else is going to do it for you.”
This trip also helped illuminate continuous issues with anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment. Currently, there are over 300 anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the United States alone.
“The LGBTQ+ community is struggling in the United States,” Enore said. “[There are] so many people caring about how we live and express ourselves [when] we’re really just trying to live [our lives]. It’s important that people learn about the struggle because, a lot of people [falsely] think that since people are open, the problems are gone.”
This year’s GSA field trip helped students learn more about themselves.
