Gay Straight Alliance for Safe Schools

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About Gay Straight Alliance for Safe Schools

GSAFE has roots going back to 1991 when we were two all-volunteer grassroots organizations functioning out of members’ homes, Gays and Lesbians Against Discrimination in Education (GLADE) and Gay and Lesbian Educational Employees (GLEE). In 1996 we became a local chapter of the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). After becoming a highly independent organization, we amicably left GLSEN and became a self-governing 501(c)3 organization in 2006 – when we became known as Gay Straight Alliance for Safe Schools. For many years GSAFE focused our programs in South Central Wisconsin but incrementally broadened our geographic scope and now serve the entire state.

In 2014 we announced that we were officially changing our name to “GSAFE’, a long-time organizational nickname, recognizing that the phrase “Gay-Straight Alliance” is not representative of the many identities that make up our community.

GSAFE increases the capacity of LGBTQ+ students, educators, and families to create schools in Wisconsin where all youth thrive. We do this by:

Developing the leadership of LGBTQ+ students,
Supporting Gay-Straight Alliances,
Training educational staff,
Advancing educational justice,
Advocating for public policy, and
Deepening racial, gender, trans, and social justice.

GSAFE values integrity, honesty, openness, and authenticity. We are committed to LGBTQ+ youth leadership, racial, gender, trans, and social justice, and recognize we are all life-long learners and teachers. We hold ourselves accountable to the youth we serve as well as each other, our board, funders, partner organizations, and the broader community by honoring our commitments and continuously reflecting on and improving our work. We dig deep, think creatively, take on big challenges, and pride ourselves on seeing our vision become a reality. We are driven by a vision of a world free of oppression based on gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, race, and other identities and strive to model the world we want to exist through our everyday actions.