MENOMINEE — A group of students and advocates at Menominee Junior/Senior High School is trying to make life a little better for members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Twelve students are attending the 10th Annual Building a Movement for Michigan (BAMM) Pride LGBTQIA+ Summit on Friday at Grand Valley State University near Grand Rapids, in partnership with the Michigan Organization on Adolescent Sexual Health (MOASH).
LGBTQIA+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning, intersex, asexual plus other sexual and gender minorities.
The group is part of a delegation of 40 youth and nine chaperones from 12 different schools in the Upper Peninsula who will drive a cumulative 11 hours to the event. The bus will pick up the rest of the attendees in Baraga, L’anse, Marquette, Eben Junction and St. Ignace.
The trip costs $12,000, which has been covered by grants, Equality Michigan, the summit, MOASH and the Michigan Department of Education LGBTQ+ Students Project.
While at the summit, the group will spend time learning, connecting and building community — one of the main things the Gay-Straight Alliance, their LGBTQIA+ club in Menominee tries to do, said Leah Simi, founder and sponsor of GSA.
“The goal since 2017 was all about acceptance and education,” Simi said, who is also an English teacher.
She said that progress has been made since its inception, but rural communities can often lag behind.
“We say, ‘there’s rural, and then there’s the U.P. It’s just a lack of being seen,” Simi said. “Things haven’t gotten big here, but I think that movement is changing. As we connect with each other through doing these different types of things… that’s where we get bigger.”
Danna Field, senior and GSA treasurer, will speak at the summit about living in a small town. She describes her orientation as fluid.
“At school, I felt like I could be myself,” Field said.
The group from Menominee has the largest numbers pulling from the U.P.
“It’s not because we’re the biggest school that’s involved or the biggest area. It’s because we have an active GSA as well as active advocates,” Simi said. “There are people living their truths.”
Students will often approach her with questions, she said.
“If my students want to know if they can or can’t do something — such as an individual who is transgender — they want to know where they can go to the bathroom — I’m going to find them the support that they need. They’re going to come to me with those types of questions because they know that I’m a queer teacher,” Simi said.
Many LGBTQIA+ people now use the word queer as a point of empowerment and a synonym for LGBTQIA+, Simi said.
However, there’s still a stigma surrounding being “out of the closet,” she said. Often, kids will go to youth allies first before going to an adult. All in all, she said she wants people to ask questions.
“We welcome questions,” Simi said. “The No. 1 thing about the LGBTQIA+ community is that we want you to know. If you don’t know, please ask. We’re willing to talk about it.”
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