After seven days of promoting education and awareness for the LGBTQ community, Activism Week, formerly known as Ally Week, came to a close this past Sunday, October 18. An interactive gender spectrum chart outside the dining hall, a movie screening of Pride, and discussions hosted by several student groups were all part of an effort to inform the community on issues ranging from the meaning of labels to how to be an activist.
For the past several years, Choate has been supporting Activism Week, a national initiative run by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). A host of student-run clubs on campus—SMASS (Sexual Minorities and Straight Supporters), CALSA (Choate Afro-Latino Student Association), CDSA (Choate Diversity Student Association), and SAGE (Students Advocating for Gender Equality)—sponsored and organized Activism Week this year for the Choate community.
SMASS and SAGE kicked off Activism Week in the Lanphier Center by hosting a discussion about identity labels and what they mean last Monday, October 12. On Wednesday, SMASS hosted another discussion on how to be a productive activist and ally. CALSA and SMASS wrapped up Activism Week by co-hosting a final talk on Sunday about queerness and cultural heritage. On Saturday night, SMASS presented Pride, a movie about London-based gays and lesbians who lent their support to striking coal miners in Wales in 1984.
During the week, an interactive “I am an activist…” banner was put in the sophomore-junior section of the dining hall; students and faculty could sign the banner to express their support for the LGBTQ community. A gender spectrum chart was hung on the wall in the dining hall lobby as well; students and faculty could place star-shaped stickers on the chart to indicate where they felt they belonged on the gender spectrum. Elli Sandberg ’16, a member of the SMASS cabinet, noted, “While watching people put stuff on the spectrum, I saw that a lot of people started talking about what the different terms meant and asking each other ‘What does this mean? Could you define that?’ Getting people to ask questions and spark conversations—that was our main goal.”
SMASS began planning for the week in September, and members of the club noted that it was a challenge to coordinate with other clubs to find convenient times to hold the proposed discussions. Ms. Marybeth Duckett-Ireland, SMASS’s faculty adviser, said, “It’s always tricky when you’re trying to do things on this campus because everyone is so busy all the time.”
Students were curious about the name change of the initiative from “Ally Week” to “Activism Week.” According to Ms. Duckett-Ireland, the organizers of the Week had hoped that the new name would “promote action instead of passive support.”
Sandberg elaborated: “It used to be called Ally Week, but ‘ally’ is a term you can’t really claim—you have to be given the name, as in, ‘You’ve been so helpful so we’ll call you an ally.’ An activist is something anyone can outright say, ‘I’m going to be an activist, and I’m going to do this or that.’ We changed the name in hopes that truly everyone would participate.”
For Eli Bickford ’16, co-president of SMASS, “It can be hard to see a lot of actual change because the people who end up coming are the same people every time.” He continued to say that it is a challenge “to target the community at large, since the people coming to the discussions are mostly those who already think these things are an issue.” SMASS hopes that future club activities will encourage those who aren’t already a part of the conversation to become more involved.
Along with extending the conversation to the entire community, SMASS also hopes to have a larger publicity campaign next year. According to Ms. Duckett-Ireland, “We wanted to use the idea of people holding signs saying ‘I’m an ally,’ like the microagression posters, but we felt that the idea of people holding signs had been used so many times recently, and we weren’t able to come up with something else in time. Next year we want to do something that more of the campus will see and be involved in.”
Sandberg hopes that Activism Week has “taught students and faculty about the different terms used to describe gender and sexuality and created awareness about conflicts that still happen on campus regarding the LGBTQ community.” She hopes that members of the Choate community will emerge from Activism Week as more supportive of LGBTQ rights.
Bickford concluded: “We know the Choate community is very forward thinking, but sometimes allyship on campus is simply saying, ‘I believe there is a problem.’ Activism Week should empower people to say that something is not okay and then actually do something about it.”
