Students for Gender Equality

East Lansing High School's Students for Gender Equality (SGE) was conceived last May when we became increasingly aware of the subconscious sexism in our high school. First, we wrote a letter to a faculty member discussing our concerns, but that wasn't enough. We decided to form an activist club at our school so that anyone else who shared our beliefs about feminism and LGBTQ issues could come and join the cause. Activism to raise awareness of these issues is our main goal. We have been astounded by the support we received among fellow students. From the very beginning, our members have been so dedicated and enthusiastic about SGE. Several members have expressed an interest in social justice activism as a future career choice because of SGE. We have worked on three projects this year and have faced significant backlash from our superiors. We are readying for the public presentation of our third project, an event called PhotoVoice, a photo gallery highlighting issues of gender bias, rape-promoting culture, and normative expressions of masculinity and femininity. A few months ago, the lack of comprehensive and gender-equitable sex ed became something we were very interested in changing. We got together with a state senator to discuss the possibility of revising Michigan's sex ed law. We are now in the process of drafting recommended changes to the law, and we hope that we can revise the law to not use such negative language towards sex, to teach about consent as more than just saying "yes", and to require that LGBTQ students are taught as inclusively as heterosexual and cisgendered students. Currently, we are filing to become a 501c4 so that we can exert more influence as minors than just a school club can. We need your support to do our work. We have several projects in mind for the coming year and we need all the support (financially and otherwise) we can get. Even $5 will make a huge difference. Thank you so much to anyone who donates, we appreciate all that you do to help us create a better world.