Students from 13 secondary schools joined Andover faculty, coaches and students on Sunday, February 5 for the 2012 “Crossing Boundaries” conference, hosted by Andover’s Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA).
The conference featured four presentations including accounts of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) athletes’ experiences on sports teams, a group session for team captains and coaches, a workshop on LGBTQ men and women of color and the one-man show “Confessions of a Mormon Boy.”
Frank Tipton, Faculty Advisor to GSA and Dean of West Quad North Cluster, Ryan Canavan ’12 and Sam Peloquin ’12, Co-Heads of GSA, hosted the conference and introduced the presentations.
Tipton said, “I think that students wanted to bring different facets of LGBTQ life into the community and share the courage it takes to be who you are. I think it’s a great opportunity to get people from other schools to connect here and for the students here to connect with the students from other schools.”
“It’s important to seek our commonalities and find out themes that are happening across different campuses and basically support each other in the work that everyone is doing on their campuses to make their schools more supportive,” he continued.