Carolyn Laub

< PREV NEXT >

1999

Carolyn Laub

Gay-Straight Alliance Network

http://www.gsanetwork.org

San Francisco, California, United States

Civil and Human Rights

The Bold Idea:

Anti-homophobia youth organizers often face enormous personal, cultural and institutional obstacles in their fight for progressive social change on school campuses. Students can encounter resistance from teachers, administrators, parents and other students, and can suffer verbal and physical violence. A study shows isolation, harassment and intolerance in schools lead 28% of lesbian and gay students to drop out.

As the first organization of its kind in the region, the Bay Area Gay-Straight Alliance Network is a youth-led program that creates safe environments for school-based Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) to connect to each other and to community resources in order to empower youth activists and fight homophobia in schools. The GSA Network encourages students to learn about homophobia and other gender and sexual orientation issues, and fights discrimination, harassment and violence in schools. To date, there are more than 1500 students who are members of GSA clubs, and over 171,000 students in California high schools with GSA clubs on their campuses.

Biography:

Carolyn Laub is the Founder and Executive Director of Gay-Straight Alliance Network. Carolyn received a 4-year fellowship from the Echoing Green Foundation in 1999 that helped launch GSA Network. In 2000, she was honored as one of the first U.S. recipients of the international Ashoka Fellowship, a 3-year fellowship that supports her work as a social entrepreneur.

Carolyn was a leader of the grassroots youth effort to pass the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000 (AB 537), an historic law that prohibits discrimination based on actual and perceived sexual orientation and gender identity in California schools. She co-founded the Make It Real Project, a youth-led statewide initiative to implement AB 537. In 2001, Carolyn served on the California Department of Education's AB 537 Advisory Task Force. In 2002, she co-founded the California Safe Schools Coalition, which is dedicated to the full implementation of AB 537. Carolyn has co-led the coalition since its inception and helped author the coalition's groundbreaking report, Safe Place to Learn: Consequences of Harassment Based on Actual or Perceived Sexual Orientation and Gender Non-Conformity and Steps for Making Schools Safer.

Prior to starting GSA Network, in 1997, Carolyn created Outlet, a support program for LGBTQQ youth living on the San Francisco peninsula. Additionally, Carolyn was the Director of the AIDS Prevention Program at the Mid-Peninsula YWCA where she developed innovative HIV prevention curriculum and published her research documenting the link between gender ideologies and adolescent sexual risk-taking behavior. She currently serves on the Board of the Transgender Law Center. Previously, she has served on the Board of Directors of Bay Area Young Positives, KQED's Community Advisory Panel, and Stanford Pride, the Stanford University LGBTQQI alumni club. Carolyn graduated from Stanford University in 1995 with a BA in Cultural Anthropology with a focus on the social construction of race, gender, and sexual orientation in the U.S.