Students band together to host LGBTQ+ Inclusivity event during quarantine

Story by Noah Kuhn
Associate News Editor 

Illustration by Alicia Zhang
Staff Illustrator

The SPHS Planned Parenthood Peer Advocates will host its online LGBTQ+ campus inclusivity panel on Tuesday, Apr. 21. The discussion will feature four experienced LGBTQ+ educators who will answer questions and advise participants on how to make their school more LGBTQ+ inclusive in addition to supporting queer individuals during the quarantine.

Planned Parenthood Peer Advocate Program allows students to help their communities on social issues through advocacy and training, with this year’s annual project focusing on the LGBTQ+ community. Senior Bella Kan, junior Cat Flores, and sophomore Amber Chen decided to help local LGBTQ+ members by coordinating an LGBTQ+ inclusivity workshop.

Kan, Flores, and Chen collaborated with Equality California, a non-profit civil rights organization, for the workshop that was originally meant to take place later in the second semester. However, with the onset of the coronavirus outbreak, the group decided to host an online forum instead. 

“With the help of the staff at Planned Parenthood we reached out to other organizations in the area so that we can have a virtual panel-type event,” Kan said. 

The peer advocates hope that the event will make a positive impact on SPHS campus culture by promoting an inclusive, tolerant environment for the LGBTQ+ community.

“We hope that people will learn ways to combat the intolerance they may see in or out of the classroom,” Kan said. “We invited teachers as well so we hope it is also educational for them because when we surveyed students at South Pasadena, we learned that many of them had witnessed intolerance and often, [even when] teachers were present, nothing was done about it.”

The panel will take place through Zoom from 5:00 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. Prospective participants must pre-register for the event online.

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