ROCKLAND — OUT Maine has received a grant from the Equity Fund of the Maine Community Foundation to expand and strengthen the network of Gay, Straight, and Transgender Alliance programs in schools across Maine.
“As queer youth discover who they are, they often face the risk of isolation or losing part of their community when they come out. The GSTA network helps youth find healthy relationships and spaces where it’s safe and celebrated to be their authentic selves,” says Cassie Cooper, school engagement coordinator at OUT Maine. “This grant will help me travel across Maine to provide programming and support to GSTAs, and also start new ones.”
In the 2023-24 school year, Cassie traveled over 8,000 miles across the state to bring GSTAs and other OUT Maine programs to schools. They are looking forward to continuing the expansion of OUT Maine’s GSTA network empowered by this grant from the Equity Fund of MaineCF.
LGBTQIA2S stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning, intersex, and two-spirit. Allies are folks who do not identify as LGBTQIA2S but have camaraderie with the LGBTQIA2S community. Cis or cisgender means a person’s gender identity and sex-assigned-at-birth match. If gender identity and sex-assigned-at-birth do not match, a person may identify as transgender. For more definitions of LGBTQ+ terminology, visit www.outmaine.org/resources/terminology.
OUT Maine has an ambitious goal: to create more welcoming and affirming communities for Maine’s diverse queer youth in all their intersectional identities by changing the very systems that serve them. For more information, please visit www.outmaine.org.
