To prevent harassment and unfair judgments directed toward students at Willow Glen High School, senior Beth Laskosky started a Gay-Straight Alliance Club last year to raise awareness and acceptance of people's differences.

"This is a cool club to be in, where people can come meet a lot of different kinds of people and feel supported in whatever they have to say," Laskosky says.

Willow Glen High School's club is just one of many clubs that have been started throughout California. The Gay-Straight Alliance Network, which began in San Francisco in 1988, is a grass-roots, student-led organization that provides information and signage so clubs have the necessary tools to begin holding meetings.

Willow Glen High School's club has about 15 members of all sexual orientations who come together once a week at lunchtime to share their annoyances or just relax and talk about whatever is on their minds.

The club is well-known on the high school's campus, but with the term gay in its name, members say a stigma is still attached to it.

"Most people ask if they have to be gay to be in the club," Laskosky says. "I tell them it's for everyone—it is just about acceptance of other people."

Fortunately, Laskosky says there haven't been any instances of bullying or harassment on the Willow Glen High School campus aimed at someone's sexual orientation. But people have torn off the club's signs from school walls and verbally used harsh slang terms toward students. In one instance, a student wrote an opinion column in the school's paper, denouncing the club.

According to a recent survey conducted by the California Safe Schools Coalition, harassment and bullying based on sexual orientation are persistent in California middle and high schools despite an anti-harassment law that took effect four years ago.

The coalition's "California Healthy Kids Survey," which was published in January, reported that despite the harassment law, students who were harassed on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation were three times more likely to miss school because they feel unsafe. They were also more than twice as likely to be depressed, consider suicide or make a plan to commit suicide.

The survey also reported that 7.5 percent of California's middle and high school students are targets of harassment, approximately 200,000 youth.

Willow Glen High School biology teacher Mark Cahn is the club's faculty adviser. He was disappointed with the writer of the opinion column that was printed in the school's paper—yet he understands that sexual orientation is still an uncomfortable topic for many students to comprehend.

Despite some trepidation about the club, he says, the school administration has been extremely supportive.

"The school should be a safe place for kids," he says. "I never ask a kid who they happen to like, because that is personal, and I'd like to see a world where sexuality isn't an issue."

Amanda Laskosky, 15, says that Cahn is one of the only teachers who the club felt would be a good faculty adviser for the group.

"It's nice to be part of a club that actually does something important and discusses important issues," she says.

Another member, sophomore Chrissy Nguyen, says she has some good friends in the club and joined because she liked the diversity. She also says by being a member, she is demonstrating the importance of tolerance toward everyone at the school.

"The club isn't about sexuality," Nguyen says. "It's just about who you are as a person."

Amanda says that in an effort to bring more awareness to the school, the club will randomly pass out red cards to students at the beginning of an upcoming school week. Students will be asked to keep the cards and will be told to wait until the end of the week to find out the card's significance. Amanda says the club will then announce over the intercom that the red cards symbolize the percentage of people who are living with HIV or AIDS.

The club has already invited a speaker from the Billy DeFrank Lesbian & Gay Community Center in San Jose to inform students about new terms being used for people's sexual orientation and how to use them to make people feel more accepted.

Laskosky says the speaker was informative and helpful and that everyone who heard him thought the talk was beneficial.

Typically, Gay-Straight Alliance clubs are student-run and aim to provide a safe place for students to meet, support each other, talk about issues related to sexual orientation, and work to end homophobia. The Gay-Straight Alliance Network works to fight discrimination, harassment and violence in schools.