“Why did I feel like coming out as gay was so difficult for me when I knew that my parents and all my friends would accept me?” junior Max Harris asked.

He paused, and looked out to the crowd.

“Then I started thinking about who didn’t accept my coming out and realized the answer: it was me.”

On March 21, 2018, the high school’s Gender Sexuality Alliance Club (GSA) held its annual Day of Dialogue, an event dedicated to discussion and education regarding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ+) issues. During the A-block presentation in the auditorium, “Telling Our Stories,” an attentive audience listened as students and teachers shared personal stories about sexual and gender identity.

Junior Rebecca Perez and senior Paria Reich hosted the assembly, beginning with a short speech about the speakers. Afterwards, they introduced the first student, Harris. In a touching and light-hearted speech, Harris addressed his struggle with accepting his sexuality.

Senior Emily Streight followed Harris’s presentation, detailing her move to Brookline midway through high school. She also mentioned ongoing difficulties with her mental health that continue to this day.

ExCEL English teacher Sarah Kornell shared her experience going viral, through a photo of her and her ex-wife getting married. Unfortunately, this occurred after they separated, and as a result, the experience was emotionally difficult. Eventually, Kornell found solace in a new partner, but she said the experience had a profound effect on her and that she will never forget that period of her life.

Junior Luke Geller presented next, giving a speech about his transition from female to male.

“Just a couple years ago, nearly every one of my teachers called me, ‘she,’ a few times. I lived in a state of being perpetually uncomfortable, constantly on edge everytime someone referred to me in the third person, just waiting for the inevitable to happen,” Geller said.

Geller spoke with candor about his identity as a transgender male.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m proud of being trans, in fact, I think it’s one of my greatest sources of shame,” Geller said. “I have at times felt like an inconvenience.”

Since writing the speech, Geller noted that he has continued to grow and mature, and that he is now much more confident.

Senior Isa Wetzler spoke about demi-romanticism, a type of grey-romanticism in which one only finds romantic attachment to someone after developing a strong emotional connection. Demiromantic herself, Wetzler spoke about how pop culture oftens promotes romantic relationships.

“Media has surrounded us with the idea that romantic love is necessary and you can’t be normal without it. That’s wrong. I don’t need to settle down, I don’t need to have a spouse, I’m perfectly content to be without one, and that’s perfectly normal,” Wetzler said.

Senior Rebecca Schein spoke next, mainly focusing on difficulties with her family as a result of her sexuality. Although  Schein grew up in an environment that didn’t explicitly discriminate against LGBTQ+, her parents still expressed a homophobic sentiment. During discussions with her mother in their car, she felt suffocated by her family’s conservative beliefs.

“She told me that she had no problem with ‘alternative lifestyles,’ that more than half of her colleagues are in same-sex relationships. However, when she declared that she would be ‘very disappointed’ if her own child were to live an ‘alternative lifestyle,’ she made it clear that I was expected to conform to her standards,” Schien said.

However, Schein said that she has come to accept herself for who she is, regardless of what her parents say.

Senior Anthony Vieti closed the assembly, performing a self-written fictional short story about a congressman who befriends a lesbian woman, but never makes an effort to defend her sexuality to others.

“I was never strong enough to stand up for her,” Vieti read as the main character. “I was never strong enough to stand up for her until the day her mother called me to the hospital. There she was, lying, almost dead.”

In Vieti’s piece, the main character’s reaction about his friend’s suicide turns into a determination to protect and support others like her. Viete’s slow, deliberate delivery of his story served as a powerful ending to the assembly.

The B-block assembly in the auditorium, “Race and LGBTQ+ Issues,” had speakers from the Boston area come to discuss how intersectionality affects race and other LGBTQ+ issues in our society.

Sophomore Anjoli Mathew and senior Paria Reich started the assembly off by defining intersectionality as “a theory which considers that the various aspects of humanity, such as class, race, sexual orientation, disability and gender, do not exist separately from each other, but are completely interwoven, and are regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.” Each of the five speakers then shared their ideas about what it meant to them.

A bubbly and excited Leetsha Thomas, director of of safety and security from Hilton Hotels, discussed how religion was important to her since she was young, and how she still has strong beliefs as an adult now.

“Your race and sexuality, none of that should matter,” Thomas said. “You should be based and judged on who you are, and I still think that to this day. I want to be judged on being Lateesha, whether that’s being black, female, gay, lesbian, a romance novel reader. I am who I am, and that is what matters to me.”

Dallas Pride, Thomas’s wife, gave her interpretation of intersectionality. She said there are many different parts of her identity that affected experiences throughout her life. She also noted how the word “intersectionality” perfectly describes the way her life is.  

Narong Sokhom, Boston Programs Coordinator for BAGLY, explained the struggle of having to decide between two parts of his identity: his Southeast Asian identity and his queer identity.

“There aren’t a lot of spaces for Asian-American and queer people,” Sokhom said. “So I had to decide where I wanted to go to. I ended up choosing to go to the Asian-American club because I still wasn’t comfortable yet.”

An anonymous woman who presented is currently doing research at Harvard where she is studying Islam. Two parts of her identity that are extremely important to her is being biracial and queer.

“Unfortunately, when I was younger, queerness was more pushed to the background,” the woman said. “You can’t necessarily read on my face that I am queer because of the way I choose to present myself. When I was young, it seemed inconvenient to be queer.”

After the panelists’ explanation of their interpretations of intersectionality, Matthew and Reich asked the panelists questions that pertained to their specific areas of interest and experience, such as questions about religion.

Later, when responding to an audience question, panelist Dieng Cameron discussed how our society is making an impact. He explained the importance of the recently-premiered movie, “Love, Simon” which has a gay protagonist, to the LGBTQ+ community. He said that people are spending money on the movie, and when something makes a lot of money, more movies and shows will continue to incorporate LGBTQ+ protagonists and it will become more popular.

“Although it is just a movie and people may not think it has that big of impact, it does. Talking about it on social media and spending money on it brings us towards the right direction,” Cameron said.

Through short performances, BETCo looked into labels placed on people in the LGBTQ+ community and created a platform for students to discuss the issue after being shown the skits.

Drama teacher Mark VanDerzee introduced BETCo and explained that the students would be performing six short scenes all related to the theme of LGBTQ+ issues.

In the first scene, two dogs owners at the park were overly excited about their dogs, however, one of the characters assumed the other dog and owner were both male, when in fact they were both female. This made the lady very uncomfortable and she and her dog took off. The actors’ voices and presence on stage was big and loud, carrying much emotion to the audience.

Another scene showed a group of students excluding the new kid from sitting at their lunch table since she was a different astrology sign, something she could not help. Even though she was not all the traits her astrology sign predicted, the group assigned these qualities to her based on only this information. The actors in this scene used their body language to portray to the new girl and the audience their feelings without having to say them.

A later skit was located in a restaurant. One girl ordered a burrito and another character ordered a burrito bowl, but the final customer told the waiter she didn’t care what she ate. The waitress tried to offer her a variety of meals, but she announced she did not want any of the options, leaving the waitress confused about what she meant when she said she didn’t care. This scene did a good job addressing the confusion that can come around these issues.

The final scene showed live coverage of a new Olympic game, based on how “gay” the men drank a cup of water. The first man, representing France, scored high, blowing a kiss to the audience, crossing his legs, and drinking with his pinky up. The next man, from China, performed badly after he spilled his water. Finally, the American man won when he referenced a meme in his performance, the most “gay” thing a contestant could have done. This scene weaved humor into the important exploration of the connotation of the word “gay.”

There were a few aspects of the performance that added to the scenes. The members of BETCo wore costumes that helped the audience understand the context of the scene, like an apron in the restaurant or a headset during the live coverage. There was also music while the members changed the set that was related to the scene about to be played, for example, “Who Let the Dogs Out,” before the first scene.

The show was followed by a talk-back where the actors brought up points for discussion and the audience members could ask questions about or relating to the show. Topics discussed included what the individual skits represented and how terms like, “that’s so gay” are used in pop culture and as a microaggression against the LGBTQ+ community. The BETCo cast performed many engaging and well performed skits while bringing up topics that are important and relevant today.

“You do not have to be good.”

“For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.”

“Like the wild geese, harsh and exciting.”

“Meanwhile.”

“Meanwhile the world goes on.”

Students and teachers quietly recited the most powerful or memorable lines from the poem “Wild Geese” by lesbian poet Mary Oliver in a participation-heavy session that was reminiscent of an English class.

For most, Day of Dialogue is all about the big assemblies and formal presentations in the auditorium, in the black box or in any of the bigger spaces around the school. But the C-block session on LGBTQ+ poetry was different from the other sessions: there were less than 30 desks filled by the audience, and it required a lot more audience participation than the others.

Latin teacher Skye Shirley began the session by introducing herself as a bisexual poet and telling the audience about how the next 50 minutes would go: the group would be reading poetry from poets that were or are either openly LGBTQ+ or have been accepted to be LGBTQ+ by scholars.

First, she had the group flip through the packet of poems for a pre-reading activity. The group members would participate by calling out the names of some of the poems in the packet — no hand-raising required. 

After that, Shirley moved into the main part of the session by instructing everyone to find the poems they wanted to hear read, either by themselves or by someone else. Afterwards, people would call out their favorite words, lines or phrases in popcorn-style participation. The comments would contain no traditional poetry analysis, just feelings. Again, she warned that there would be silence, and it could be awkward, but it was all part of a process.

“If you’re feeling shy, just remember, yesterday was really a Day of Silence, and understanding what that means for people in the LGBT community. Today is really about action, so I’m going to ask you to put yourself out there,” Shirley said.

She added that while she understood that some people wouldn’t want to talk, it would really mean a lot for people to participate even a little more than they expected.

One of the poems read aloud was “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes, suggested by sophomore Oliver Galea. The poem rhythmically lamented the irony of the amount of inequality and injustice present in the supposed land of the free.

Many students participated by reading their favorite lines. They read lines like, “America never was America to me,” “There’s never been equality for me,” “Never has been yet,” “And yet must be,” among others. The silences that marked the spaces between each quote weren’t awkward rather they were powerful and purposeful, and they were an integral part of the activity.

With a few minutes left, Shirley introduced the final part of the session: do something artistic to reflect on how the poems made different people feel certain things. It could be anything from collecting lines from favorite poems to drawing, journaling or using phrases in the poems as prompts for your own.

The session was a step back from lectures and information that had filled the day; it was meant to move people with beautiful literature, not direct accusations or statements, and more than anything, it was a time to feel and reflect.