Anthony Colín
(1984 - living) U.S.A.
Activist
Anguished by the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, the gay college student left to die after being pistol-whipped in Wyoming in 1998, Anthony Colin felt impelled to take action. Openly gay since eighth grade, Colin, 15, decided in September 1999 to start a Gay-Straight Alliance at El Modena High School in Orange, 25 miles southeast of Los Angeles, where he is a sophomore. Colin was inspired by hundreds of similar clubs nationwide, formed to promote tolerance.
"When Matthew Shephard was murdered, I was afraid to leave my house for a week, and I was completely terrified in school-always looking over my shoulder-for a whole year.
"Then I started to get angry: how could those men kill another young man just because he was gay? But I realized that if anger isn't used to do something constructive it leads to hate, and hate leads to violence.
"I've been harassed since kindergarten. For all I know, the next death might be me."
Anthony came out at school when he was only eleven years old.
"I didn't know what gay meant then. I just knew I liked the boys."
He was thirteen when he came out to his family, and the next several years were the hardest of his young life. He even ran away from home, surviving on the streets of Los Angeles for a month.
"It wasn't easy for my parents to come to terms with my sexuality, but they've grown so much over the past four years. We are so close now."
Following guidelines, Colin says he gathered about 500 signatures from the school's 1,900 students, to start a Gay-Straight Alliance. Next, he submitted an application to principal Nancy Murray.
His principal repeatedly tabled it, claiming that she hadn't looked at it yet or that the school board was still deciding whether a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) was "appropriate" for El Modena High School. When the school board tried to hold a closed meeting to rule on the GSA, the Orange County Register, the local newspaper, got wind of it and printed a scathing story, forcing the board to cancel their meeting and hold open sessions to decide the fate of Anthony's GSA.
Even with GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) of Orange County and a cohort of supportive family and friends rallying behind him, the school board ultimately denied the GSA equal access to club status at El Modena High School.
Colín and other students filed a lawsuit. They won a preliminary injunction, marking the first time school officials were judicially rebuked for trying to silence a GSA. The El Modena High School Gay-Straight Alliance was the first in Orange County. Since its inception, Anthony has helped start GSAs in other high schools in his conservative county.
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