Falmouth High School student Saer McCliment is one of six recipients of the 2013 Elsie Frank Scholarship Award from Greater Boston PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) for her work on LGBT issues. Here, she speaks with The Bulletin.
Describe your coming out experience at Falmouth High School and how you were received by both your peers and educators.
While I’ve been openly queer for years, I came out as transgender in the eleventh grade. I went to my GSA advisor, Mrs. Thompson, and asked her to email my teachers and inform them of my pronoun and name change to Saer. It went better than I ever could have expected; my teachers were incredibly accepting and accommodating. I was more nervous about my peers’ reaction, but I was surprised when even the people I had a history of not getting on well with accepted me and respected my transgender status.
How have you helped create greater support and acceptance of LGBT youth?
I’ve been actively involved with my school’s Gay-Straight Alliance for three years, and have worked with other local LGBT advocacy groups in fundraising and awareness endeavors. Earlier in the year, I spoke to seventh-graders about my experiences as a queer and transgender student, which was incredibly rewarding. I also run a blog dedicated to LGBT resources and advocacy.
What do you see as the greatest issues facing LGBT youth today?
I don’t really think LGBT identities can be grouped for having any one sole issue, and I say this from having come out as both LGB and T. I was far more scared to come out as transgender than I was to come out as queer, because there’s more stigma surrounding transgender issues than there is around queer issues. In recent years, there’s been several successful pushes for the inclusion and acceptance of non-heterosexual orientations, so the LGB community has come a great way. There simply hasn’t been the same level of acceptance for transgender identities, and the fact that the transgender community has been left behind is what I view as the greatest problem today. I hope that this is something that I personally can help rectify through more public outreach and education.
What would you like to say the person who is still struggling with his or her sexual orientation?
To someone struggling with labeling their sexuality, I would tell them that there’s no rush. In this society, there’s a lot of pressure to know who you are as soon as possible, to be able to put a name to everything about yourself. You don’t need to know exactly what the term for your orientation is right away; you can be undecided for as long as you want, or try out a few terms and just see how they fit. Your orientation cannot be judged or defined by anyone but you, and you only need a label if you want one.