Ana Ortega

Editor Update: This article was updated on Dec. 15 to update the related stories plug-in to include an article by Amanda Hare covering the school board meeting that is mentioned in these feature stories.

Hundreds of people crowd into the district administration building for the monthly school board meeting. Sweating bullets, junior Ana Ortega walks up to the center podium – speech in hand.

After seeing students express “discomfort” with the outward expression of LGBTQ+ pride at the high schools, Ortega attended an Oct. 18 school board meeting to speak her opinion on teachers’ rights to decorate with items outside of their subject during the “Open Forum” portion. From here, many pro-LGBTQ+ petitions have taken off – including one by Rock Hill junior Kelsey Reid.

“So, before, I was absolutely terrified. I was so nervous, I was sweating,” Ortega said. “They were also giving the National Merit scholars their awards, so there were a lot of people there – all my old principals, my old teachers from elementary and middle school were there, but I just kept telling myself, ‘I really have to do this, I can’t back out.'”

Ortega and Reid both spoke at the meeting, and peer-reviewed each other’s speeches beforehand.

“A lot of my past principals at the middle schools were there by coincidence,” Ortega said. “A lot of them didn’t clap or congratulate me when I finished my speech – or for any of it. Which, felt like a little bit of a slap in the face, but they were there and they heard what I had to say, which is all that really mattered to me.”

Growing up in Boystown – a “largely LGBTQ+ community” in Lake View, Chicago – Ortega said she has “always been taught” to accept gay rights, and learned diverse point of views from her neighbors and friends from a young age.

“It all goes back to how I was raised,” Ortega said. “It’s kind of always been in me, as I grew up to kind of love and accept people for who they are. Then, as I joined the (LGBTQ+) community and started going to school here, I kind of started to realize the way that we’re treated and the opportunities that we (don’t) get. We’re not always represented here at the school, and that’s always kind of been like a back-thought in my mind.”

After meeting in elementary school, Ortega and Reid have stayed in contact. But, it was only after Reid’s petition in favor of Prosper schools being able to freely display the LGBTQ+ flag that Ortega joined in on her friend’s movement – saying she was “happy to help.”

“When Kelsey started the petition, it was about a month ago, and about two days after the petition had started she asked me if I wanted to help, because she needed help organizing some things and getting the petition out there,” Ortega said. “So, she asked me to come speak with her at the school board meeting, and then she helped me administer the petition, and that’s where it started. It’s always been a topic I’ve really cared about, though. It’s always been something really important to me, so for her to have given me the opportunity to help out with everything, it really meant a lot. I really enjoyed, and still enjoy, doing it.”

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With this movement, not only does Ortega want “changes” made to the issue that created it, but she also said she hopes that it will bring students, both ones in the LGBTQ+ community and “allies” of it, together.

“I think that now, there is definitely a larger sense of unification, especially because the movement has been brought forth in many other people’s minds, and people are starting to think about it,” Ortega said.  “It’s not a thing that a lot of people used to consider. I’ve had a lot of people, including people at both Rock Hill and Prosper, share their experiences with homophobia, or their struggles with the lack of representation here in Prosper ISD, and they’ve started to share it, so I think that it is helping, I don’t think it’s where we want it to be (yet), but it is helping.”

Thinking about where she came from, as well as having her friends, family and “other members of the community” there to “support her,” Ortega said her pro-LGTBQ+ speech came from “close to her heart.”

“They called my name, and I was the first person to speak, and after I gave my speech I felt really good about it,” Ortega said. “A lot of people came up to me after that and showed Kelsey and I support, and they congratulated us for how well we spoke. There were some people who came up to us and said that they disagreed with us, and that they didn’t agree with what we were working for necessarily. Which, was a bit harsh, but you kind of have to take the good with the bad, I guess.”

Kelsey Reid

Rock Hill junior Kelsey Reid sits in her bedroom on her laptop, watching a YouTube video of a school board meeting where a student talks about “being forced” to mark down his preferred pronouns during a class. After seeing how “disrespectful” people were to the speakers, she immediately took to Change.org and drafted up a petition about how teachers should be allowed to freely display LGBTQ+, or other diversity flags – even if it does not apply to the subject that they teach.

“It was really scary, because I’d never spoken publicly like that before,” Reid said. “After the meeting, a lot of the members and people from the community came up to us and started asking us questions about what happened, thanking us for our courage and being overall supportive of us.”

To gain the confidence to start a pro-LGBTQ+ movement and “challenge” the school district, Reid said she “stopped caring” about what other people may think of her.

“I’d always been taught to stand up for what I believe in,” Reid said. “I saw on social media other students in other districts standing up for what they believe in when injustices occur. I saw that they succeeded, or at least that they left an impact on their district. So, I thought that maybe I could, too.”

However, Reid said asking her friends and family, including ones who did “not show support” for the LGBTQ+ community, was “definitely a risk.”

“I’ve had a few family members, like my brother and father, become hesitant to sign the petition and support it,” Reid said. “Ultimately, my father came around and signed it, and I’m still not sure how my brother feels now. Beside them, everyone else in my family, including my friends, have been really supportive of me.”

While Reid thinks that the momentum of her movement for displaying LGBTQ+ flags freely at school has “died down,” she still believes people have been “inspired” by what she has done.

“It feels amazing to know that I may have made an impact,” Reid said. “I never expected this much support. People have been reaching out to me, telling me their experiences at the districts’ schools and have opened up to me. It feels nice having people back me up, as well.”