New club spotlight: GESP
New club spotlight: GESP
Olivia Hunt / Asst A+C Editor
How does a social justice club transition from raising awareness to achieving tangible change on campus? There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, but the University of San Diego’s new Gender Equality and Sex Positivity club (GESP) seems to have a solid strategy — not registering as an official club on campus.
The idea came from Lexie Rollings, a senior at USD who chaired the school’s 2019 Sexual Assault Awareness Month committee. Though she considers its execution a success, Rollings felt limited by the university staff’s content restrictions. She believed the range of education and engagement materials that she wanted to produce was far greater than what the school would allow.
Fast forward to Spring 2020, after USD transitioned to online learning. In the beginning of April — the national month for Sexual Assault Awareness — Rollings grew disheartened by what she felt were insufficient content and resources from the university centers, specifically the Women’s Commons and CARE (Campus Assault Resource and Education).
Channeling her disappointment into productive action, Rollings founded GESP as a way for students to lead the conversation.
Her motivation behind creating GESP was to “[solidify] a safe and radical space for USD students to engage in conversation, education, and informed activism related, but not limited to, gender equality and sex-positivity.” GESP’s unofficial status also ensures that its content cannot be censored by faculty members or the USD administration.
GESP has come a long way since April. Its executive board is composed of five passionate womxn, who hope for USD to become a more inclusive and educated space. The four seniors on GESP exec have all been employed by the university at some point in their academic careers, and each leader brings her own expertise and experience to the club.
Ashley Raines, GESP’s Outreach and Leadership advocate, explained Rollings’ approach to organizing the club.
“Lexie was very intentional in her design of the exec board and in her style of member recruitment,” Raines said. “Every member is well connected on campus, and all of us have experience in social justice work or on-campus activism.”
Founder Lexie Rollings serves as the club’s Healthy Relationships Advocate, and other positions include Delaney Tax as the Radical Pleasure Advocate, MaryCatherine Smith as the Self-Love and Gender Equality Advocate, and Brooke Powell as the Admin Coordinator.
GESP’s members began their outreach by providing easily-shareable resources on body image, ecofeminism, and sexual pleasure (to name a few) through the club’s Instagram account. Since, they’ve made efforts to demystify USD’s Title IX changes, and worked to normalize pronoun sharing by students and faculty.
The group’s social media activism, partnered with student leadership, was quickly recognized by the Associated Student Government (ASG).
“ASG wanted to partner with us, and many of our goals align,” Raines said. “Now they’re backing our idea to create a more inclusive, mandatory sex-E\ed curriculum on campus.”
With the help of ASG, GESP is spearheading major policy changes at USD. They’re currently working with the USD administration in getting free STI prevention materials on campus, and pushing for a comprehensive student sexual education that’s LGBTQ+ inclusive.
This course of action, if finalized, would be no small feat at a Catholic university, which does not currently offer treatment such as birth control through its student health center. For student leaders, USD currently provides mandatory diversity training, social distancing training, and sexual assault prevention training.
GESP wants sexual education training to be just as accessible for students as well as student leaders.
“ASG [wants] to make the school more in touch with their students and their students’ needs,” Raines said. “The reality is that comprehensive sex education is vital to students’ experience on campus.”
“Abstinence is also a part of comprehensive sex-ed,” Raines clarified. “If students choose that route, they have a right to learn more about it, too.”
Though GESP has opted to function under the radar, they definitely aren’t off of it. The club’s influence and recognition is steadily on the rise, and they’re on track to roll out even more campus-wide initiatives in the future.