Over the past few years, there has been an ongoing effort by the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) to rebrand itself under a new acronym: QSA. The acronym stands for Queer-Straight Alliance.

After the Diversity Assembly this year, the administration approved GSA to recharter as QSA next year. The club hopes changing its name to QSA will make the club more inclusive.

“The name Gay-Straight Alliance implies that everyone who’s not straight is gay, which is not the case,” GSA President junior Sasha Sobol said. “Queer is an umbrella term for anyone who’s not straight and/or cisgender, which allows us to represent all identities without specifying every single one.”

While the new name could promote inclusivity, there is a general concern that the word “queer” is still a pejorative.

“The club has attempted to charter as QSA in the beginning of the year in the past and the administration had a problem with the word queer because it was historically offensive but has since been reclaimed,” Sasha said.

The administration had blocked this year’s attempt by GSA to recharter as QSA. GSA had planned to rename itself near the Diversity Assembly in the middle of the year.

“We just thought mid-year changing might be a bit confusing since that’s how they chartered,” said Assistant Principal Dawson.

But the administration now unequivocally voices support for the name change to take effect next year.

“They were chartered initially as GSA as a national group,” Dawson said. “And my understanding now is Stanford, Cal, Mountain View, everybody switched that because queer is more all-encompassing and not quite as confusing We absolutely 100 percent support that, so they will recharter as QSA and we think it’s great.”