Andrew Taban

LGBTQ ADVOCACY HAS BEEN A STRONG FOCUS IN ALEX’S ACADEMIC STUDIES AND WORK AS A STUDENT LEADER.

As a result, Andrew fell in love with advocacy and serving the public, and began to realize the growing need for social justice. After training, Andrew quickly became a youth trainer, travelling around the state of California to educate youth about a wide variety of topics, such as; how to start and maintain a GSA, knowing your rights as a student, LGBTQ history, and more. Andrew noticed he had a strong passion for this work, and later joined to be a lobbyist with the group to help draft and pass various LGBTQ+ equality and education bills.

From there, Andrew started the GSA in his high school, and it quickly became the top leading in his district. With this success, Andrew was able to distribute materials to other schools, build and educate more GSAs in his district, and put on the first LGBTQ workshop in his district.

Currently, Andrew is attending College of the Canyons and has served the GSA as President as well as in other leadership positions for over two years. His mission was to increase the GSA’s presence on campus, while still being a safe haven for those who needed support. Andrew is happy to say that these goals were able to be accomplished successfully.

Andrew continues to dedicate much of his time educating students and organizations by delivering LGBTQ workshops, sitting in on the LifeWorks Models of Pride steering and workshop selection committee, and by volunteering for the LifeWorks Community Action Network (CAN) program.

(This profile was written in 2016)