Middle school is the time that everyone cringes to think about.

Puberty, weird urges, discomfort — it’s all there. The worst drama is about who likes who and which couple just broke up. Girls and boys write each other love notes, but sometimes girls write girls love notes.

For some, those three years are spent questioning their identities and who they are. But there’s no outlet to discuss the fact that you like guys instead of girls, or don’t feel like male or female. But that’s all changing.

As of this year, all four middle schools in the Lawrence school district have a Gay-Straight Alliance club. Some of the students who started those middle school clubs are now at Lawrence High School.

Among then, freshman Jack Foster, the founder of the GSA at Central Middle School, said he felt like there needed to be more representation and education on LGBT topics.

“We would just teach people about LGBT issues and what it meant to be LGBT and how to be an ally,” he said.

Foster said the club was popular among students.

“Pretty much anyone who knew about it was supportive,” Foster said.

On the other hand, Addie Thornsbury came up against some opposition when bringing up LGBT issues at Southwest Middle School. Along with a friend, Thornsbury planned to mention LGBT victims in an anti-bullying presentation but their teacher refused.

Thornsbury said the district needs to be more aware of its LGBT+ students.

“Well, I know that with gender-specific restrooms, I guess that’s something a lot of kids who are trans have problems with,” Thornsbury said. “I guess we need to be more accepting of that. There’s a lot of slurs being thrown around. Especially in the hallways.”

Yet the GSA doesn’t only benefit students and give them an accepting environment, said Holden Kraus, a math teacher at West Middle School who agreed to sponsor the school’s GSA club after a group of students asked him.

“I took the group proposal to our principal and discussed the need for a group and my qualifications to support this group of students,” he said. “Knowing that we might face some opposition from outside the school, I knew we needed to have the support of our amazing principal and that he needed to be in the loop so he could field any phone calls without being blindsided.”

Kraus proceeded to explain that along with his students, he has been impacted by the GSA club in a positive way.

“The club benefits me in many ways,” he said. “It provides a feeling of happiness every week as I look around the room at the different interactions and compare them to when I was an eighth grader. It also provides me with topics that I can use to educate the rest of our staff so that they can provide a more inclusive and accepting learning environment for all students who pass through West and, maybe, even a little bit of education for me.”

While the teachers are affected in a positive way, the students are front and center in the influence of the GSA.

“So many times, middle school and high school students feel they don’t belong and that they are different from everyone else on some basic level,” Kraus explained. “And GSAs like ours provide a safe space for the students at West to be themselves without any fear of judgment or malice. For some of them, that may be the only time in their entire week that they can feel that kind of support and community.”