Wilson Cruz will never forget the bullying he endured while in high school in southern California.
“I don’t even know what it was like not to be bullied,” the “Star Trek: Discovery” star says. “I was called f—– every day. It got to the point where I didn’t even hear it anymore.”
Cruz turned to fellow LGBTQ students and teachers for support. “I went to high school in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s before there were gay-straight alliances,” he says. “The only way I got through school was with my best friends –- the other four gays kids I knew at school. I know because I had them in my life that I had a sounding board and that there was someone who could reflect back my own experience and make me feel like I was not not normal. They saved my life. We saved each other’s lives.”
It’s that experience that has fueled Cruz’s involvement with GLSEN, the 33-year-old nationwide organization that works to make schools safe for LGBTQ students and educators. He has been active with the group for more than a decade. Cruz shared with Variety that he has been named chair of GLSEN’S board.
“Every student should have the ability to have the best experience in school where they can learn the most and feel the most supported,” Cruz says. “They shouldn’t have to feel like they have to get out of there as soon as they can and by the skin of their teeth. If you believe that our schools are the place that our students need to feel the safest, this is the organization you need to be supporting.”
A 2021 survey by GLSEN concluded that 82 percent of students feel unsafe at school. “That’s unacceptable,” Cruz says. “That is a flashing red light.”
He fears the number is even higher in the two years since the findings because of the political climate in the U.S., including more than 600 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in statehouses across the county. “I know our community,” Cruz says. “We fall down but we get right back up.”
In addition to Cruz being named board chair, TransLash Media creator and award-winning journalist Imara Jones is the new vice chair.
“Wilson Cruz and Imara Jones are incredible leaders and activists who have done amazing, impactful work to transform GLSEN over the last few years,” GLSEN executive director Melanie Willingham-Jaggers said in a statement. “We’re honored to have both of them in this fight with us as GLSEN moves forward into a new chapter, and we’re proud to have a leadership team that reflects the values, power, and beautiful diversity of the LGBTQ+ community. Together, we’re going to rise up for LGBTQ+ youth across the country and fight back against those who seek to erase them.”