The LGBT club formerly known as SAGE has taken on a new identity as SPECTRUM, along with new goals and plans for this school year.

Seniors Teddy Holloway, president, Gracie Spencer, vice president, Kai Ditore, historian and Caitlin Quinn, secretary, mutually decided to change the name after looking for a more inclusive title for the club.

“Once we had appointed volunteered leaders, the first thing we collectively decided was that we would like a name change,” Ditore said. “We decided to go with a name that wasn’t associated with the gay straight alliance, or really just generally associated with catering to allies, and chose SPECTRUM, which can refer to gay as an umbrella term.”

The group assembled during the summer in order to determine what change they wanted the club to undergo.

“For my senior year, I wanted to bring Coexist back under SAGE because I wanted SAGE to be more inclusive,” Holloway said. “SAGE was just straights and gays for equality, and by the end of the year we had almost no people coming, so I wanted to open it up to everyone in the school and coexist as humans. But during the summer, Gracie said that the NRA was using coexist on a t-shirt, and they’re trying to promote that for them to coexist in a world with guns. So we were like, ‘let’s not use Coexist as a name’. So Kai found this awesome thing- SPECTRUM. S is sexuality, E is education, P is pride, C is community, T is truth, R is respect, U is unity, and M is mindfulness.”

Besides a name change, SPECTRUM has new plans on how to improve the club from years past.

“SAGE was a great club and I liked what they did, but a lot of the things that they talked about was just gay history, like Stonewall,” said Teddy. “Although that was nice, it didn’t really include anyone else who wanted to come to the club. This year, I want to have it where we plan out every meeting and stuff to talk about, like current events and things that we can think about and change.”

SPECTRUM’s main goal is to inform people about LGBT rights both on campus and out in the world.

“We want to inform the student body of important issues in both our community and the rest of the world,” Quinn said. “We also want to create connections for the LGBT students of AHS and the LGBT community outside school, and provide successful examples of LGBT people.”

The club hopes to have members coming from all grade levels in order to have a more accomplished club.

“I think there are going to be more returning members for years to come,” Ditore said. “Last year was primarily seniors, and once they had all graduated, we were the only volunteers and we didn’t have any opponents for the elections. I think we’re going to have more committed members.”

SPECTRUM is open to anyone who wants to join, regardless of sexual orientation.

“I would like to get more members and represent more of the minorities at school, and to become accepted,” Holloway said. “Anyone can join: allies, LGBTQ…I really wanted to to open it up for everyone to coexist as humans.”

SPECTRUM meets on the second Wednesday of every month during second lunch in room D106, and also holds after school meetings for those who cannot attend during lunch.