Her Campus: Hi, can you tell me your name and your pronouns?
Sam Passman: My name is Sam Passman and my pronouns are they/them.
HC: So, what drew you to Agnes?
SP: One of the things that drew me to Agnes was [the amazing] astrophysics program, but also [that] it’s really close to Atlanta, which is a much more liberal city than where I’m from, which is Lewisberg, Tennessee…It’s still in the South, so it still feels kind of like home, even though it is a big city, which is what I kind of wanted.
HC: So I understand you did a lot of work with GLSEN in your hometown, can you tell me about that?
SP: Yeah, so GLSEN stands for the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, and what I did with them was stuff to try to make schools safer for LGBT youth, as well as protesting laws that would make schools unsafe. So, some of what I did was I that I put together a couple of conferences in Tennessee for LGBT youth, psychologists, teachers, and professionals to learn about what we do and how we can help. I organized and went to rallies for these reasons…I have been to a number of protests and given a number of speeches about various topics that relate back to my work with GLSEN.
HC: How long have you been working with GLSEN?
SP: I’ve been working with GLSEN since my freshman year of highschool, so this is [technically] my fifth year.
HC: Do you plan to keep working with them while you’re at Agnes?
SP: Yes, there is a chapter in Atlanta that I am joining, but when I’m home in Tennessee I’ll be working with my Tennessee branch again.
HC: Any future projects you have in mind?
SP: So far, I am looking at being a GSA coordinator for GLSEN Atlanta, which means I will probably be spending some of my time (when I’m not here in class or studying) at high schools around the area, talking to their GSAs and helping them set up GSAs if they don’t have any,…as well as giving resources that I can give for, like, knowing students’ rights, knowing the different things that are available around here for students, like seeing if there are any PFLAG chapters, [and] trying to get interest in joining GLSEN so we can have more students coming in…and keeping up with laws.
HC: What originally drew you to this work?
SP: As a freshman, I started to come to terms with the fact that I’m… a lesbian, which was absolutely terrifying coming from a teeny-tiny little town in Tennessee where just having short hair was kind of scandalous! (They laugh). And one of the main things that drew me in was the fact that my best friend and mentor kind of showed me what it was and made it very clear that this was a place where there were other people like me, and taught me about the things that were there, so that I would know [that] there are people from all walks of life and it’s not just what you hear in a small town, where it’s like, only the actors are gay.
HC: Is there anything that you want to tell people that you wish you’d known your freshman year?
SP: I mean, honestly, what I wish I knew freshman year was that it would get better, and there are more people like you out there, even if it doesn’t seem like it. I also wish that I had known my freshman year about a lot of resources, specifically the Trevor project, which is a suicide hotline for LGBT youth. One of my favorite things that I’ve done with GLSEN is in 2017 where I was a guest speaker at the Tennessee Conference of Volunteerism and Service Learning, and I was speaking to a panel of psychologists, teachers, and professionals about mental health in LGBT teens, as well as [how to help] them through emotional crises. It was really important to me that I was able to speak about that and then after we did that we set up a conference in Tennessee, the first conference for LGBT youth for the entire state of Tennessee, and we had a lot of panels where we were able to talk about mental health in a way where, you know, you get that feedback, that there are other people suffering, and that there are resources to reach out to, which is something that I didn’t exactly know freshman year.
HC: Thank you so much!
SP: Thank you.