GLSEN's 2015 Adult Leader Award to Chesnut

Maggie Chesnut, 27, a native of Cortlandt, was honored by the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) of the Hudson Valley at its 2015 Leadership Awards in White Plains on May 21.

Chesnut was the 2015 Adult Leader Honoree.

Chesnut was an active member of Putnam Valley High School’s Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) from its very inception, and served on GLSEN’s advisory board while in high school, participating in the annual Day of Silence, the Regional PrideWorks conference, and organizing area GSAs.

At Smith College Chesnut continued this advocacy work by organizing the Smith Drag Ball and the first-ever Queer Family Weekend. As chair of the Smith Diversity Council Chesnut trained more than 40 Diversity Representatives to facilitate conversations across difference; represented student voice on 3 administrative diversity planning committees as well as the Board of Trustees; and organized the first public conversation between the administration and students about the admission and representation of transgender students.

In summer programs Chesnut taught a self-designed Spanish-language sex education program to young people in the mountains of Peru, interned at the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C., and worked at the U.C. San Francisco School of Nursing, focusing on Lesbian women’s health.

While an intern at Smith College Health Services, Chesnut was also able to examine the intake forms to make them more LGBT-friendly and work with the director to facilitate a more welcoming environment for LGBT students. She also worked with Patricia Robertson, M.D., an expert and leader in the field of Lesbian Health, to organize a panel on the release of the first Lesbian Health textbook at Smith College.

Chesnut graduated from Smith in 2010 with a B.A. in Study of Women and Gender with a Concentration in Queer Studies, Minor in Spanish, and winner of the Social Justice Advocate Award. After graduation she began working for the Center for Anti-violence Education, in Brooklyn, and became an Anti-Violence Educator, teaching self-defense and anti-violence curricula at schools and organizations across the five boroughs, and consulting on re-working of LGBT curricula to be transgender-inclusive.

Today she is a New York City public high school Special Education teacher, earning a Master’s Degree from Brooklyn College on May 27. Perhaps her proudest accomplishment as an educator, Chesnut applied to design and teach a year-long senior social studies elective called “Movement Building: Learning from the History of Community Organizing,” including a significant segment on LGBT history.

Chesnut, who lives in Brooklyn, is the daughter of Annie and Rich Chesnut, of Lake Peekskill.

The GLSEN awards ceremony was held at Pepsico in White Plains and co-sponsored by Pepsi’s EQUAL program. GLSEN’s Hudson Valley Chapter, which serves Westchester, Putnam, Rockland, Dutchess, Orange and Ulster Counties, is led by an active and dedicated board of directors. Longtime Co-Chair Mary Jane Karger hosted the ceremony.

PHOTO: L-R Mary Jane Karger and Maggie Chesnut/contributed