A recent graduate of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (CRLS) is one of 10 students to be awarded a state leadership award for his LGBTQ+ advocacy.

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Finn Graham was awarded the Jeff Perrotti Award from the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ+ Youth in late May for working to expand the number of gender-neutral bathrooms and planning his school’s annual Community Pride Day.

The Jeff Perrotti Award, now in its fourth year, is given to students at Massachusetts high schools who have done work to expand gender-neutral bathrooms, queer extracurricular programming and other initiatives at their schools, according to the award’s website. The award honors Perrotti, who in 1993 founded the Safe Schools Program in Massachusetts that provides services to help schools support LGBTQ+ students.

“I think it’s important to highlight the people [who] are going to be making their own schools and communities better, especially with so much negative feelings towards queer youth,” Graham said on the significance of the award.

Graham has helped to plan the district’s Community Pride Day for the past four years. His goal was to include more performances from local drag artists, queer performers and student singers and dancers in recent years.

At this June’s pride day the CRLS Step Team, a rhythmic dance group, performed a voguing routine a style of dance that evolved out of the Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ Harlem ballroom scene of the 1970s. Graham said the performance was one of his favorites from this year, citing the importance of teaching the history of the queer art forms to students of all ages.

Graham said his advocacy work began out of necessity.

“In middle school, when I first came out, I just felt like I didn’t really have a choice, because I needed to improve my conditions at school,” Graham said. While the reception to his advocacy was less positive in middle school, Graham said his high school teachers and administrators were supportive of his advocacy for gender-neutral restrooms.

When Graham began high school at CRLS, he noticed that there were “very few” all-gender single-stall restrooms, a necessary amenity for transgender and nonbinary individuals. Wait times were longer for these bathrooms, which Graham said are “appealing to a wide range of people.” 

“It was really frustrating, especially because we have a 10-minute rule, so if you’re out at the classroom for more than 10 minutes, then security gets called,” Graham said.

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Graham worked with Sam Musher, the district’s Youth Advocacy Specialist, and former CRLS principal Damon Smith to convert several staff restrooms into student-accessible all-gender restrooms. Graham said his work led to five additional single-stall restrooms, one on each floor of the building.

Smith spoke to Finn’s impact on the larger culture at CRLS. “Finn raised a concern that impacted the community and was incredibly passionate about creating meaningful change,” Smith said.

Musher said Graham’s advocacy for single stall bathrooms was “really important and valuable work for the CRLS community.”

LGBTQ+ advocacy has a long history in Cambridge, where New England’s first Gay-Straight Alliance club, a student-led support group for queer students, was established in 1988.

“Cambridge gets to lay claim to a really long history of queer youth advocacy,” Musher said.

Outside of advocacy work, Graham found community in volunteer clubs and in his high school’s fencing team, where, as captain, he led his team to the state finals this past spring. In the fall, he is off to Trinity College in Dublin, where he will study stage management and technical theatre.

“I’ll always be someone who wants to stand up and address any issues that are affecting me or any other people in my community,” Graham said.

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