Catching Up with Megan Jacoby: From Actress to Activist

If you happened to read the Rainbow Rumpus article “Megan's Story” several years ago, there's a good chance you will remember Megan Jacoby. She wrote about how she formed her high school’s Gay-Straight Alliance (or GSA) so she could help her classmates understand how important the acceptance of homosexuality is.

As the daughter in a lesbian-headed family, Megan has been on a mission—since the age of four, she says—to advocate on behalf of families like hers. Six years later, Megan has just as much passion for equality as before, although her approach to others who may be skeptical about her cause has changed completely.

Megan remembers her days of starting and leading the GSA at Blake Upper School in Minneapolis. The organization began with a very small group of students, and the rest of the school was not completely supportive. Megan made it her business to change that. When that didn't always work, it made her angry, made her want to push even harder to get her message across to people. But when Megan found herself almost constantly speaking out for LGBT acceptance, getting her message across became just plain exhausting. Eventually, Megan got a wake-up call.

“My mom took me aside and told me I needed to take a break,” she said. “When I did that, I saw a part of myself that was so much more relaxed. I did enjoy fighting people in class [regarding homophobic comments] and starting the GSA, but you can't be any good for anything if you're not at peace with yourself.” It was during this break that Megan began to rethink how she could truly be the best LGBT advocate.

New challenges awaited her when left for college in Boston.

“People express different ways of being homophobic, but they don't really notice, because they figure they can be liberal and say whatever they want,” Megan said. This time, she kept in mind what she'd learned from her mother and remained calm. She knew that she couldn't yell her way into changing everyone's mind.

“I think it's a good thing to do less banner waving and be a happy, helpful person to those people [with whom I’m trying to communicate]. I really started to learn to express myself in a way that wasn't too aggressive for the person to like me afterward.”

She remembers one student in particular who didn't approve of her family. He even remarked that he thought her family was going to hell. Despite his judgments, Megan hoped to change his mind. Simply by being herself and telling him a bit about how important her family was to her, Megan did just that.

“A couple months after I'd met him, he came up to me and said, 'I just want to let you know that I never would have felt this positive about [LGBT-headed] families if it wasn't for you.' All I had to do was get to know him and share some jokes with them. Ever since then, things really changed.”

She says she feels not only more at peace with herself when she approaches advocacy in a positive way, but that this positivity also has a better effect on others.

“I'll be bright and cheery about it. I've burned myself out on the heavy-duty lifting. I've dabbled in the art of peacefully approaching people. I do it with everybody, but if I sense that someone is negative, I will approach them. Sometimes I'll come at it from a different angle, and try to develop a [connection], and then make sure they know.”

Megan has also offered support to fellow cast members, as she has acted professionally for several years. Megan makes it a point of making it known that she is always open and approachable. In one production, two teenage boys sought her out when they were unsure of how to come out.

“For years, something I've always done is to make it known in a refreshing way that I have gay parents within about five seconds of meeting someone, just so people know. When I walked into the rehearsal, everyone knew right away.”

Even when the directors of the production expressed their discomfort with Megan's openness and support of the two actors, Megan remembers knowing they needed her.

“[The teenagers] didn't think they would be safe if they told their parents. I thought helping them was more important than keeping my job.”

In fact, Megan eventually decided she wanted to move away from the “cynical” theater life and toward a profession where she could help others even more. She realized she cared “more about people than theater.” She started a Master’s program in counseling/psychology this past fall at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA.

She hopes to work with gay youth in her upcoming practicum, and long-term after graduation. In the meantime, Megan continues to advocate, first and foremost with a smile.

“You can't cure the activism bug! You deeply care and want to do something about it.”