Conci Nelson is the co-president of Northwestern’s Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Alliance. She’s dedicated to the group. She’s passionate about its mission. She’s willing to stand up for her beliefs.

And, by the way, she’s straight.

So, while some people will take a big step Thursday by declaring their sexual orientations on National Coming Out Day, Nelson has nothing to announce.

When she arrived at Northwestern, Nelson wasn’t worried that BGALA didn’t include her “label.” She simply wanted to continue the struggle for equality.

“The first thing to remember in becoming involved or standing up for what you believe and feel is that everyone is entitled to the same rights and privileges as the next person,” said Nelson, a Speech sophomore. “In order for that to happen, you have to be able not to worry about labels and what people will think about you.”

Nelson quickly became the BGALA social chair and, in the spring, stepped up as co-president along with Laura Blacksher. Neither Nelson nor Blacksher wanted the challenge alone, but they agreed to take it on together.

BGALA’s goal is to be an organization in which people feel accepted regardless of sexual orientation, gender preference or gender identity.

“The group is more about making people feel that they can be who they are and, at least within the context of BGALA, not have to worry about that,” Nelson said.

Nelson, who says she has had to defend her beliefs to her family and people in the NU community, became passionate about equality for all people in high school. During her senior year, Nelson founded a gay-straight alliance at the Francis W. Parker School in Chicago. People at the school called Nelson the “Parker radical” because they expected her to do the unexpected.

To get people involved in the alliance, the group hung up fliers around the school, advertising its first meeting. Some of the posters were ripped off the walls; one that wasn’t torn down had a slur written over it.

“To see those things was really disturbing because you saw all this underlying fear,” Nelson said. “It really showed us how necessary a gay-straight alliance was.”

Although the name BGALA doesn’t specify a gay-straight alliance, members say involvement of straight people is welcome and necessary.

“In many ways it has isolated the group because it is saying, ‘This is what we are,’ and there are people who feel intimidated by the fact that it doesn’t say we want other people involved,” Nelson said. “We do want straight allies; we do want transgendered people involved.”

Nelson says BGALA is considering a name change to include other groups. But she said she doesn’t mind the current name, because it clearly identifies the group’s purpose.

“BGALA started off 31 years ago as the Gay Liberation Front,” Nelson said. “It really wasn’t founded on the premise of being an alliance of gays and straight allies. As the years have passed, it has become more and more important for straight allies to be involved.”

BGALA secretary Jonathan S. Lewis agrees with Nelson that the name isn’t inclusive enough these days — he wants to show the community that BGALA is there for everyone, and he believes Nelson is a step in that direction.

“Conci is a wonderful asset to the leadership of BGALA because she is a very open bridge between the gay and straight communities,” said Lewis, a Speech senior.

That bridge, Blacksher said, is a resource the group needs.

“One of the things we try to do is increase awareness and understanding on the campus,” said Blacksher, a Speech sophomore. “Without straight allies, that’s hard to do.”

Last year’s BGALA president, Weinberg senior Matthew Barbour, said it’s time for the group to increase heterosexual involvement.

“The group as a whole and the community are greatly benefited by (BGALA) being more than just a group for a certain population,” he said.

But defining Nelson as the “straight co-president” doesn’t adequately describe her contribution to the group. It’s her desire to welcome everyone and her relentless enthusiasm that shape her role in BGALA, Barbour said.

“Conci has a huge commitment to activism and to the community,” Barbour said. “Part of being an activist is you do what needs to be done.”

And her personality, Lewis said, adds a lot to the group.

“Conci is spunky,” he said. “Conci has so much pizzazz as an individual. She has a lot of energy and she brings a lot of experience.”

The ideas associated with BGALA, namely equality for people of all sexual orientations, are part of Nelson’s identity. BGALA has seeped into virtually every aspect of her life.

“It’s part of who I am now,” she said. “It’s kind of funny because, generally speaking, people either know me in the theater context, the BGALA context or the class context. Things are kind of starting to interweave.”

Even Nelson’s fiance, Marc Hertz, joined the group after attending meetings with Nelson. The two have been dating for more than five years and worked together on a diversity committee in high school. Now, Hertz is BGALA’s treasurer.

“I became treasurer on the one hand to help her and on the other because they needed someone,” said Hertz, a Weinberg senior. “It’s something I felt I needed to do, (but) it was more of a challenge for me to be on the executive board and say really publicly what I felt.”

In order to give the group some stability, people like Nelson, Hertz and Blacksher stepped up to fill positions. They helped rewrite the group’s constitution and worked through ASG funding difficulties.

“There are definitely stereotypes about BGALA — that we don’t know how to handle our own money, that we don’t know how to do things in a timely fashion and that we don’t know how to plan things,” Nelson said. “We’re working really hard to break those stereotypes, and I think we’re doing a good job at that.”

Nelson also wants to break the stereotype that BGALA is only an activist group.

“Once you become an activist group, you are alienating people from the community because there are people who don’t want to do activism,” Nelson said. “There are people who don’t think they should have to fight to do this, and there are people who just want to have a social-cultural group.”

Nelson says she wants to give other students the chance to hold a leadership position in BGALA in the future. She doesn’t expect to be co-president of BGALA for the next two years — after all, she has a wedding to plan. But she said she will stay active in BGALA because it’s such an important part of her.

“It’s been hard and draining and emotional and, at times, depressing. It’s also been rewarding and encouraging and wonderful. (But) still hard,” Nelson said.

“It makes me think about who I am every day. It’s made me stronger in that I know I am doing something that really there’s no reason I need to do, there’s no ‘connection’ that says I’m obligated to be involved in this. And yet I want to, because I want everyone to have the same privileges I do.”