Wear Purple today #SpiritDay – Show your support against anti-gay bullying

I was concerned this morning that I wouldn’t have anything purple in my wardrobe to show (symbolically) my support for Spirit Day, an American-led but followed world-wide initiative launched by GLAAD to show support against anti-gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, two-spirited and, in general, anti-queer bullying. While I support all initiatives against all types of bullying, anti-GLBT bullying is right now top of mind because of recent events (several US queer youth taking their own lives because they were bullied). Luckily I found my purple dress shirt, so I’m wearing the outfit to the right to teach today.

My good friend Derek K. Miller wrote a fantastic post on how anti-gay bigotry is leading to dead children, and I couldn’t help but get my eyes all teary. Those kids who took their own lives were someone’s children. I don’t even want to imagine the pain that their parents are going through and will continue to go through. I am not a parent yet, but if I ever have children, I hope I will be able to instill in them the self-confidence and reassurance my own parents instilled in me.

As I mentioned in a recent post, I survived not thanks to my childhood friends and certainly not thanks to my teachers, but thanks to my brothers and my parents and their love and support (and strangely enough, right after the bullying stopped, I became the most popular kid in my high school. Go figure).

It may only be a symbol (wearing purple today), but I still encourage you to do so. Because as a commenter on Derek’s blog post said, being queer is being part of a (for the most part) invisible minority. I completely understand the commenter’s point of being gay isn’t easily identifiable (as opposed to being part of a certain minority ethnicity). So, for those who can’t tell YOU they are queer, why not tell THEM that you support them in their silent struggle? Wearing purple today is one of the ways to show that support.

Because bullying needs to stop.