Day of Silence

Day of Silence is coming up, and after a tweet about it I realized a lot of people aren’t aware of what it means.

The National Day of Silence brings attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools. Each year the event has grown, and now hundreds of thousands of students participate to encourage schools and classmates to address the problem of anti-LGBT behavior. Founded in 1996, the Day of Silence has become the largest single student-led action towards creating safer schools for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

That is straight from Day of Silence's website. This year is the 14th annual Day of Silence, and will be the third year I have participated in.For a history of the Day of Silence click here. I am going to put information from 2008:

2008 - The 2008 Day of Silence on April 25 was held in memory of Lawrence King, a 15-year-old eighth-grade student in Oxnard, California, was shot and killed by a 14-year-old classmate because of his sexual orientation and gender expression. Hundreds of thousands of students at more than 8,000 schools participated. Their efforts were supported by hundreds of community-based "Breaking the Silence" events at the end of the day. Together, concerned students created a powerful call to action in order to prevent future tragedies.
There are simple steps that all schools can take to make schools safer for all students, to end the endemic name-calling and harassment that LGBT students and their allies face every day. We need to act now so that Lawrence King and the countless others who endure anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment will not be forgotten, and so that we can create an enduring legacy of safer schools for all in their names.

 

The story of Lawrence King is what opened my eyes to begin with. I had heard of Day of Silence, but had never participated in it until this year.

 

So please, participate? I understand not everybody approves of LGBT as a sexuality choice, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t LGBT individuals dying daily because they choose to be open about their sexuality.