Hey y’all, I know that a number of you may have observed the Day of Silence today, which was taking place in a number of high schools in the country. If you’d like to learn more about it, click here: http://www.dayofsilence.org/
Now, throughout my day today, I kept note of comments that were made by students, concerning the event. Some were aimed directly at me, others were general statements, and some are actions. I had other friends that participated assist me with the list. Unfortunately, there was more bad than good.
Here’s the bad:
- “Hi gays!” (yelled jeeringly from across the hall)
- “Yeah, I dunno, it’s some sort of fag day.”
- “Man, the first time I saw people taping their faces, I was like ‘What the hell?!’ It looks fucking weird.”
- “Guys are doing it too. If you don’t talk, it’s not like your dick is going to get bigger. Jesus.”
- (This was a message from a friend, handed to me right after I entered my English class.) “So many people have called me a faggot today.
- (At lunch, a group of friends and I removed our tape to eat. Boys at the next table over yelled at me.) “Poser! You took off your tape! Dyke!”
- “Do you want a donut hole? You have to say please. Oh, you can’t?” (The box was empty.)
- “You can’t object!”
- “Fine, you can have your day, and we’ll have straight Tuesdays.”
- “I didn’t know you were with…them…”
- “Oh, look, a gay convention.”
- “I see you can’t talk to me. Love the purple shirt, it’s so inspiring. Fags these days.”
- “Gays were just born to fuck everything up.”
- On top of it all, my friend Jake reports that a few boys threw water and flour at him and a number of other students.
That wasn’t all, though. Here’s the good.
- Somewhere between 100 and 150 students participated at our school.
- All of the participants were highly supportive of each other.
- Many of the students were respectful and helped out, my favourite example being the boy in my homeroom talking to a confused substitute: “They can’t talk today. Here, let me help you with attendance.”
- The teachers were very respectful and changed lesson plans to better suit the situation.
Yeah I got this too along with a bucket of water dumped on me and baby powder thrown at me and stuck all over my face. Along with a few other comments I kept track of. Let’s start.
- “Dude we could totally rape someone and get away with it. It’s not like they could say no?”
- Who’s in favor of just beating everyone who’s wearing tape?
- “anyone who is supporting this is obviously gay.”
- “Lets just beat the words out of them.”
- -Rips duct tape off of someones mouth “Alright speak now faggot.”
- “They wont be able to scream if you kill them today right?”
- “Oh shit the gays are here watch out and they might turn you gay ahaha”
- -Puts duct tape all over face accept mouth-
- “You’re overreacting.”
I am the one pictured on the right. The back of my shirt had the pronouns “He Him His” Considering I’m transgender. I received several comments of people obnoxiously stating “She her hers” and got shoved into lockers several times while also having my life threatened.
What the fuck?? When we did this at my high school, probably 25% of the kids participated (and at a school of almost 3,000, that’s a pretty big deal). The only comments I ever got from kids who weren’t participating were things like “Aw, man, I wanted to do that but I have two presentations today,” or just “I totally support the cause but I don’t think not talking for a day is a good way to protest/ I am one of those people who find it physically impossible to shut up for hours at a stretch.”
These reminders that not everyone is as accepting as the people who I grew up break my heart. But I hope that victims of cruel, intolerant behavior can take comfort in the fact that (many? most?) of the young people in America aren’t like the assholes described above.