Day of Silence

Today marks the 16th annual Day of Silence, which was launched by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, during which the discrimination and harassment—in effect, the silencing—of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students and their allies is protested with silence.

Thank you for the reminder to Andy, who has video of the GLSEN Day of Silence 2012 organizers.

There are many different activities associated with the National Day of Silence now, but the primary action is silence. A perfect, still silence.

Today, in schools across the country, thousands and thousands of kids—gay kids, bisexual kids, asexual kids, questioning kids, undecided kids, straight kids, trans* kids, intersex kids, cis kids—will move through the halls of their schools, surrounded by the bustle of lockers being opened and closed, the boisterousness of their peers, the laughter and shoving and passing of notes, and they will remain silent.

They will make eye contact with other participants, nodding, sharing solemn smiles, and they will say nothing, in support of one another. They are silent on this day so that the QUILTBAG community may not have to be.

The vile bigotry that still makes life hard for QUILTBAG teens is a dinosaur, and one day it will be extinct—and we will collect its bones and put them in a museum and tell future generations about the purveyors of that vile bigotry who once thought that the QUILTBAG community didn't deserve equality. The children of future generations will laugh and shake their heads, and we will remember bitterly when there was a time people had to be silent to make some noise.

A moment of silence: __________________________________