Day of Silence

[Morganlafay88]

Hey Y'all!

(I don't think this thread exists yet.)

So, how many of you have heard of the Day of Silence? Well it's April 21st, so put it on your calendar. It's a national project by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Basically it symbolizes the silence of GLBTs over the years. “It is a student-led day of action where those who support making anti-LGBT bias unacceptable in schools take a day-long vow of silence to recognize and protest the discrimination and harassment -- in effect, the silencing -- experienced by LGBT students and their allies.”



Please check out www.dayofsilence.org/ for more information.

My High School and I are participating, there's no reason why you shouldn't.



~Morgan

There's nothing very merry about going round and round. Heart's in your mouth, hands in the air. Head is spinning as you tumble to the ground.

[CEsgirl13]

I'm defiantely goign to try, but it's hard to be silent when all my friends bug me if I don't talk for 5 seconds. ^_^

When you choose to hold the rose you are also agreeing to bleed.

[BohemianKitten]

hee hee, I'm all signed up and ready to rock...silently of course. My friends are going to think I'm mad, but I'm supporting the cause. Dear God, I need to stop watching Gone with the Wind at all hours of the night. How many other Kittens are planning to do this?

[Morganlafay88]

Well, I hope that a lot of Kittens participate. BohemianKitten, I'm glad that you are. And for those of you like CEsgirl13, the point of the day is to try your best. It's a symbolic silence. And if anyone is thinking, "Oh, I have to give a big presentation and need to make an important phone call", well, that's fine, but you are to refrain from socialy talking on the phone, inthe lunch room, hallway, ect.



Please join me!

~Morgan

---

There's nothing very merry about going round and round. Heart's in your mouth, hands in the air. Head is spinning as you tumble to the ground.

[Spikeizmine87]

hey all! Our GSA will be patrticapating in the day of silence! Im really lookin foward to it! We're also getting some teachers invlolved as well! My art teacher is joining in too so that's gonna be a good time cause now she wont be talkin about monochramtatic colors all day! Hope the kittens particapate! And have fun!

-Rose

Im here. And Im queer. Need I say more?

Yes, I shop at "Dykes R Us"

[Jeni]

I more or less fully organized my schools GSA, Day of Silence. Since we're off the 21st we had it the 14th. I went okay, not as well as it could have but considering the school atmosphere is homophobic it was good.

[Tempest Duer]

My school's doing it... of course, because it's on the day before the entire music department leaves for Washington DC, my teachers might not be very happy about me participating in it...

Saying that up is down will not make up, down.



~Gene Burns

[bowlerhat]

I'm in charge of my school's GSA, and this year I organized the Day of Silence with one of my teachers. This is the third year our school is partcipating, and he and I worked really hard to promote the event. We have twice as many people signed up to participate this year as the last two years combined. So far everything is going smoothly. I got all the approvals from our administration (not an easy feat), and the T-shirts we ordered have already arrived and look great.

Our school doesn't have the most accepting atmosphere, but there isn't usually that much opposition to the Day of Silence, especially if a lot of kids are participating. I think it's a great thing for high schools to do because it really makes other kids aware that there are gay and lesbian students in our school that deserve respect. I have been putting everything together for this day for a long time and am looking foward to it, since I'm a senior this year. I hope it all goes well.

[Renee85]

Hey Donna, good luck with everything okay? And it's good to hear that more and more people are participating as the years go on, that's a really good sign. I've never done anything like that when I was in high school and I'm ashamed to say that I've never heard of the Day of Silence until now, I'm glad I'm more informed.



Everything will go well, I'm sure.

____________________________________________________________

"The only way to have a friend is to be one." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Morganlafay88]

wow, It's great that people are getting involved. I'm super excited for tomorrow. I've got my T-shirt, too, and info cards to hand out.

For you all who organized for your school, that's awesome. This is my schools second year being involved, and it looks like we're gonna have a good turnout. Luckily we have an awesome GSA, Visibility, who's done a great job organizing everything.

Good luck everyone!



Morgan

----

There's nothing very merry about going round and round. Heart's in your mouth, hands in the air. Head is spinning as you tumble to the ground.

[Spikeizmine87]

What a day kitties! Today turned out VERY will. I didnt think many students would actually particapate but they did! I didnt say a word, and at home now, i still wont. This is where i cant truely be me. In my own damn house. So I will continue to stay silent and i dont care if anyone thinks im in a bad mood, im not, this is what they are making me do by being so homophobic! All in all it was a good day, i didnt get to do spanish work! haha....everyone thought i was sick...well now i have to write an article on it! Its gonna be good! Hope everyone else did well too!

ride ride ride

-Rose

Im here. And Im queer. Need I say more?

Yes, I shop at "Dykes R Us"

[Morganlafay88]

I think that today went great. Sure it was tough to not talk, a lot of people thought it was funny that I wasn't able to talk, but I survived. About 70 students in my school were involved, and to end a good day I went with about 40 of them to Albany, NY (I live about 30 minutes from it) for a big 'Break the Silence' event. There was a couple hundred people there from the area. We talked about our experiences during the day and then had some presentations. Twas fun and a great environment.

I hope everyone else had an awesome day with few problems.



Morgan

------

There's nothing very merry about going round and round. Heart's in your mouth, hands in the air. Head is spinning as you tumble to the ground.

[Tempest Duer]

I tried to do it, but only lasted five hours.



One of the teachers at my school was wearing a "silence=death" sign around his neck all day... he had to talk, and I think he makes a good point: Why fight silence with silence?

Saying that up is down will not make up, down.



~Gene Burns

[MorgainePriestessOfAvalon]

I'd say only about 30 people at my school did it out of like 800 people. More people would have done it but they didn't want to stop talking. The teachers mostly supported it like my Latin teacher didn't make my talk and stuff like that. But other teachers like my history teacher is a homophobe and lets stupid homophobic jocks make fun of gay people everyday. She didn't make us talk but still. What really pisses me off is that there are a ton of gay people at my school including my principal and we don't have a GSA. In fact the school didn't even really support the Day of Silence at all. There were no announcements or flyers about it at all. It was just a word of mouth thing. Another thing that really really made me furious is that people kept making fun of us and some people started a PAH and CAGAR. People Against Homo's and Coalition Against Gay Advancement of Rights. Even in science class somebody had written on the board: PAH t-shirts/membership $6.00 see Drew ___. GRRR!!! Then somebody asked the science teacher if she knew what PAH stood for and she was like no. Then my bi friend wrote it down and showed her and she didn't erase it!!! Now she is a very nice lady who doesn't tolerate stuff like that and I expected her to erase it. But she didn't. I think it's because she's a christian or something. So we waited until the bell rang for lunch and everyone left and then erased it. God, the whole f**kin world pisses me off.

Edited by: MorgainePriestessOfAvalon at: 4/22/04 3:35 pm

[Spikeizmine87]

hey there! I totally sypmathize and understand how much people and your school sucks! This girl who i have a slight crush on was being really mean about the whole thing and some guys were sayin that silence wont help a thing. Im sorry that your teacher did that! My art teacher (who i think is a lesbain..hmm) cant STAND intolerance and would NEVER let something like that happen! But if it was me (which sometimes it is) i wouldnt give all the stupid ignorant people much thought, just remember that you're better then them in so many different ways! They just are intolerant and need some tolerance shoved up their asses!

-Rose

Im here. And Im queer. Need I say more?

Yes, I shop at "Dykes R Us"

[bowlerhat]

Hey. First, I want to say that I admire everyone who did this without support from their schools, it is not easy. For me the day went as smoothly as it could I guess, my friends are used to it by now, and I've been out so long most people don't bother messing with me, since it doesn't do any good. We had the typical problems with slurs, and an incident in the cafeteria with some underclassmen that left some students crying though. My advisor and I are going to report everything to the administration. I've enlisted help from him and another teacher I'm close to who has a lot of pull to help change school policy to specifically mention the protection of GLBT students and the need to enforce that protection, which means actually punishing students who are overheard saying offensive things. I also want to institute a training program to help teachers practice tolerance and make them better prepared to support and help GLBT students.



I don't know what's going to happen to our GSA after I graduate, because I do most of the grunt work on my own. I print and hang flyers, get activities and announcements approved my admin., and I plan and run the meetings. Except for my advisor and a couple of my friends, most people are shy and timid when it comes to promoting the GSA. I want to feel like I've made our school safer before I leave, but I don't see that happening. I'm glad to be getting out, but I still worry about the students who will still be there, and are afraid to stand up for themselves. I understand them, and I've been there and it's not fun. Sometimes I hate that we have to fight so hard to feel safe in school.

[Yelowsub]

It seems like every year I completely miss the Day of Silence. But the night before my SO sent me an email saying that their school was doing it. So I decided to try. But I knew that I would be the only one (my school wasn't registerd on the site) and I wasn't able to print up the cards. So I didn't really feel into it, without the cards no one would understand why I was doing it. So I ended up talking when people asked me questions, but that was about it. But I did email my school's G/S Alliance, so maybe next year.

"Trying to talk about love is like trying to dance about architecture."

[MorgainePriestessOfAvalon]

Remember how I told you guys about PAH(People Against Homosexuality)? Well today was the last regular school day and so a bunch of jocks got together and wore their PAH t-shirts today. It was a white shirt with PAH written in big red letters on the front and on the back it said: In the beginning....God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve. grr...That pisses me off.



What pisses me off even more is that only two teachers in the whole school either told them to take it off or just kicked them out of the class. They did get called to the office but I don't know what happened. I guess nothing because they were still wearing them at the end of school.



Another thing is that it's People Against Homosexuality and I saw no girls wearing them, just stupid homophobic jock guys. Oh well...There's nothing I can do about it so if a bunch of jocks want to make asses out of themselves by showing everyone at school they are homophobes and not comfortable with there sexuality then whatever. Hell I know at least half of them are gay and just won't except it so they wore the shirts to show everyone they aren't gay. But all it does is make everyone question their sexuality.

Oh well f*** them.