Nation

11 years later, Spirit Day’s battle for awareness continues

By Brody Levesque OF THE LOS ANGELES BLADE, COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL LGBT MEDIA ASSOCIATION
ABOVE: The original Spirit Day image, photo courtesy GLAAD.

A decade and one year ago there was a pandemic across the United States and in Canada of LGBTQ+ adolescents killing themselves. Nearly every week saw another lesbian, gay, trans, queer young person die, and in all cases, bullying very much factored in.

In one high profile case, the anti-LGBTQ bullying escalated in a university dorm room where one roommate secretly live-streamed his closeted gay roommate having intimate sexual relations with another guy.

That closeted roommate was 18 year-old Rutgers University freshman, Tyler Clementi, who in his despair drove to the middle of the George Washington Bridge, which connects New Jersey and New York’s Manhattan Island, where he parked and lept to his death into the Hudson River below on September 22, 2010.

A 15-year-old Canadian high school student Brittany McMillan founded Spirit Day in 2010, creating a Tumblr post that asked students to wear purple following the suicide deaths of several LGBTQ and LGBTQ-perceived young people.

In interviews McMillan said, “”Ultimately, I want Spirit Day to make just one person feel a little bit better about his or herself, to feel safe enough in their own skin to be proud of who they are.”

Partnering with LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization GLAAD, McMillan asked people around the world to take a public stand against bullying and show support for LGBTQ youth. Since then, Spirit Day has become the most visible annual LGBTQ anti-bullying campaign in the world, garnering support from celebrities, landmarks, media, sports teams, brands, and so many others.

First Tumblr post Spirit Day 2010 (Courtesy of GLAAD)

This year as Trans youth are targeted by lawmakers and anti-LGBTQ+ organizations in areas of youth sports and medically necessary healthcare, Spirit Day has taken on a greater sense of urgency.

In 2021, Spirit Day takes on a renewed importance due to the unprecedented challenges facing LGBTQ youth. Over the last year and a half, many LGBTQ youth have not been in school, unable to attend in-person meetings of Gay-Straight Alliances, Gender-Sexuality Alliances or on-campus colleges LGBTQ organizations. During this time, LGBTQ youth have also become increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of cyberbullying, specifically with heightened levels of anti-LGBTQ hate and harassment on social media.

Some LGBTQ youth may be confined to a home environment that may be unsupportive or abusive. As well, an unprecedented number of anti-LGBTQ bills in state legislatures specifically targeting trans and nonbinary youth have been in the news.

Calls to The Trevor Project’s hotline for LGBTQ youth have at times more than doubled since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

This year, GLAAD asked Brittany McMillan reflect on her top 5 #SpiritDay moments since the campaign began. Here’s what she had to say:

1. Seeing 28,000 likes/reblogs on the first #SpiritDay Tumblr post in 2010.

2. Receiving the celebrity tweet from Paula Abdul. I didn’t have Twitter at the time, but lots of my friends saw it and sent it over to me. It was the first sign for me that things were getting big!

3. Visiting Times Square and GLAAD in New York in 2012 and seeing all the billboards lit up in purple. It was so cool to see the huge screens turning purple and promoting #SpiritDay. It was also really cool to meet the people at GLAAD who I had worked with online over the past couple of years.

4. All the years the White House turned their icon purple and President Obama wore a purple tie. I’m not an American but to know my creation reached the President of the United States was so cool. Also, I really admire the Obamas and all that they do, so it made me really excited to see them supporting something that I started.

5. The release of the #SpiritDay board book last year, by Little Bee Books and illustrated by Joy Yang. As soon as I found out about it, I purchased a copy. I love books and reading and to know that there is a book out there about #SpiritDay blows my mind each and every day.

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