Day of Silence, April 18th, 2007 Options

[HakunaMatata]

http://www.dayofsilence.org/

DAY OF SILENCE, April 18, 2007: The Day of Silence is an annual event held to bring attention to anti-LGBT bullying, harassment and discrimination in schools. Students and teachers nationwide will observe the day in silence to echo the silence that LGBT and ally students face everyday. In it's 11th year, the Day of Silence is one of the largest student-led actions in the country

I'm not an active member of the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) club at my school, but I've always thought that this is one movement that deserves my support and finally, after procrastinating for a couple of years, I've finally decided to do it. It's gonna' be hard not talking (several people have told me that it'd be impossible for me), but 'tis a worthy cause.

This is more of a national movement than is something School-y, but admittedly, because it is youth-run, it has its roots at schools. But anyone can participate! So I guess I just...put...it...here.

[*kryogenix*]

Mouth's closed due to AIDS.

[voguelove]

yea, im doing it. it'll be really hard for me, though. ah.

[*Monochrome.*]

I do this every year.Except this year as i have mulitple speeches to do and either way im sure the LBGT comunity knows i support them.

[tokyo-rose]

This year will be my first year participating.

[*WHIMSICAL 0NE*]

Our school has too days that they do the not talking. The GSA does it and we also have a hush day (bullying maybe. Is it bad that I don't know why?) and each grade has a certian color pin that they were, if they participate, and at the end of the day if you still have you pin you can be entered into a drawing.

[*StanleyThePanda*]

My best friend & sister did a day of silence, but it was for abortion.
I probably wont be participating in this, 'cause I wouldnt be able to keep my mouth shut for a day. XD

[*relaxdontrelapse*]

i dont think that fact that keeping things on hush for a day is symbolic of the treatment they recieve. i'm not saying i'm for it, but protest or something rather than keeping quiet. a lot of gay people are already forced to keep quiet about their situation in fear of what will happen, so a day of silence seems to be a lost cause, or at least that's my 2 cents.

[*My Cinderella.*]

I'll try doing it, but I doubt I will. I chat a lot.

[alysaphobia]

I don't think my school has this..
I don't live in the states, though.

[clarity]

I remember my school participated in that last year. Although at the time I had no idea what was going on, and I was blabbing all day and people were staring at me like I was crazy.


I'll definitely be participating this time.

It won't be to hard for me, since I BARELY talk at all.

[*I Viddy Horrorshow*]

i dont think that fact that keeping things on hush for a day is symbolic of the treatment they recieve. i'm not saying i'm for it, but protest or something rather than keeping quiet. a lot of gay people are already forced to keep quiet about their situation in fear of what will happen, so a day of silence seems to be a lost cause, or at least that's my 2 cents.

Silence can be deafening. And in any event, it's symbolic.

I would be participating, but I have a friend coming to stay, and it seems rude. It also, interestingly enough, is my anniversary of living in England, and so I usually take the opportunity to bitch and moan, and it would be a shame to miss out on that, now wouldn't it.

[Bonobo]

I would love to do it but as selfish as it sounds:

• My teachers would not accept it and I'd end up ion the prinicpals office
• Im picked on cause peers claim to think Im gay.. this would only cause more attention

[tokyo-rose]

I would love to do it but as selfish as it sounds:

• My teachers would not accept it and I'd end up ion the prinicpals office

Well, that sucks. =/ The teachers at my school are aware of Day of Silence and don't call on people who are participating in it.

[*yrrnotelekktric*]

wow. I`ve never heard of this until now. I HIGHLY doubt my teachers would be willing to participate. My school sucks. I wish I could.

[lKVNiiKINKYl]

i'm not part of the GSA but i basically hosted it for my school
it was pretty kick ass

[HakunaMatata]

The past three hours have been terrible. Four more to go.

[*kryogenix*]

One of my classmates said some throwaway comment about fags, so my teacher said "As your punishment, you have to attend a GSA meeting."

So we all laughed at her and called her intolerant because she called learning about tolerance a punishment.

[*relaxdontrelapse*]

a lot of people at my school participated today, but a lot of them couldn't refrain from talking.

someone said they'd get in trouble by the teachers...well, at my school, everyone wore a tag explaining why and some of them had shirts. it's a school wide thing and people knew about it.

syntheticxglow- you weren't participating last year, so therefore it doesn't matter if you talked. it's a participation thing, not a thing where the whole school has to stay quiet all day in support.

[Jinny]

i never heard of this day until right now..
well, i guess i 'cant' do it because i already talked?
oh, and nobody tried it in my school.

[HakunaMatata]

some of the people at school did it
=/ it was really dumb though

...why do you think so?

Today was actually really fun. Not talking during class was something I really should've been doing this whole time, but haven't, and it's nice to now that I there's a cause out there worth a whole freaking lot of self-control. During Drama today we watched The Laramie Project. It was really good, and it enforced even more why there were more than fifty of us participating.

[*I Viddy Horrorshow*]

i thought it was dumb because not alotta people did it...and they wore green shirts and decorated them with marker. idk. it was just, dumb to me...=/ the people who did it usually dont talk anyways, and if they do - stupid things come outta their mouths.

You just... missed the point a little bit, didn't you?

[lovescream]

yeea. i did it today. ><;; was quieter than usual, though i did talk a couple of times to explain why.
we dont really have a club for that sort of thing.. =\ our teacher doesnt even know about it so i just answered her question if she called on me rather than trying to stir up a scene. ._. though i wasn't called on at all today, so lucky.
I just did it with friends who were with it as well, since there is no club.

[*yrrnotelekktric*]

people did it today, it was cool. It as funny because during class, few girls wrote in a notebook and other girls would read it out loud to the class because they were participating in the Day of Silence.

[xlilaznchickx]

I did do the day of silence today. I had to talk a couple of times because I had to do this presentation. I don't think anyone except me did it in my school, well maybe there was somebody but I didn't know. My friends knew I was doing it because I had a notecard explaining the day of silence and stuff.

[elaboratedream]

This was my second year doing it. I helped organize it (I'm one of the officers in my school's GSA)...

There was a lot of prep work to do. We've been preparing for DOS for months and we still didnt get everything we would have liked to done.... We had to contact the administration, talk to them about, get a note out to teachers in the teacher's newsletter, get posters approved, write out a letter to give to teachers the day before, figure out how many people were participating and make copies for them, make speaking cards......... the list goes on and on.

A lot of people were supportive, we had a lot of people participating (at least 50).... but there were more people who were being assholes to everyone doing it....

I found that a lot of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual/transgender) community at my school didn't participate... it was mostly allies (straight kids who support LGBT)
and I know a few LGBT kids who not only didn't participate, but said shit about the kids who did.


The GSA at my school also organized a "Breaking the Silence" meeting after school today. We had people who participated and people who didn't come to talk about it. We started out with some statistics and stuff... then we opened it up for everyone to talk. The kids who participated shared their experiences, and the people who didn't told us why they didn't. We got a lot of feedback that way, and next year, we hope to do more with the Breaking the Silence event. We're thinking of doing something on the school news (video announcements)... but I guess we have a year to figure all of that out.

[moninja]

i didn't do it but i know this girl in my class and she did it. she got every teacher's approval to not talk in class.

[radhikaeatsraman]

I did Day of Silence! It was really cool, but I got a lot of shit during fifth period for it. Oh well, it was worth it. I'm totally doing it again next year. The only thing that I wish they could have done was organize it better.

[tokyo-rose]

My friends knew I was doing it because I had a notecard explaining the day of silence and stuff.

I had "Day of Silence" written on a piece of looseleaf paper, but I had to talk last period since my French teacher's really serious and wouldn't have allowed me not to talk.

[*Monochrome.*]

I would love to do it but as selfish as it sounds:

• My teachers would not accept it and I'd end up ion the prinicpals office
• Im picked on cause peers claim to think Im gay.. this would only cause more attention

Teachers can actualy be fired in the event they try to discriminate you for you belifes as the day of silence is considered a holiday.
I had one suspended without pay 2 years ago because she called me "filthy c**t licker".
And she was later fired.

So she pardon my french but she could kiss my "c**t licking" arse.

[HakunaMatata]

Oy, what a shame! ): I know tons of members of the LGBT community particpate, but I know over half of the participants were Allies like myself.

And I wish I had attended our Breaking the Silence meeting! I actually didn't know about it until I heard a bunch of people screaming (it's how they begin the meeting). I just hope next year we spread the word a little more, I know tons of people who were like "What? It's Day of Silence arlready?!?"

[SarahxJoy]

One of my friends did it. I thought it was pretty cool. I completely forgot about it until he reminded me about it.