If you’ve seen a lot of purple on campus this week, it’s no accident.
Various commemorations this week, mostly on Oct. 20, have invited people to wear purple to commemorate gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students who have killed themselves due to their sexual orientation being revealed.
“Purple represents spirit on the [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] flag, and that’s exactly what we’d like all of you to have with you — spirit,” wrote the organizers of the global event on Facebook.
The organizers, using a Facebook account entitled “7 Gay Suicides Memorial Day,” set up the event to honour seven American teenagers who have taken their own lives within the past four months, apparently as a result of bullying due to their actual or perceived homosexuality.
Most recently, Tyler Clementi, a first-year student at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., jumped off a bridge after his roommates secretly live-streamed a sexual encounter he had with another man.
Some of the organizers of the event are members of GLBTQ centres at colleges and universities, while others are the administrators of Facebook groups calling on participants to simply wear anything purple as a way to promote acceptance and increase visibility.
The event first got attention from social networking sites to spread awareness and direct attention to GLBTQ issues.
Jonnah Dayuta, a first-year communications student at De la Salle University in Manila, Philippines, created one of the Day of Purple events circulating on Facebook.
Dayuta said she got involved with the project through Tumblr.
“I saw a post regarding spirit day and I really wanted to help out the cause,” she said.
Dayuta explained that the event quickly went viral.
“At first, I sent invitations to join the group to my friends, and they sent it to theirs. It reached a public scope with a magnitude I did not expect.”
Some GLBTQ activists said they are doubtful the event will have an effect. Ryan Thom, a Queer McGill executive member, said Queer McGill does not promote Day of Purple.
“Wearing purple for a single day is well-intentioned, but does not constitute long-term constructive action against homophobia,” Thom said.
Thom said he was offended that the suicides were taken to the web as a Facebook event.
“The recent sensationalism of gay suicides in mainstream American media is an appropriation of private tragedy,” he said. “The boys didn’t suffer for a cause or political platform. They suffered and died for it individually. This is not a cause.”
“We’re wearing purple to raise awareness and to show everyone in solidarity,” said Josiah David, programming co-ordinator of Carleton University’s GLBTQ centre. “You don’t have to be in the GLBTQ community. You can wear purple and still show you’re supportive.”
Adam Black, a second-year political science student at Carleton, said he planned to participate in the event.
“It’s a good way to draw attention to intolerance, but I think it goes beyond wearing purple,” Black said. “Not having to have these types of events should be the final goal.”
“We want to encourage people to be as ‘out’ as possible,” said Steven Broadley, vice-president (operations) at Toronto’s York University.
“By wearing purple we keep the conversation alive. There’s more to talk about, more to explain and more issues to confront,” Broadley said.
“Homophobia-related suicides occur for many reasons but mostly because people who are isolated, ignored, devalued, and the treated with violence and rejection from their peers are more vulnerable to suicide — this is a problem that has been known for a long time, but not yet been resolved,” Thom said.