Wear it Purple Day

Written by Year 11 student Thomas Liu and edited by Year 12 student Pip Humphries

Wear It Purple day is coming up on the 30 August, and Radford will celebrate it on the 6 September. On this student-driven day organised by both Creativity, Activity and Service (CAS) students, Radford Awareness and Service (RAS) students, and SAGE students, we encourage students to participate on the day by wearing purple!

The history of Wear It Purple

In Australia, the Writing Themselves In 3 (2010) report by La Trobe University, which explored the health and wellbeing of LGBTQIA+ young people, saw that LGBTQIA+ youth experienced high rates of discrimination, high rates of poor mental health, and homelessness. This was further corroborated by news stories of bullying and harassment and its impact on LGBTQIA+ youth, including a number who took their own lives (Minus18, 2024).

It was out of this that the youth-centric LGBTQIA+ organisation Wear It Purple was born. Founded by Katherine Hudson and Scott Williams, Wear It Purple was established to show young people across the globe that there was hope, that there were people who supported and accepted them, and that they have the right to be proud of who they are (Hudson, 2023).

Today, Wear It Purple strives to foster safe, supportive, inclusive and empowering environments for LGBTQIA+ youth (Wear It Purple, 2024), and has become one of the key advocacy organisations, along with A Gender Agenda and Minus18, for young queer youth within Australia.

Why is Wear It Purple, and celebrating LGBTQIA+ Pride more generally, important?

Pride itself originates from a fight for equality. The Stonewall Riots in 1969 were started when the LGBTQIA+ community protested the discrimination they faced against police in New York, and Australia’s own Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras were started in 1978 to protest and demonstrate against inequality.

In Sydney, the LGBTQIA+ community protested in solidarity with the Gay Freedom Day Committee of San Francisco to oppose the controversial Briggs Initiative which mandated the firing of gay and lesbian teachers in California public schools, and saw protestors arrested with detrimental consequences for their lives and careers (Minus18, 2024). The idea of Pride comes from challenging inequality, and the fight for equal rights and protections for all people, regardless of their gender or sexuality.

And there is more to do.

The most recent national report from La Trobe University, Writing Themselves In 4, asserts that despite an increase of LGBTQIA+ young people being accepted by family and friends, 60.2% of people felt unsafe or uncomfortable in Secondary School due to their sexuality or gender identity (Hill et al., 2021). Furthermore, 81% reported high or very high levels of psychological distress, and, most troublingly, one-tenth of those surveyed said they had attempted suicide in the past 12 months, while a quarter said they had attempted to take their own life in their lifetime (Florance et al., 2021). Even so, harassment and assault, based on gender or sexuality, are still common.

We must take this time to remember that there is still progress to be made, and that social injustice remains a reality for many of us (Maheshwari-Aplin, 2021).

Pride is not only a chance to celebrate our LGBTQIA+ community, friends, family, acquaintances, peers and colleagues, but also a reminder of the work still to be done to address inequality both locally and worldwide.

Your Passion, Your Pride

This year’s theme is Your Passion, Your Pride, a theme that encompasses the celebration of LGBTQIA+ people to openly and visibly achieve their dreams in sport, art, science and more (Wear It Purple, 2024). As stated in Wear It Purple’s theme announcement:

Last year we celebrated Wear it Purple day with the theme "Write Your Story", in which we encouraged you all to rewrite the narrative on what our Queer lives can be, a reclamation of our stories as we look toward writing a more vibrant, prideful future.
So, this year we considered what the progression of this would be and so . . . we present the 2024 Theme: "Your Passion, Your Pride". As LGBTQIA+ Individuals, so often our Pride is summed down to just one aspect of our identities.
Though we have Pride in these, we continue to be that and so much more.
Your Pride is Your Passion and in that is Your Pride - Our Queerness in all that we do, Our Art, Our Jobs, Our Studies and in all that we take Pride.
In Queer Excellence we continue to show through Our Passions, Our Pride - each and every day

We hope that this theme will inspire students to express their authentic selves, and to lead with compassion for diversity and community’s sake.

If you need someone to talk to, go to:

Resources

Wear It Purple: https://www.wearitpurple.org/

Minus18: https://www.minus18.org.au/

A Gender Agenda: https://genderrights.org.au/

Writing Themselves In Publications: https://www.latrobe.edu.au/arcshs/publications/writing-themselves-in-publications

Australian Bureau of Statistics: Mental health findings for LGBTQ+ Australians. https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/mental-health-findings-lgbtq-australians

References

ABC Queer. [@abcqueer]. (2024, August 15). Equality campaigner James Elliot-Watson — who says he was punished by his Christian school for being gay [Photo]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/C-rLYUcSzPj/?img_index=1

Amnesty International. (2024). LGBTQIA+ rights. Amnesty International Australia. https://www.amnesty.org.au/campaigns/lgbtqia-rights/

Florance, L., Hermant, N. (2021, February 3). Coming out is getting easier for LGBTQA+ youth, but not for everyone. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-03/life-getting-better-for-some-lgbtqa-youth-but-still-far-to-go/13109574

Hill, A.O., Lyons, A., Jones, J., McGowan, I., Carman, M., Parsons, M., Power, J., Bourne, A. (2021 February). The health and wellbeing of LGBTQA+ young people in Australia. Writing Themselves In 4. https://www.latrobe.edu.au/arcshs/work/writing-themselves-in-4

Hudson, K. (2023, August 25). I started Wear it Purple day so the rainbow youth no longer felt alone. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-25/wear-it-purple-day-by-founder-katherine-hudson/102769734

Maheshwari-Aplin, P. Stonewall. (2021 June 21). Pride is still a protest – so let’s speak up. Stonewall. https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/pride-still-protest-%E2%80%93-so-let%E2%80%99s-speak-up

Minus18. (2024, May 31). What is LGBTQIA+ Pride Month? Minus18. https://www.minus18.org.au/articles/what-is-lgbtqia+-pride-month/

Minus18. (2024, June 9). What is Wear It Purple® Day? Minus18. https://www.minus18.org.au/articles/what-is-wear-it-purple(r)-day

Wear It Purple. (2024). Why we Wear It Purple! Wear It Purple. https://www.wearitpurple.org/our-story

Wear It Purple. (2024). Your Passion, Your Pride 30.08.24 Wear It Purple. https://www.wearitpurple.org/your-passion-your-pride-2024-theme

Wear It Purple. [@wear_it_purple]. (2024, June 1). 🌈Wear It Purple Theme 2024 Announcement📣 💜 'Your Passion, Your Pride' 💙Last year we celebrated Wear it Purple day [Photo]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/C7popIeJj1n/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

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