Yesterday, April 15, was the Day of Silence; a day dedicated to take a vow of silence for all the gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual teenagers who suffered harassment and/or suicide.
As much as I support the fact that we’re all showing respect and awareness for gays, lesbians, transgender, and bisexual people, I do not support the Day of Silence.
It’s good and all, trying to show that we’re “silencing the hate”, but that is highly ineffective.
There are two main reasons. One, silencing the people who care means that the people who don’t care get to hate more and two, staying silent doesn’t intensify the problem, only deadens it.
The reason that we should care about these teenage suicides isn’t because that they’re dead, even though that is sad enough, but it’s because that they are dead that those teens no longer have a voice to speak up for themselves.
Did you know that LGBT teens are 8.4 times more likely to have attempted suicide?
In Colorado, a 2005 study showed that 37% of youth seriously considered suicide in that year alone.
Teen suicide is a serious problem, but silence is not the answer.
We need to speak up for those who were silenced, not “echo the silence”. Silence does nothing. It does not inform, it does not make a strong statement. We need a voice to stand up and say “Hey! You over there! Did you know that LGBT teen suicide rates 2 to 3 times greater than other teen suicides? Did you know that?”
We need a new Day of Silence. Not so that the participants are silent, but to give voice to the youth that were silenced by harassment and death because of who they were.
Their voice was taken away, and we need to use this day to give it back.
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