On Apr. 15, the Love Evolution Club presented its annual awareness for the Day of Silence to the students and faculty of California State University, Stanislaus (Stan State).
The Day of Silence is a day where individuals from the LGBT community, and those who support the community, silence themselves in an effort to bring attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, and other sorts of harassment.
This day emphasizes the silence which students and others from the LGBT community experience when getting bullied or harassed by anti-LGBT individuals.
Love Evolution members showed solidarity by silencing themselves from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. by taping their lips with duct tape and wearing a sign on their neck explaining why they are choosing to be silent. Also, the club members displayed a tri-fold poster with various information about the Day of Silence, and it displayed a few brief stories about LBGT hate crimes and deaths.
Love Evolution members, Anthony Gonzales (junior, Sociology) and Shelby Zahn (senior, Gender Studies), explain what they did to prepare for this event.
“I brought the tri-fold from previous years and alternated between holding it to attract people to the table and read it and holding my GLSEN card that said why I was not speaking for the day,” explained Zahn. “I informed people on my personal Facebook page, as well as in the enclosed Love Evolution Facebook group.”
“I printed out 30 fliers and handed them out. I participated by being silent and putting tape over my mouth to honor those whose voice has been silenced,” added Gonzales.
As hours passed by, the club members encouraged passing-by students and instructors to briefly read the information pasted onto the tri-fold. Once the students and/or instructors gained quick knowledge of the event, they would high-five, thumbs-up, or simply smile to the members, due to the fact that they were silenced and were unable to verbally reply to the people.
Traevor Carlton (senior, Marketing) expressed his personal significance of the Day of Silence.
“Day of Silence is important to me because it acts as a silent protest against homophobia and transphobia,” said Carlton. “The symbolism behind the silence is to show the silencing effects of bullying and tolerance on LGBTQ+ individuals, and how we could break the silence by ending bullying, homophobic language and LGBTQ+ intolerance that is propagated through religious reasoning.”
Carlton also stresses and explains the fact that Stan State students and its surrounding community have contributed to anti-LGBT acts by phrases they commonly use and with implicit behaviors.
“CSU Stanislaus is still a highly conservative campus in a highly conservative community. Though LGBTQ+ bullying is not common on campus, there is a lot of casual homophobic language still thrown around – phrases such as ‘no homo’ and ‘that’s so gay’. Heteronormativity and cisnormativity are common mindsets on campus, which are often displayed through in-class exercises and common language divides all people into binary categories – even those who are not heterosexual or fit the gender binary,” explained Carlton.
Love Evolution wants the public to know that homophobia and transphobia is presented in many forms, not only by bullying or harassing, but also by subtle language that is being used as normal.
The members of the club hope that people of Stan State, through the Day of Silence, acknowledge the fact that suicide, self-harm, job discrimination, hate crimes, and homicide are huge issues that are hurting the LGBT community.