Boys in Pink
by Matt | September 14th, 2007 |
I love boys in pink, in fact I wear pink all the time… It takes a real man to wear pink… but evidently some over-pumped, testosterone driven straight boys decided that pink meant “homo.”
According to the Nova Scotia Chronicle-Herald a freshman high school boy was beaten up by 10 boys after he came to school wearing a pink shirt (h/t Towleroad).
The next day a couple of senior boys came to school wearing pink themselves… and they brought 75 other pink tank tops with them… and hats, too. They passed them out to classmates and heard nothing but support.
The Grade 9 student arrived for the first day of school last Wednesday and was set upon by a group of six to 10 older students who mocked him, called him a homosexual for wearing pink and threatened to beat him up.
The next day, Grade 12 students David Shepherd and Travis Price decided something had to be done about bullying.
“It’s my last year. I’ve stood around too long and I wanted to do something,” said David.
They used the Internet to encourage people to wear pink and bought 75 pink tank tops for male students to wear. They handed out the shirts in the lobby before class last Friday — even the bullied student had one.
“I made sure there was a shirt for him,” David said.
They also brought a pink basketball to school as well as pink material for headbands and arm bands. David and Travis figure about half the school’s 830 students wore pink.
It was hard to miss the mass of students in pink milling about in the lobby, especially for the group that had harassed the new Grade 9 student.
“The bullies got angry,” said Travis. “One guy was throwing chairs (in the cafeteria). We’re glad we got the response we wanted.”
David said one of the bullies angrily asked him whether he knew pink on a male was a symbol of homosexuality.
He told the bully that didn’t matter to him and shouldn’t to anyone.
“Something like the colour of your shirt or pants, that’s ridiculous,” he said.
“Our intention was to stand up for this kid so he doesn’t get picked on.”
Travis said the bullies “keep giving us dirty looks, but we know we have the support of the whole student body.
“Kids don’t need this in their lives, worrying about what to wear to school. That should be the last thing on their minds.”
When the bullied student put on his pink shirt Friday and saw all the other pink in the lobby, “he was all smiles. It was like a big weight had been lifted off is shoulder,” David said. No one at the school would reveal the student’s name.
W O W.
I wish every school had that much support against anti-gay bullies.
Photo credit: IAN FAIRCLOUGH / Valley Bureau
Technorati Tags: Novia Scotia, Chronicle Herald, pink shirt, high school, anti-gay, bully
6 Responses to “Boys in Pink”
Hey, what about the time honored preppy frat boy pink oxford shirt, worn with deck shoes and khakis usually. I wonder if those guys get beat up.
By Joel Gillespie on Sep 14, 2007
No Joel… don’t be silly… It’s okay to be “gay” as long as you aren’t “gay.” Didn’t you know that?
Double standards and rules changing at whim? I think most gay folks are used to that kind of world.
By Matt on Sep 14, 2007
Pink’s okay… but come’on Fuschia is out of the question!
By beth on Sep 14, 2007
I’m massively impressed that a couple of high school seniors would do something like this for someone else, let alone that so many other students would support it.
One might hope for a day when all schools are filled with such students.
By Jarred on Sep 14, 2007
This incident is just one of the signs that a new radicalization among GLBT youth and their allies is brewing that will change their lives, and ours. It’s typical of the new of a global radicalization of GLBT youth which is widespread, connected by the internet and audacious. It’s not limited to metropolitan centers or to ‘advanced’ nations - it’ reach is truly global. It’s connectivity via the internet and news media gives it an unprecedented scope and responsiveness.
Around the globe young gay and lesbian activists and their allies initiate struggles and support each others struggles. That explains why groups of Mexican and Taiwanese GLBT youth will soon demonstrate outside Nicaraguan embassies in their respective capitals against draconian Nicaraguan antigay laws: why young EU, north American and Japanese activists launched a massive campaign to save Pegah Emambakhsh, and won; how Italian GLBT youth and others organized mass kiss-ins defying the police arrests at the Coliseum; why there so many GLSEN/GSA high school chapters in towns big and small in the US; how young Iranian gays and lesbians organize in the face of a religious/government campaign of legal lynchings; why the GLBT movement is winning unprecedented victories in many Latin American nations; Etc…Etc…Etc.
It‘s similar to the vast changes that took place during the youth radicalization of the 1960’s and 70’s. Young GI’s ‘in country’ and in the US joined millions of stubborn young Vietnamese resistance fighters in a victorious drive to defeat the Democrat/Republican Party’s LBJ and Nixon and their unlawful war.
That earlier radicalization and the pioneering work of the Mattachines, Kameny and Giettings et al helped pull our movement out of the shadows and to become a mass movement. It also sparked a new round in the fight for women’s equality and found natural allies in the radicalization of African Americans and Latinos.
It’s far too early to gauge the depth of the current radicalization of gay and lesbian youth but all the signs are favorable – it’s going to shake up politics spectacularly. Old Farts (of all ages) Beware.
By Bill Perdue, Rainbow on Sep 15, 2007
i think what you did was amazing, you touched that boys life in a big way i plan to spread this pink shirt thing in a hope that mabey it will reduce bulling in my school in reno, nv
By sierra on Oct 5, 2007