People around the country are donning purple today and tweeting their support for the LGBT community as part of Spirit Day. Held each year on the third Thursday in October, it serves as a symbol to LGBT youth that they have allies who support them.
Brittany McMillan, the founder of Spirit Day, told NBC in an interview that she came up with the idea after running across several Tumblr posts about a number of LGBT teen suicides. Using Canada’s Pink Shirt Day as inspiration, McMillan asked people concerned with LGBT bullying to wear purple, the color of “spirit” on the Gay Pride flag, to show their support for LGBT youth and against bullying.
McMillan’s online activism caught the attention of GLAAD, which began promoting Spirit Day as a way of calling attention to the problems facing LGBT youth. The visibility the event received due to GLAAD’s involvement grew exponentially, with various organizations or businesses — including many that are not LGBT-specific — participating by “going purple” each year.
Several politicians and pundits expressed their support for LGBT youth via Twitter:
This #SpiritDay, let's take a stand for LGBT youth and send a clear message to all our kids: In the end, bullies always lose. -H pic.twitter.com/sNuoXZYfZr
“We’re proud to go purple today as we join millions of LGBTQ advocates across the globe in calling for an end to bullying,” Rea Carey, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force said in a statement. “No one should ever fear for their safety and well being at school, in the workplace, or anywhere for that matter, simply because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer. Yet the reality is that 8 out of 10 LGBTQ students are bullied in school each year.
“Bullying has serious consequences that can lead to depression, violence, and suicide,” Carey added. “We urge everyone to join us in standing up against bullying and end all forms of hate and violence.”
McMillan, the founder of Spirit Day, says that seeing people wearing purple is important, as its a tangible show of support that can give them comfort that they are not alone.
“It’s the participants that make Spirit Day what is; they create their own events and their own art, all in the name of showing LBGTQ young people they care,” she told NBC. “I know how much it means to people around the world to know that they are supported by their communities.”
San Francisco police are investigating after a suspect vandalized a floral design shop with homophobic graffiti before fleeing in an SUV bearing a pro-Charlie Kirk message on the back windshield.
Jeff Dumlao, co-owner of the floral design studio Chartreuse by Roje in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood, said he and his partner, Roberto Cancel, had just closed for the day on May 16 when they were alerted to the graffiti.
"We were going to support one of our friends at an art show down the street, and on the way, we get a text from one of our clients saying, 'I know you just closed, but you might want to come back because there's some unpleasant graffiti on the wall outside your store and some sort of disturbance happening,'" Dumlao told SFist.
A Brooklyn man who fatally stabbed gay dancer O'Shae Sibley during a confrontation at a gas station in 2023 has been convicted of manslaughter as a hate crime, but acquitted of murder charges.
Dmitriy Popov, 20, a smoke shop employee from Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay neighborhood, was accused of fatally stabbing O'Shae Sibley, a 28-year-old professional dancer who had moved from Philadelphia to New York City to pursue a career in the arts.
Popov faced nine charges, including two counts of second-degree murder as hate crimes, two counts of first-degree manslaughter as hate crimes, and aggravated harassment based on race, religion, or sexual orientation.
Jeremy Novy, who grew up in Milwaukee, is known for his koi fish paintings, which appear in public spaces across the city and around the world.
In October, Novy painted several rainbow-colored koi fish on sidewalks near rainbow crosswalks he also designed -- part of a broader response to efforts by the Trump administration to eliminate rainbow crosswalks and other so-called "political" street art.
Recently, several of Novy's koi paintings were defaced with anti-gay graffiti.
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