Written by Elijah Fountain
Wear it Purple Day marked on August 30th every year promotes awareness, support, and advocacy for young LGBTQIA+ people internationally by wearing the colour purple.
Wear it Purple Day is incredibly important, especially in establishing connection, understanding, and acceptance even if you’re a queer adult or an ally.
For me, it means not only embracing who I am as a queer person in an open and safe environment but looking after LGBTQIA+ friends and family who are struggling.
Whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or psychologically, Wear It Purple Day is a reminder to LGBTQIA+ people that there is a support network and a community that is supportive.
The theme for this year is ‘Your Passion, Your Pride’. This theme means embracing LGBTQIA+ youth openly, positively, and boldly showcasing that you can be queer and successful.
Empowering queer youth is so important, promoting them to pursue their goals, dreams, and aspirations as artists, athletes, or anything they want to achieve.
Anyone can be incredibly successful, driven, and motivated and it’s very important to represent that. Additionally, having role models and people who are both queer and successful is also extremely important, inspiring them to be the happiest person they can be.
Finding both queer and successful people was a struggle in a rural town. There were some amazing people in that town who made me feel a lot happier and safer being who I was. One of the things I’m grateful for with the internet is being able to see our community represented, and to not feel like a total freak.
One of the people I looked up to heavily as a teenager was ‘Gottmik’. Gottmik is a drag queen from the United States, he is also a transgendered man. Seeing a trans man be happy, successful, and authentic at the time was inspiring, it made me feel like I wasn’t alone or crazy and like I wasn’t a burden.
I am passionate about quite a few things, I love drag. Drag is such an amazing platform for queer artists to be free to express themselves.
Currently, I am studying to be a librarian at Charles Sturt University. Within Charles Sturt I’ve been able to meet people like me. Being gender non-conforming is such a large part of my identity and I was able to be who I am fully without judgment and live my life authentically to the fullest. To be fully honest, I doubt I would be as happy as I am if I wasn’t studying and living where I am now.
Wear it Purple Day means not only demonstrating support with clothing but also actions and words. There are so many ways to wear purple or support queer people on Wear it Purple Day.
A few examples are but not limited to;
- Wearing purple, even subtly at work (bandana, wristband, t-shirt as examples)
- Listening to LGBTQIA+ people’s voices.
- Attending events hosted, supporting, and displaying queer artists.
If you’re interested in understanding and supporting, access more resources at wearitpurple.org.
Charlie blog is a SSAF funded initiative
