A Reflection on Pink Shirt Day

Pink Shirt Day first took place in 2007 as part of an anti-bullying initiative led by upperclassmen at a high school in Nova Scotia who were inspired to organize the very first Pink Shirt Day when they witnessed a ninth-grade boy being bullied for wearing a pink shirt. They ended up distributing dozens of pink shirts so that a great deal of the student body could come to school the following day decked out in pink as a show of solidarity against bullying. Seventeen years later, this year’s observance of Pink Shirt Day at Ridley on February 28th was presided over by Positive Space Group (PSG). PSG focuses its efforts on promoting an understanding of LGBTQIA2S+ rights, issues that members of the queer community face, and how awareness can be raised at Ridley to foster an inclusive community for students of all identities. 

While the connection between the respective movements for LGBTQIA2S+ rights and against bullying may not immediately be apparent, it certainly exists and can be attested to by most young queer people. Bullies who want to intimidate their victims and make them feel less than by asserting power over them will often target peers who belong to a marginalized community, or will, when bullying people who are part of disenfranchised communities, malign their victims based on their identity because of the fear that inspires in said victims. The harm produced when someone is ostracized because of their identity, which not only cannot change but also serves as the cornerstone of many people’s conceptions of who they are, cannot be overstated. 

Since bullies are motivated by making themselves feel powerful and important by belittling others, many of them understand all too well that it’s easier to exert power over others by playing into power structures that have existed for centuries (such as but by no means limited to, racism, homophobia, misogyny, transphobia, ableism, etc.). 

This Pink Shirt Day, PSG focused on debunking disinformation and compelling our peers to take action to reinforce their allyship, building off of the theme we chose for 2023’s Diversity Week, “A Time for Allyship.” We celebrated Pink Shirt Day by creating a specialized program for Chapel the week before the 28th (the highlight of which was a speech written and delivered by Rebecca Liu), designing informative cards that were placed on tables in the Dining Hall, and crafting a lesson plan for advisories that encouraged students to delve into the themes broached by Rebecca’s speech. We aimed to provide prospective allies in the Ridley student body with resources we created about how to unpack and debunk stereotypes and myths about the LGBTQIA2S+ community and persuade our peers that now is a better time than ever to be an ally and discourage discrimination, bullying, and hatred in all their manifestations. 

When the students who spearheaded the first Pink Shirt Day saw their peer being bullied for expressing himself through fashion – thus experiencing a by-product of the in-group/out-group dynamic exemplified by the standards young men are held to wherein they are expected never to deviate from the norms of masculinity – they didn’t just disregard the pain their peer was experiencing and move on. Instead, they took action and inspired what would become a nationwide day against bullying through their show of solidarity. This kind of allyship, rooted in empathy and compassion, is what we as Ridleians can aspire to being an ally not simply as a noun, affixed onto oneself through offhand words and nothing more, but as a verb, reinforced by a continual process of taking the initiative to act.