Chelsea High School boasts a student body comprised of a diverse array of sexualities and genders. It’s no secret that LGBTQ+ students face scrutiny from their peers, but a school club aims to help mend that rift. SAGA, an acronym for Sexulity and Gender Acceptance, is a club that focuses on creating a feeling of togetherness with students of different genders and sexualities, as well as organizes different activism-based events throughout the school year. This month, members of SAGA have organized a protest based on the national Day of Silence to bring awareness to the struggles of LGBTQ+ people in history and in our community.
This year, students were encouraged to wear red in solidarity and participate in a short moment of silence, but it’s important that students not only participate but also understand why it’s important. Senior James Reid (‘24), Vice President of the SAGA club, explained the Day of Silence.
“The Day of Silence is to recognize the protesters that have lost their lives fighting for LGBTQ+ rights. At Chelsea, we’ve been trying to do something every year for it,” Reid said.
The Day of Silence recognized here at CHS not only aims to pay respects to fallen members of the LGBTQ+ community, but also to bring awareness to the injustice that LGBTQ+ students face at school on a daily basis.
“My hope is that [people] recognize what we’ve gone through, and the violence we face almost every year,” Reid said.
While the Day of Silence may sound like it stifles the voices of the community, the ending of a typical Day of Silence celebration is anything but silent.
“At the end of the day we break the silence, and it [symbolizes] the silence people had to suffer through for years while [the LGBTQ+ community] was fighting for rights,” an anonymous club member said.
While the planning of the event was fairly simple, getting the word out was a lot of work on the part of the club.
“We hung up posters, and we’ve created an announcement to announce [the event] before and after the Day of Silence,” Reid said.
Our school prides itself on its inclusivity, but it’s hard to enforce rules limiting inappropriate or derogatory language effectively, leading to lots of usage of hate speech.
“There’s a lot of language that is unkind. You hear a lot of things that feed into negative stereotypes, like using the word ‘gay’ as an insult. Even sometimes you’ll be walking around and you’ll overhear words like the f-slur,” an anonymous student said.
“I’ve heard a lot of name-calling and slurs. People also use the f-slur, or they say ‘oh, that’s gay,’ in a derogatory way,” Reid said.
Despite the efforts of the SAGA club, few people came to school wearing red.
“If we get the word out more, I feel like a lot more people will participate and help to spread the message,” an anonymous student said.
As the Day of Silence comes to a close, the SAGA club must reflect on the successes of the event as well as the failures and their hopes for the event in following years.
“The main thing I hope to see in the future is to see more people involved; seeing more students throughout the school participating and showing their support,” an anonymous student said.
