11 Celebs Who Are Standing Up Against Bullying for #SpiritDay

Like many high school teenagers, Brittany McMillan spent her afternoons on Tumblr. But one week in October her Tumblr feed was especially dark, with several articles about LGBTQ+ kids committing suicide as a result of homophobic bullying. 

"For about ten days straight there was one article I read every day, and for the most part it was because they were part of the [LGBT] spectrum or perceived to be on the spectrum and were bullied at school or home because of it," she tells PRIDE. "I realized I hadn’t been hearing anything about it from the news or on TV, so I wanted to spread awareness.”

Spirit Day is an awesome way to show solidarity. LGBTQ+ students, teachers, administrators, and even celebrities and their allies wear purple to take a stand against LGBTQ+ bullying. While the gesture is an awesome way to show support, here are a few things students, parents, and educators can do to keep the essence of Spirit Day alive all year long.

STUDENTS

1) You don’t have to laugh at jokes that aren’t funny.
If someone is mocking LGBTQ+ people and they expect you to laugh at their crappy joke, the quickest way to shut it down without saying a word is to stare them down in silence until they become so uncomfortable that they start to fidget. When you refuse to go along with anti-LGBTQ "jokes" you sometimes risk putting yourself in the line of fire, especially if you’re in a group of students who are all going along with it. They might get defensive and try to justify their thinly veiled bigotry by saying, "It was just a joke." The best way to reply is to innocently say, "Oh it was? I thought jokes were supposed to be funny."