wear purple tomorrow

Her name was Chloe Lacey.


At least she wanted it to be.


It was something else throughout her life, a boy's name, and she did not dare tell a soul her secret while she was in high school for fears of--well, the obvious things one would fear if one had her secret.  But Chloe did tell her parents, and they supported her fully.  And she did tell a therapist.  And ultimately she told her best friends, after graduation, and was accepted, and began taking tentative steps into the world as herself.  This fall she was supposed to enroll at Eureka College and attend as the girl she knew she was.


But she was terrified.  She knew she did not look enough like a girl yet to pass perfectly, and she knew that there would be those who would follow her, taunt her, perhaps hurt her.  And she could not handle it.  The pressure of what might happen--not even what had happened but what she feared would happen--brought Chloe Lacey to such an extreme edge of emotion that, on September 24, she took her own life, becoming the latest in a terrible, sad, frustrating series of young LGBT people who have chosen that route to escape the pain of their daily existence because they could not see the light at the end of the tunnel.


You do not need to be in favor of gay rights to know that this is Just Plain Wrong.  It is not an LGBT issue; it is a human one.  It is about bullying and the toll it takes when we pick on the helpless or the weak.  Wear purple tomorrow if you can.  Show that you feel the pain of this atrocity against humanity.  Show that you know just how wrong it is.


We will return to your regularly scheduled silly blog tomorrow.


CW: Bring in 

• magazines
• scissors
• gluesticks

E3H: Asher online: on the boards, we've got some posting conversations to play with (including one about Potok's painting!).

E2CP: you guys have the night off (but wear purple tomorrow!).

purple rain rotoscope from whitney williams on Vimeo.