Awareness, Opportunity, Environment, and Collaboration. Wear It Purple Day is fast approaching, giving us the time to consider how much do we actually read into inclusion?
In order to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community, libraries, organisations, and our wider community must highlight the kind of scholarship and resources available to provide awareness, opportunity, environment, and collaboration. Empowering the LGBTQIA+ community comes through the sharing, retelling, and emphasising of raw, personal stories. We are all human, and it is the shared experiences of one another that help us to align and identify with who we are, where we fit in the world, and what we can do to help others.
Reading queer literature is also necessary when speaking about intersectionality, especially for sharing experiences and encouraging others to recognise our community's diversity. Crushing the stigma and breaking the boundaries are integral to building a community that is safe, inclusive, positive, and (most of all) fun for everyone!
Wear It Purple Day gives us an excellent opportunity to sit down, slow down, cool down our chaotic day-to-day, and reflect on how important it is to raise awareness and inclusion for our fellow peers. We are all human, after all!
Image: Wear It Purple Day Title : Resources : Printables
So what is Wear It Purple Day??!?!?!?!
Celebrated on Friday, August 26, Wear It Purple Day is an important date on the rainbow community’s calendar as it ‘strives to foster supportive, safe, empowering and inclusive environments for rainbow young people’ (Wear It Purple). The young community is so integral to building and nurturing the new-age perception of diversity and intersectionality, and through the designated day, Wear It Purple has been promoting the importance of having a happy and healthy community.
Through four key values, Wear It Purple Day operates to ‘show young people across the globe that there [is] hope, that there [are] people who support and accept them, and that they have the right to be proud of who they are’ (Wear It Purple). For over 10 years now, Wear It Purple’s focus is to:
Raise awareness by providing organisations with resources and support ‘to assist them in creative, inclusive experiences for young rainbow people.
Provide meaningful opportunities for the community ‘to develop their skills, expand their network, and contribute to the inclusivity of their communities’ (Wear It Purple).
Establish supportive and safe environments (digital and physical).
And to collaborate and unite with organisations to further the sense of inclusion.
There are some clear parallels between the Wear It Purple organisation’s mission and The Gordon's steps in promoting and endorsing an empowered community. Here’s just a few ways in which the library is working towards this:
By raising awareness in our queer space, we create a safe, inclusive, and comfortable environment to invite all students to engage with. We are constantly building up our LGBTQIA+ collection, allowing students and staff of all backgrounds to engage with and educate themselves about the diverse community around us. There is some fabulous literature surrounding experience, so be sure to come in, relax, and chill in our homely space!
Image 'Queer Space at The Gordon, City', taken by author.
There is a vast amount of opportunity that not only Gordon members but the wider community have to voice their stories and experiences and collaborate with others. During the week of Wear It Purple Day, The Gordon is hosting a festival of activities for students and staff to participate in. With freebies, music, and more on offer, it will be a great opportunity for the inclusivity of our Gordon community. Details as follows:
Image 'Wear It Purple Day Gordon' by Gordon staff.
Recommended Reads:
At The Broken Places: A Mother and Trans Son Pick up the Pieces by Mary Collins and Donald Collins.
A collaborative memoir wrestling a mother and son’s differences when Donald Collins undertook medical treatment to better align his body with his gender identity, this text is beautiful, powerful, raw and uncensored, and offers a roadmap for families in transition.
Available at the City Library.
Holding the Man by Timothy Conigrave.
Describing Timothy Conigrave’s authentic experience as a queer in the landscape of mid-seventies Australia, the aesthetic life writing follows Conigrave as he wrestles with romance and relationships, prejudice and separation, and the strength of the gay community when grappling with illness. Moving, yet funny, and celebratory in every way, Holding the Man creates sense of shared experience for readers.
Available at the City Library.
Me by Elton John.
Our timeless queer icon, Elton John writes of his extraordinary life and struggles in finding and voicing his rainbow identity. By providing insight into his childhood experience, to his rise in fame and stardom, John’s voice is warm, humble, and open.
Available at the City Library.
Words by Ashlee Simpson, Digital & Library Engagement Officer.