Why My Pink Shirt is Blue and White
Pink Shirt Day/Anti-Bullying Day
Today is Pink Shirt Day. Pink Shirt Day is an anti-bullying campaign observed on the last Wednesday of February. It’s a Canadian initiative that began in Nova Scotia, after a male student was bullied for wearing a pink shirt to school. Two older students wore pink shirts the following day in a show of solidarity. The movement has since spread across the globe.
TRIGGER WARNING – This post addresses the issue of violence against children. I attempt to do so with trauma-informed sensitivity without the use of graphic language. However, the issue itself may be triggering for anyone who has experienced childhood violence.
My Trans Pink Shirt
My pink shirt says “Papa Bear” with a large father bear protectively embracing his pink, white and blue transgender bear cub. I wear that shirt because one of my cubs is trans and I love her for all her God-given awesomeness and I would become a ferocious papa bear if anyone hurt her. Of course, she’s an adult now and is old enough to take care of herself, but she’s still my cub.
Bullying in My City
On October 7, 2019, 14-year-old, Grade 9 student, Devan Selvey, was stabbed to death in full view of his mother outside his high school in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada by fellow students who had allegedly been bullying him for weeks. This tragedy garnered international media attention. It is tragic that it took a murder to get our attention. What held our attention was the number of stories that came to light in the following weeks of students who wanted to take their own life because of the bullying they had experienced at school.
Hamilton Wentworth District School Board boldly faced the apparent failures of their system and commissioned a year-long review panel to study the problem of bullying in local schools and make recommendations as to how the school board could better help reduce the problem. That study revealed that:
30% of Canadian students identify as having experienced bullying in the past year.
60% of Hamilton students identify as having experienced bullying in the past year.
10% of Canadian students identify as having experienced frequent bullying in the past year.
20% of Hamilton students identify as having experienced frequent bullying in the past year.
Hamilton Wentworth District School Board Safe Schools Review Panel Final Report – 25 Jan 2021
Hamilton students were experiencing bullying at double the national average. There is a real problem in my city. But I learned more:
20% of same/both-sex attracted people identify being bullied on a WEEKLY basis because of their sexuality.
People of diverse sexual and gender identities are bullied at 3x the rate of cis/straight students.
LGB youth are 3x more likely to think about suicide than heterosexual youth, and 5x more likely to act on those thoughts.
Transgendered youth are 6x more likely to think about suicide.
Every hate message they hear makes them 2.5x more likely to self-harm.
Sources: thetrevorproject.org, suicideinfo.ca
Voices Against Bullying
The public outcry of anger prompted the founding of several local anti-bullying groups. One of which was Voices Against Bullying, founded by local mom, Julie Schaafsma. As a child, I was severely bullied – verbally assaulted, physically assaulted, sexually assaulted, forced confinement, and forced narcotic ingestion, repeatedly over a period of more than a decade. My teachers not only did nothing, absolutely nothing, to stop the torment in front of their eyes, some of them even encouraged it. Clearly the problem had not improved since I was a child. I needed to step up and be a part of the solution. So I stepped up to support Julie’s initiative as we put together a team of system-changers. And we’re seeing success.
What is bullying?
Bullying is a form of power abuse. It occurs whenever someone uses their superior power (physical, emotion, verbal, sexual, or otherwise) in a hurtful or coercive way over another person. Bullying happens in the schoolyard, the classroom, the hallways, the lunch room, the locker room. It occurs in the home, the workplace and even in places of worship. It can happen anywhere people of any age meet. It is not limited to the schoolyard.
[Jesus said:] Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. ‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. -- Matthew 18:5-6
My Bear Cub
My own transgender bear cub has thankfully been spared bullying and harassment for her God-given sexuality so far. I hope it stays that way. I want to do my part to help build a world where other pink/white/blue bear cubs can also grow up to be who God intended them to be, free of harassment, violence and oppression. I thank God that my trans bear cub is loved for who she is by her father, mother, brother, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles and friends. Not all her peeps are so fortunate.
Today, I wear my pink shirt to stand in solidarity with all victims of violence, harassment and oppression, but especially children, and especially my own bear cub’s rainbow peeps.
