Chooseday 25th August - Choose to Wear It Purple đź’ś
Good Morning,
This Chooseday, choose to wear purple. 💜
This Friday, 28 August, is Wear It Purple Day, Australia's annual celebration of sexuality and gender diverse young people, and this year's theme is Colours of Courage.
The movement began in 2010, when a group of young people watched heartbreaking stories emerge from around the world, including 18-year-old Tyler Clementi, who took his own life after being publicly outed and bullied.
Co-founders Katherine Hudson and Scott Williams turned that grief into purpose, building Wear It Purple to tell rainbow young people everywhere: you are supported, you are loved, and you have every right to be proud of who you are.
It's a message Australia still needs today.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, LGB+ Australians are more than three times as likely as heterosexual Australians to have seriously considered suicide (47.8% versus 15.3%), a figure that climbs even higher for non-binary Australians (79.6%).
Visibility, belonging and everyday allyship are what move those numbers, and that starts with all of us, not just the rainbow community.
You don't need a purple wardrobe to take part. Wearing something purple on Friday, starting a conversation, or simply listening to the rainbow young people in your life all count.
If you can, a donation goes even further, helping fund free Wear It Purple resources for schools and communities right across the country.
Bringing it into the workplace is easier than you'd think, too.
Wear It Purple's free guide for organisations is full of low-effort, high-impact ideas: book a guest speaker or panel to talk your team through rainbow youth issues, light up your office, lobby or lift purple for the day, host a purple morning or afternoon tea, swap your Zoom or Teams background, hand out purple wristbands, or set up a team fundraising page to track your workplace's support.
Nothing here needs a big budget or a committee, just one person choosing to get the ball rolling.
Grab the full How To: Wear It Purple for Organisations guide and bring the whole team into the mix this Friday.
Happy ChooseDay,
The GoodCompany Team
Know someone who will benefit from a Chooseday mindset?
Comments