A St. Albert professor has called on schools to remember the origins of Pink Shirt Day by standing up for sexual and gender minority students.
St. Albert and Sturgeon County students would join thousands across Canada this Feb. 22 by donning pink shirts to mark Pink Shirt Day — an international event that sees people take a symbolic stand against bullying by wearing pink shirts.
Greater St. Albert Catholic students would hear about how to recognize and stop bullying throughout next week as part of Pink Shirt Day, said Lauren Chow, program manager for the GSACRD Voice mental health capacity building initiative. Kindergarten students would read the story Stick and Stone to learn the difference between kind and unkind acts, for example, while junior high students would play a Jeopardy!-like game themed around respect.
Kristopher Wells, a St. Albert resident and MacEwan University professor who studies sexual and gender minority youth issues, said many people forget that Pink Shirt Day was created in response to an act of homophobic bullying.
“We need to focus on homophobic bullying because that’s the most common form of bullying in school,” Wells said.
A 2021 survey of 4,000 students by Egale Canada found that 2SLGBTQ+ youths were disproportionately affected by bullying. Some 64 per cent of Canadian students reported hearing homophobic comments in school on a daily or weekly basis, while about 30 per cent of 2SLGBTQ+ students had been the victims of cyberbullying. Some 62 per cent of 2SLGBTQ+ students said they felt unsafe at school, compared to just 11 per cent of cisgender heterosexual students.
“That’s a huge gap,” Wells said, and one that would keep those students from focusing on learning.
Standing pink
Bullying can take the form of rumours, gossip, language, isolation, sexual harassment, cyberbullying and physical violence, Wells said. In all forms, it aimed to dehumanize its victims.
“Bullying doesn’t happen if people are standing up and supporting those who are targeted,” Wells said, so we can prevent it by being allies to the bullied.
Donning the pink shirt signals your willingness to act on bullying and become an ally to its victims, Wells said. This can mean calling out bullying when you see it, supporting those harmed by it, and reporting it to adults and the police.
Wells said school districts should address 2SLGBTQ+ bullying by passing and implementing comprehensive sexual orientation and gender identity policies, as the St. Albert Public board did in 2013. They should also get teachers the training needed to create safe classrooms for sexual and gender minority students (such as that offered through the RISE Project) and celebrate Pride Week to visibly show 2SLGBTQ+ students and parents that they have a place in school.
Bullying prevention was a year-round commitment that extended beyond just Pink Shirt Day, Wells said.
“When you put on the pink shirt, hopefully you’re going to stand behind it for the rest of the year.”
Visit pinkshirtday.ca for details on the campaign.
