Ellen DeGeneres, Britney Spears and many more go purple to plug #SpiritDay
That wash of purple flowing across several social-media platforms on Thursday did so to promote Spirit Day, a call-out by GLAAD and other LGBTQ groups to curb bullying of LGBTQ youth.
Celebrities and lawmakers showed their support for #SpiritDay alongside movie studios, cable networks, television casts, TV news shows and sports organizations that rallied behind the movement by wearing purple and sharing messages of support, awareness and inclusion.
Many of them also sported purple logos for the day, and numerous sports teams, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, Washington Nationals, Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees touted the campaign’s “Stand Against Bullying” posters.
Canadian teenager Brittany McMillan founded Spirit Day in 2010 in response to several suicides by LGBTQ and LGBTQ-perceived young people.
More than 57% of LGBTQ students feel unsafe because of their sexual orientation and more than 85% experienced verbal harassment based on a personal characteristic, according to the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network’s most recent National School Climate Survey.
California Sens. Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein joined celebrity A-listers — Ellen DeGeneres, Shonda Rhimes, Ava DuVernay, Allison Janney, Sterling K. Brown, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey and Sia — in sharing missives to curb those statistics. Several others, including Britney Spears and WWE star Finn Balor, did so in the lead-up.
Here’s a roundup of what some of them had to say:
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