Gay-Straight Alliance & Day of Silence @SHS; SNN reports on it!

Somerville, MA, May 7, 2014 – On April 11th, over 200 Somerville High School (SHS) students kept their mouths shut all day – no easy task for teenagers. Up until the last bell, they communicated with teachers and each other using hand signals or by writing on papers or white boards.

The students kept their lips buttoned for a reason. They were taking part in the annual “Day of Silence” organized by Gay-Straight Alliance.

“The Day of Silence is a national protest that was started in the mid-nineties,” SHS English teacher and Gay-Straight Alliance advisor Julia Post told the Somerville Neighborhood News. “Gandhi did hunger strikes and Martin Luther King marched in the streets or did boycotts or sit-ins. For our community, what we chose to do was a day of silence where people who do participate remain silent for one day to symbolize the silence of people who are afraid to come out of the closet and be who they are.”

Junior Colleen Hennelly was one of the participants in the Day of Silence.

“A lot of my family members are gay, of all kinds, and I’ve seen the emotional impact that comes from torment, and it’s horrible,” she explained. “I feel like the Day of Silence is a very good way of protesting the negativity.”

Post, who attended SHS, said she decided to be the Gay-Straight Alliance advisor because she remembers that “negativity.”

“I’m a Somerville kid. I was born and raised here. And when I grew up here it was not a friendly place to the gay community it all,” Post said. “That was an issue when I was a student here.”

Both Post and Hennelly said they believe the school and community are accepting of the LGBT community.

“But,” she said, “there’s always work to do.”

The Gay-Straight Alliance meets on Tuesday afternoons.