Friday was the national Day of Silence, where students across the country took a vow of silence to bring attention to bullying and other harassment of LGBT youth. Craig Cassey, whose blog, Craig’s Gay Word, we have featured before, has an excellent post up about what the day meant for him, now that he is a totally out track athlete.
In a paradox, he writes in a post "Remembering the Closet" about how the Day of Silence was the least enjoyable but most rewarding he has had:
Friday was the national Day of Silence, where students across the country took a vow of silence to bring attention to bullying and other harassment of LGBT youth. Craig Cassey, whose blog, Craig’s Gay Word, we have featured before, has an excellent post up about what the day meant for him, now that he is a totally out track athlete.
In a paradox, he writes in a post “Remembering the Closet” about how the Day of Silence was the least enjoyable but most rewarding he has had:
With recent successes spanning from my parents accepting my boyfriend to my track coach’s verbalized support for me, I have felt more at home then ever. At the same time, I have lost sight of how I used to feel and how many people still do feel. It’s those feelings which led me to counsel my peers, those same feelings led me to blogging, and those feelings are the inspiration behind Day of Silence. Without recognizing those feelings, how am I supposed to help anyone who may still be closeted? How are we as an “out” community supposed to connect with those buried deep in the closet?
Craig continues to impress me with his writing and analytical skills and it's exciting that he plans on continuing being an activist as an openly gay athlete when he enters college this fall.