Gay Blue Jeans Day
Gay Blue Jeans Day, alternatively National Gay Blue Jeans Day or just Gay Jeans Day is a celebration frequently advertised on college campuses in the United States in coordination with World AIDS Day, Gay Equality Day, Gay Pride Week, or National Coming Out Day. Students are encouraged to wear jeans on a particular day to communicate their support of gay rights.
The organizers of Gay Jeans Day at CMU analyse the action in this way.
- To let LGBT students on their campus know there is a supportive community.
- Jeans are chosen for this event because most people have a pair, and because deciding what to wear causes everyone—no matter what their sexual orientation—to think about how other people will react to their choice of clothing.
- Allow straight people to think about how others will react to their perceived sexual orientation, and to experience having to alter their normal behavior to avoid being perceived as gay.
Many supporters of the protest argued that the protest was effective because it forced heterosexuals to do something to actively engage in homophobia, or wear their usual attire and become possible targets of homophobia themselves, and that many people unaware of the
protest might wear blue jeans and be educated by becoming targets of homophobia.
Others argue that the protest simply forces everyone to examine their own
personal relationship to homophobia by leaving no space to be uninterested.