Laura Duffy. Image by the author.
Today is the National Day of Silence and the campaign wants you to know that anyone—yes, even your narrow-minded uncle—can and should "unlearn" their homophobia, biphobia, or transphobia.Thousands of New Zealanders taking their own vow of silence today in solidarity with the rainbow community. The idea of this years theme being, if homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia is learned behaviour from society, those thoughts can also be unlearned to create a more accepting society.Unlearning is also not exclusive to those outside of the queer community. Laura Duffy, project co-ordinator, explains that throughout her coming out process she had to unlearn the homophobic thoughts taught to her by society to fully embrace herself.The National Day of Silence is a form of non-violent protest specifically targeting schools because of staggering gay and transgender bullying rates, such as students of a sexual minority being three times more likely to be bullied weekly than their heterosexual peers. It's inspired by an American campaign run by InsideOUT, a small team and a large group of volunteers. The process of unlearning is explained with tips and ideas on their website: it starts with asking yourself, "Why do I think this?"We had a chat to Laura about her own experience of "unlearning" phobias and how there's still hope for that narrow-minded uncle of yours.VICE: Hi Laura. This year you are focusing on "unlearning" phobias. How does that work?
Laura Duffy: Unlearning is something we came up with in one of our volunteer meetings. We were just trying to think about what would visibly be a really quick way to frame rethinking. Obviously homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia aren't natural but society normalises them. Unlearning those behaviours puts it in a social context. Biphobia and transphobia also exist within the queer community but we want to put an end to that. It's an opportunity for people both outside and inside the community to unlearn these ideas they've been brought up with and work towards creating a safer society for queer and trans youth.What would unlearning homophobia look like?
Well, it would sort of look like learning but basically just learning how to be more considerate to people and unlearning your idea of normal. So learning and unlearning go hand-and-hand in that. We are hoping for people to read that statement and for that to challenge them. We've also come up with things to think about and things to know. For example the homophobia one is being aware of using homophobic language and just being aware to not use words that are harmful. It's actually really simple stuff and it's actually really easy to not treat people like shit.Do you believe even the most extreme homophobes have the ability to unlearn their hatred?
Yes, definitely. For some people it's more embedded in their thoughts for lots of different reasons. It's a process. It's a reminder for everyone, including ourselves, that we have to be a part of that process. I had to unlearn internal homophobia for myself when I went through the coming out process. It's taught to you that that's bad and it's gross or it's ugly and it's wrong. I had to go through this process where I had to unlearn that and shed that disgust of myself, which took a while.Did you experience homophobia from others at school?
Personally, I was just straight up repressing. I think my most severe homophobia was definitely internalised and that was a really really long process. I came out when I was 22 so that's a substantial amount of time to be a teenager and adult and be repressing. Just a lot of self hate and disgust. I was quite intentionally blind to everything but there was also no education and no support so that's why I was acting like that.How well do you the think the Rainbow community is supported in New Zealand compared to the rest of the world?
I think comparing to the world can be helpful but also not because I don't really care what other people are doing, it's still shit here. Here, our education needs to step it up because it's not good enough. Trans people are five times more likely to commit suicide than someone cisgender. There's definitely a "gay marriage has been legalised so it's all good now" mentality in New Zealand and marriage equality sometimes feels like a barrier that we're up against. Everyone should be afforded the same rights, and we got the right to marry but now it's like, wow, everything must be so great because I'm afforded human dignity. Hallelujah. Of course it's not.What's happening after the Day of Silence?
After the Day of Silence there's a big focus on actions that people can do to break the silence—like starting a queer-straight alliance in their school, or implementing gender neutral bathrooms in a workplace. There's also the Night of Noise. It's for the people who did remain silent to just make a loud noise and have a fun, safe place to go. I'm currently making pinatas for it and they're going to say homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia and we're going to smash them.Find out more about the National Day of Silence here.Follow Laura on Twitter.
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Laura Duffy: Unlearning is something we came up with in one of our volunteer meetings. We were just trying to think about what would visibly be a really quick way to frame rethinking. Obviously homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia aren't natural but society normalises them. Unlearning those behaviours puts it in a social context. Biphobia and transphobia also exist within the queer community but we want to put an end to that. It's an opportunity for people both outside and inside the community to unlearn these ideas they've been brought up with and work towards creating a safer society for queer and trans youth.
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Well, it would sort of look like learning but basically just learning how to be more considerate to people and unlearning your idea of normal. So learning and unlearning go hand-and-hand in that. We are hoping for people to read that statement and for that to challenge them. We've also come up with things to think about and things to know. For example the homophobia one is being aware of using homophobic language and just being aware to not use words that are harmful. It's actually really simple stuff and it's actually really easy to not treat people like shit.Do you believe even the most extreme homophobes have the ability to unlearn their hatred?
Yes, definitely. For some people it's more embedded in their thoughts for lots of different reasons. It's a process. It's a reminder for everyone, including ourselves, that we have to be a part of that process. I had to unlearn internal homophobia for myself when I went through the coming out process. It's taught to you that that's bad and it's gross or it's ugly and it's wrong. I had to go through this process where I had to unlearn that and shed that disgust of myself, which took a while.Did you experience homophobia from others at school?
Personally, I was just straight up repressing. I think my most severe homophobia was definitely internalised and that was a really really long process. I came out when I was 22 so that's a substantial amount of time to be a teenager and adult and be repressing. Just a lot of self hate and disgust. I was quite intentionally blind to everything but there was also no education and no support so that's why I was acting like that.How well do you the think the Rainbow community is supported in New Zealand compared to the rest of the world?
I think comparing to the world can be helpful but also not because I don't really care what other people are doing, it's still shit here. Here, our education needs to step it up because it's not good enough. Trans people are five times more likely to commit suicide than someone cisgender. There's definitely a "gay marriage has been legalised so it's all good now" mentality in New Zealand and marriage equality sometimes feels like a barrier that we're up against. Everyone should be afforded the same rights, and we got the right to marry but now it's like, wow, everything must be so great because I'm afforded human dignity. Hallelujah. Of course it's not.What's happening after the Day of Silence?
After the Day of Silence there's a big focus on actions that people can do to break the silence—like starting a queer-straight alliance in their school, or implementing gender neutral bathrooms in a workplace. There's also the Night of Noise. It's for the people who did remain silent to just make a loud noise and have a fun, safe place to go. I'm currently making pinatas for it and they're going to say homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia and we're going to smash them.Find out more about the National Day of Silence here.Follow Laura on Twitter.